Italy and the community after thirty years of experience

Convincing the Pakistani military to focus its attention on the Afghan Taliban and associated groups has so far proved unsuccessful. The Obama administration's reliance on economic incentives and regional peace initiatives, such as a dialogue with India on Kashmir, has failed to deliver tangible results. Instead, India's footprint within Afghanistan has expanded, leaving Pakistani elites ever more anxious. Balancing Indian and Pakistani interests in South Asia remains a top priority for Western governments, and most importantly the US. In the current milieu this will require shifting Western bureaucratic focus from the age old and seemingly intractable Kashmir dispute to maintaining the peace within Afghanistan. This article outlines why this shift should be considered, and how the India--Pakistan trust deficit might be bridged.     

INDIA’S DEMONETISATION: MODI’S ‘NUDGE’ TO CHANGE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

This article offers an account of the impact of Indian PM Narendra Modi’s decision in November 2016 to withdraw suddenly all Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes from circulation in India with the avowed intent of combatting fraud, tax avoidance and other economic problems. The article assesses the impact from the demonetisation in November to the March 2017 Indian regional elections, where wide-scale victories for Modi’s political party, the BJP, appear to have vindicated his reforms. The article provides an analysis of the political background of the period, as well as looking at the economic and societal impact of the changes, including the way in which the behaviour of Indian citizens has been ‘nudged’ with particular regard to use of banking, transactions, social effects, and payment of tax.     

The Right Turn in India: Authoritarianism,Populism and Neoliberalisation

ABSTRACT

This article argues that the growth of authoritarian forms of politics in India should be seen in the context of a long-term crisis of the state as successive governments have been unable to establish legitimacy for the policies of neoliberalisation that have been pursued since the 1990s. These policies contributed to the fracturing of dominant modes of political incorporation. The previous Congress Party-led government’s mode of crisis management – which it dubbed, inclusive growth – failed to create new forms of political incorporation by addressing long-term structural problems in India’s political economy, such as jobless growth, and gave rise to new problems, such as large-scale corruption scandals. Subsequently, it increasingly developed what Nicos Poulantzas called, “authoritarian statist” tendencies to marginalise dissent within a framework of constitutional democracy. The current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government’s mode of crisis management builds on these authoritarian statist tendencies but has sought to build legitimacy for these tendencies and neoliberalisation through an appeal to authoritarian populism. This seeks to harness popular discontent against elite corruption with majoritarianism to create an antagonism between the “Hindu people” and a “corrupt elite” that panders to minorities.     

The Iraq treaty, 1930

India's relations with the Gulf countries started to flourish in the 1990s after India succeeded in de-hyphenating Pakistan from its policy toward the Gulf. Though Pakistan remained a factor as it continued to raise Kashmir and internal situation in India at multilateral forums such as OIC to evoke anti-India sentiments, it did not remain an underlying factor in as was the case during the Cold War era. In the contemporary dynamics, when India-Gulf relations are progressing toward strategic partnerships, Pakistan has re-emerged as a factor but its nature has changed. As highlighted in the joint statements issued during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visits to the Gulf countries since May 2014, India can now put pressure on Pakistan by highlighting its policy of sponsoring terrorism. This was evident when the Arab Gulf countries condemned the Pathankot (January 2016) and Uri (September 2016) terrorist attacks. India's relations with the Arab Gulf and other Middle Eastern countries are independent of their engagements with Pakistan and India-Pakistan tension, but New Delhi has stepped up efforts to raise the issue of cross-border terrorism and use of religion to incite terror activities against India during its engagements with these countries. It underlines the growing convergence between India and Arab Gulf countries over regional issues and the ability of India to isolate Pakistan over issues related to terrorism.     

The International Humanitarian Regime and its Discontents: India’s Challenge

Abstract

In recent years, concerns over whether the humanitarian regime as we know it will survive a many-pronged challenge have spurred humanitarian organisations to embark on processes of soul-searching and innovation. With a steadily increasing aid budget and its more active and vocal role in development and humanitarian politics—and in global politics more generally—India has acquired the label of ‘emerging’ humanitarian actor. This article, however, shows that in many ways India has been a humanitarian pioneer, and connects the norms and values of the international humanitarian regime with India’s own philosophical, religious and democratic traditions. It also discusses how Indian policy-makers have critiqued the current United Nations-led international humanitarian regime and investigates how the government of an increasingly powerful and influential Commonwealth country from the South interacts with an international regime created in Europe. For many Indian policy-makers, current humanitarian practices are tainted by what they see as North American and European interventionist and highly political agendas in the South. The article concludes that while there is still a lot to be said for a global, multilateral humanitarian regime led by the United Nations, it need not be Western-biased, either in theory or in practice.     

Transforming the Unbound Elephant to the Lovable Asian Hulk: Why is Modi Leveraging India’s Soft Power?

Prime Minister Modi’s administration has renewed emphasis on highlighting India’s soft power resources such as yoga, democratic values, spirituality, etc. Modi has also launched an aggressive public relations and marketing campaign to boost India’s economic growth. This article examines the role and importance of soft power resources in Modi’s foreign policy. The author argues that Modi is applying a two-pronged strategy of simultaneously adopting an aggressive sales pitch to boost India’s economic growth and leveraging India’s soft power to mitigate potential threats emanating from the country’s growing hard power. While soft power resources generally supplement a state’s hard power towards achieving foreign policy goals, Modi is using India’s soft power to draw attention away from the state’s rising military power. While India is enhancing its existing military power, Modi is engaging India’s neighbours and other great powers to ensure that its rise is intended to be peaceful, non-threatening and entirely benevolent. This is in stark contrast to how Asian states as well as the world perceive China’s rise. This article also questions the effectiveness of this strategy and predicts that this strategy should bode well for India in maintaining its international reputation and relationships.