11
Dec
Modi’s India in the Asian Century
The Straits Times Asian of the Year 2014 award to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi honours the leader of a country whose choices will influence the future of the entire continent. Since his accession to power in May, he has underlined India’s stature as a rising power by reaching out to countries such as the United States, China, Japan and Australia, while simultaneously striving to reassure his smaller neighbours of India’s benign intentions in South Asia.
Mr Modi seeks to position India as a peer of the great powers. This is natural for a nation of 1.2 billion, with a gross domestic product of US$2 trillion (S$2.63 trillion) that makes it the third most powerful economy in Asia after China and Japan.
Thankfully, Mr Modi is presenting a good case for India’s intention to play a stabilising role in a region marked by historical suspicions, territorial rivalries, and threats from religious terrorism and extremism. His foreign policy activism, early into his tenure, has left no doubt that India will not be taken for granted in the evolving Asian scheme of things. That certainly includes Pacific Asia, the focus of the eastward shift in India’s outreach.
Of course, it is the success of Mr Modi’s domestic economic policies that ultimately will underwrite India’s role on the global stage. He is making haste slowly on this front. One reason is the diversity of India’s population, which stretches from its vast agricultural heartland to its globalised high-tech cities. Diverse needs have to be reconciled through unifying development. At a less edifying level, entrenched economic interests and the political clout they command weigh down the reformist momentum of the government. This is a fact of life in a democracy. A recalcitrant bureaucracy with a vested interest in inertia complements the workings of economic groups and lobbies seeking to retain a comfortable status quo.
Read the full story at: http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/asia-report/editorials/story/modis-india-the-asian-century-20141206#sthash.JADGSlhj.dpuf