iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
Various facets of India’s growing strategic role in the Indo-Pacific over the past two decades were discussed threadbare by four panelists at the digital launch of Dr. Aditi Malhotra’s new book – India in the Indo-Pacific: Understanding India’s Security Orientation Towards Southeast and East Asia.
This hour-long conversation explored the drivers of India’s growing strategic role in the Indo-Pacific over the past two decades and how this behavior has been shaped by Delhi’s relations with the United States, China, Japan, Vietnam, and other countries.
With remarks from Indo-Pacific scholars Dr. Harsh Pant, Vice President, Studies and Foreign Policy, Observer Research Foundation, and Dr. Walter Ladwig, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, King’s College London, the panel also considered prospects for greater Indian maritime engagement in the region as well as any constraints that may be at play. The other speaker at the online event was the book’s author Aditi Malhotra who is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Army Journal. The event was moderated by Akriti Vasudeva, Fellow, South Asia, Stimson Center.
In her opening remarks, Vasudeva said: “This book is an examination of the drivers of India’s heightened security cooperation with Southeast Asia and East Asia over the last two decades, with the aim of understanding India’s evolving security role and identity conception in the Indo-Pacific. At its heart, the book is a study of Indian foreign policy and how domestic and external factors shape New Delhi’s behavior, with insights into why India’s political rhetoric sometimes does not match its policy actions on the ground.”
Next, the book’s author, Malhotra, spoke on the topic and the emphasis of her book. “India does not hold binaries of friends or enemies this is something that I argue in the book at length. India is seen as a partner of the US and an enemy of China. But if we get into the details and start looking within, we do notice that there is something known as a convergence divergence phenomenon, which I have mentioned in my book. This means that even though there are preferred partners and there are problematic relations for India as well, at the same time, there are areas of convergences as well,” she said.
“Similarly, the US has been one of those important partners for India, again, where we see a lot of role compatibility over the last two decades. And, there have been expectations between US and India. A lot of them have been met, which is why we see a very strong defense cooperation and an evolving relationship. But at the same time, there are areas of divergence as well, whether it is about the whole debate of strategic autonomy or the nuanced region of Indo-Pacific. So these are just two examples, but I just wanted to kind of bring home the fact that everything is not in black and white, but more in shades of gray,” Malhotra added.
Vasudev then invited Pant to help the audience understand what explains India’s behavior towards Southeast Asia. She added that the book’s author argues that it’s neither balance of power theory nor constructivism that can explain it, but a new theory of role concept. “So what do you think of that theory and how do you think it helps us understand better India’s security role in the India Pacific?”
After congratulating Malhotra, Dr. Pant said that the book brings a certain nuance to the discussion around Indo-Pacific. “And I think it also answers some of these queries that still pervade. I think this is a book that is much needed because we need to come to grips academically with this idea of what actually India is doing in the Indo-Pacific. And I think her conceptualization allows us to do that to a certain extent. What we have been witnessing now over the past several decades is a certain kind of balance of power emerging in the region, and India, along with other actors responding to that balance of power. That balance of power is rapidly tilting in one direction, and that space is getting constricted.”
Ladwig highlighted the role played by Indian Navy. He said: “The book highlights certain ideas like India as a net security provider. We saw specific agencies, namely the Navy, being really at the forefront of embracing this idea. But there was a period of time in the late 2000s into the early 2010s where it almost seems to an outside observer, that the Navy was ahead of the Ministry of External Affairs in pushing some of these ideas or pushing the boundaries. And so this role conception, framing, the way this idea could first take hold in the Navy and then move up into other parts of the government, be taken on board. I think this really tells an important and interesting part of the story because there has been a lot of discussion and debate about well, how did particularly a service that even within the armed forces is the Cinderella service it has the smallest budget, it has the smallest numbers. How has it seemed to have successfully shaped the conversation and the discussion?”
“I think having an architecture to look at the role that these ideas and how these ideas are transmitted are fantastic. Since 2020 we’ve seen more enthusiasm on India’s part towards the Quad, more activity now, not necessarily always pushing down a hard security realm. So that of course presents a complicating factor. But we certainly can see some of these realistic considerations leading to more energy and more energetic steps,” Ladwig added.
The moderator, Vasudev, then invited the book’s author to speak on India’s shifting role conception from a regional power to major power to leading power. “How that kind of encompasses the auxiliary role of net security provider and stakeholder in the Indo-Pacific region, and how this reflects India’s sort of new strategy of multi-alignment?” She urged Malhotra to speak about the factors that have actually driven India’s shift from a non-alignment strategy to a multi-alignment strategy.
Malhotra said: “I’ve argued in the book, that there is a lot of nuances. And regardless of what India is following, at the end of the day, everything is driven by India’s national interest and how it does the cost-benefit analysis. When it comes to the multi alignment thing, we started noticing its rise in the early 2000s with India’s economic rise and with India’s greater interaction with a lot of global actors economically and strategically. The idea of multi-alignment actually talks about having a balanced diversity, wherein you’re kind of simultaneously engaging a lot of powers, and sometimes you’re engaging powers that are at odds with each other.”
“It’s about diversifying towards the west and start having partnerships with the US and its allies, but also not giving up on something that we’ve noticed even now, on its partnership with Russia, on some of the aspects of shared interest and even, like, cooperation with China. So, at the same time, while India is diversifying and simultaneously engaging these different actors, what it’s also doing is trying to have that space to maneuver and have strategic and decisional autonomy. But having said that, I think it’s important to note that it’s easier to have that space to maneuver when your own interests are not really being called into question,” she said.
Vasudev then invited Walter to express his views on the same topic. Walter said: “If we wanted to differentiate between nonalignment and multi-alignment, I would see nonalignment as a series of strategies to prevent the outside world from affecting and constraining India, whereas multiple-alignment is more focused on using relationships to try to shape the world to an extent more in India’s favor or India’s interests. The kind of key driving factors would be India’s increased power and, of course, increased economic exposure and stakes that have come about after 1991. And in that respect, I see the Quad as being a tool to accomplish those goals.”
Dr. Pant however took a more open stance on the subject: “Non-alignment primarily was a strategy of a weak state. It was a state that was trying to cushion the impact of the international system on its own interests. Multi-alignment has become more of a process through which India is leveraging its growing economic and military power in the international system. The more partners you have, the better you are able to leverage the international environment. And I think that has been a remarkable shift. A lot would depend on how India’s external environment looks like ten years from now.”
