This Man Is Your Friend: He Fights For Freedom!

Reflections On The Geopolitical Significance of India From The Perspective Of A Small Democracy On The Occasion Of Bharat Mata’s 70th Re-Birth Day

[Author’s Note: this piece originally appeared in Samrajya Magazine for its 70th Anniversary Indian Independence issue, one year ago today. Despite the slight geopolitical shifts which have transpired since then (including the ‘resolution’ – for now – of the Doklam Crisis, as well as the CPTPP turning into something of a fait accompli), its overall theme and contents remain strikingly relevant for New Zealand here in 2018.

It is therefore presented to the reader, unaltered from its original form, on Indian Independence Day 2018]

As I sit here and write this on a darkening evening of the 14th of August 2017, the news in my country is pretty grim. It has just emerged that the Chinese have somehow managed to wrangle a somewhat unprecedented set of resource ownership and extraction rights for a site abutting one of our most significant places. How has this happened? Probably the usual combination of big money and big pressure upon our local regulatory bodies – an unwholesome combination which basically amounts to ‘soft power neo-imperialism’. And which is part of a sad pattern and trajectory towards New Zealanders becoming yet another economically colonized folk in our own country.

This might sound somewhat alarmist, but we have already seen in recent days a situation wherein the Chinese Government has pressured us to take shoddy steel exports – and put serious protectionist screws upon us as a realized threat when we attempted to call ‘time’ on this unequal relationship. And which joins a series of other related events (such as China leaning heavily upon us to support their position in the Spratleys; or the carrot to this stick of constructing billions worth of infrastructure here in one of our more marginalized & impoverished regions) which casts substantial doubt over just how long we will be able to maintain the notion of remaining geopolitically – let alone economically – sovereign.

Now this all might seem rather curious to be citing in what it supposed to be an article in honour of Bharat Mata on Her 70th (Independent) Birthday.

But consider the following: the way in which those political entities which preceded the British Raj [and here I chiefly mean the British East India Company] carried out their extension of suzerainty across the Subcontinent was arguably a close mirror – at least in its earliest phases – for what we are witnessing here in my homeland. At first, they came to trade and set up factories at particular locations where this would be advantageous to them. Then, they escalated this to political entanglements with the local lords and fiefdoms. Before subsequently starting to take on the actual functions of local government themselves. From whence, it was a rather short hop, skip and jump to actually becoming the dominant power in those lands and eventually simply ruling them outright from a foreign capital located far away across the oceans.

Now to be fair, despite their daily-mounting power and influence here we are quite probably some ways away yet from the People’s Republic of China managing to act as the local (and brutal) tax-agents for our capital down in Wellington, in a manner directly analogous to the way that British East India Company satraps did for the Mughal Emperors.

Yet the worrying parallels remain.

I therefore seek to compare these twin situations in the hope that our own similarly shaped equivalent narrative here in New Zealand plays out with a much happier and more immediate ‘ending’ of the restoration of self-rule – Swaraj – in both a political and economic sense.

And, to put it bluntly, to draw both lessons and inspiration from the Indian experience of and response to economic colonization so that we do not find ourselves condemned to suffer the same reprehensible fate for so long.

For what can be more appropriate, as the denizen of a far-flung foreign land upon the Eve of Indian Independence’s Anniversary, than to reflect upon the noble Swaraj Struggle and ask how to honour it by drawing from its example for my own nation.

To be sure, the Chinese usurpation of our economic sovereignty is not the only issue which New Zealand is presently grappling with. Nor is it necessarily the overweening point of contemporary comparison betwixt India and Aotearoa.

But in amidst a constellation of coterminous threats to our self-determination – including pernicious ‘trade deals’ like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would literally give certain trans-national mega-corporations the ability to overwrite our laws and force extortionate direct payments to be made to them by our government under the guise of Investor-State Dispute Settlement protocols (this should once again sound familiar to anyone familiar with the history of British imperialism east of Suez) – there is another reason that I have focused in upon the Chinese dimension of New Zealand’s present worrying situation.

And that is the geopolitics of the whole matter.

As cannot have escaped the attention of anyone with an eye on India [despite the interesting efforts of the media in my country, whether state-owned or foreign-controlled, to avoid reporting on it], there is presently a rather active geopolitical fault-line between India and China which may yet boil over into actual, armed conflict on a potentially frightening scale on a number of axes.

The present ‘flashpoint’ is the crisis over Doklam in Bhutan – which the Chinese are seeking to amorphously annex in a manner presumably comparable to their longstanding previous habit of mercilessly exploiting any alleged ‘ambiguities’ in their own border-demarcations for territorial gain.

The Bhutanese requested Indian assistance in repelling the Chinese neo-colonialist cyst from their lands; and India, ever a noble friend to those who depend upon Her, sent troops to help defend the Bhutanese border. The Chinese response was swift – mobilizing thousands of troops into neighbouring Tibet, having their state-run media deploy a dizzying barrage of a-historical “commentary” enjoining India to “remember 1962” [and yet, mysteriously, completely forget all of India’s strong series of subsequent military successes such as those in 1965 and the War of Bangladeshi Liberation – or, for that matter, the Indian victories in the border-clashes with China which took place in 1967], and finally grimly advising just this week that “the count-down to war has begun”.

Throughout this all, India has remained vigilant, reasonable, and rationally well-prepared to repel the Sinic acts of aggression. India has not backed down nor abandoned an ally despite all manner of irresponsible attempted cajoling and saber-rattling from those who would presumably think of themselves as the latter-day ‘Mao Dynasty’.

And this, in concert with India’s actions along a number of other potential ‘flashpoints’ with China or Chinese-backed puppet-states such as perfidious Pakistan, represent in the very real sense India’s emerging role as the natural counter to attempts at Chinese ensorcellement of a global hegemony which – whilst it might think itself less prone to overt bouts of braggadocio than its American predecessors – may very well turn out to be just as brutal and exploitative as those imperial projects which have come before, if not more so … a situation which history teaches us is more especially deleterious when a particular Great Power’s ambitions are unchecked and unchallenged by a similarly potent restraining counter-force.

This, then, is why I as a New Zealander look with so much hope towards India for the geopolitical period yet to come. Because just as the looming shark-fin which can be seen wending its way across the waters of the Pacific towards us is hailing from China – so too is the ‘net’ which might serve to corral it being provided on the world stage by India.

A ‘Multipolar World’, as advocated for by international relations theorists such as Aleksandr Dugin, remains the ideal situation for small states such as ours who have little love for the notions of being tangled up amidst foreign-ruled feudal arrangements. And India’s own previous record of being such a strong champion of the Non-Aligned Movement helps to elucidate Her genuine commitment to supporting and augmenting the independence of us less-partisan geopolitical minnows.

Indeed, the instance from the 1983 Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Delhi wherein the personal esteem with which Indira Gandhi was held in was used to quash an otherwise intractable diplomatic row between the Palestinians and the Jordanians shows most clearly the ways in which endeavours at co-ordinating against hegemony have historically benefitted from Indian co-ordination.

Yet the trouble with the goal of an international relations system wherein small states are not unfairly dominated by the larger and more well-armed ones is that the ‘multipolarity’ we seek is both a rare and unstable commodity. There is always some ascending tyrant out there who is poised to disrupt any form of fragile equilibrium which might have eventuated, and advance their own Great Power interest – unilaterally or hegemonically so – without regard for the opinions nor the independence and interdependence of the smaller polities.

Hence the importance of either grand coalitions of those aforementioned more miniscule figures – or, more plausibly, the vitality of another vibrant power placing themselves in a position to challenge the would-be unipolar world-emperor. And, in amidst the bifurcation of the world between them, a potentially broad space is created within which us smaller peoples are better able to thrive. At least as compared to how we might be under a particular unsanitary thumb.

The situation of the Cold War obviously presented just such an instance of active ‘Bipolarity’, with India herself both playing a lead role in co-ordinating just such a ‘grand coalition’ of less powerful states caught up in the space between ‘Soviet’ and ‘Western’ spheres – but also able to draw upon the tacit and tangible assistance of the former in situations such as the attempted American nuclear aggression against India during the Bangladeshi War of Liberation.

It therefore seems innately plausible that with the Chinese seemingly stepping into the role of ‘rising would-be world-king’, that India is uniquely placed both geographically and geopolitically to make a meaningful difference in attempting to restrain them. And thus allow we less powerful polities room to breath a bit more freely.

And while Indian readers will be intimately familiar with the encroaching seepage of Chinese influence into areas which have historically been under Indian influence – areas such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar, and even Sri Lanka – it is understandable that the escalating predicament of New Zealand in amidst our own neighbourhood will be less well known.

As we head into the third decade of the new millennium, the situation of the Pacific region appears almost something akin to the ‘Great Game’ or the ‘Scramble for Africa’ of the late 1800s. There are multiple theoretically sovereign nations [of which New Zealand is one] who have recently found themselves nervously and uneasily regarding the circling wolves of the Great Powers (and their lackeys). We have seen this most clearly with the diplomatic efforts of China to prise an array of states away from their traditional good neighbours with promises of infrastructure provision and the direct setting up of bases and Chinese-manned (and protected) resource extraction efforts [what the British East India Company would have termed ‘factories’].

New Zealand, put simply, does not have the resources to compete with this. We are neither able to limit Chinese influence in our own ‘back yard’ and traditional ‘sphere of influence’ – nor are we even in a position to sensibly manage Chinese influence in our own country. As applies Fiji – one of the chief countries that China has its eye on in our region – this has rather direct significance for India, given the potentially parlous position of the Indian population there who have previously been prejudicially targeted by native Fijians. And in terms of broader significance, we have already recently had to experience the singular disquiet of watching a larger power ‘bribe’ various of our formerly close-friend Pacific neighbours into supporting their position against ours in international forums like the IWC.

The only way in which we can attempt to fight back against the slow and creeping extension of regional hegemony by the ‘rising power’ of China [or, for that matter, the resurrection of somewhat oppressive US dominance in the area following their previous ‘Pacific Pivot’], is through working together with another Great Power who also shares our disquiet about the antics of these inveterate antagonists.

It might be queried whether relying upon one Great Power to protect against the predations of others of similar (or even greater) stature is the wisest course. Yet it seems quite plain that India’s values as demonstrated on the world stage are not ‘imperialist’; and, equally significantly, that India’s values at home as arguably the most successful of the 20th century’s realized nationalist political projects are also very much in accord with what we want to see promoted here in our neck of the woods.

Where the Chinese seem only interested in promulgating economic development that benefits China, and are fairly actively engaged in supporting anti-democratic regimes and neo-colonial efforts across the globe; and the United States talks a big game about “democracy” yet also frequently only seems interested in bulldozing governments it doesn’t like via sanctions or invasions; India combines both an enthusiasm for popularly legitimate regimes and a respect for the boundaries of sovereignty.

For India alone of these three, “Democratic Self-Rule” means both “Democracy” and “Self-Rule” are prioritized.

I therefore look upon India’s role in these impending geopolitical circumstances as being less akin to that of one of the globe-spanning colossi of ages past such as Britain and France or the USA and USSR, and perhaps more directly comparable to the significance of Mahadev in the Samudra Manthana episode from Hindu myth. Or, for that matter, that of Mother Durga [Whom Bharat Mata is often regarded as an Aspect of], in Her vital contribution to the stability, prosperity and order of the universe as Mahishasura-Mardini – the Slayer of the Buffalo-Demon.

In both legends, we see powers coming together in pursuit of an important and overarching goal. This resembles the co-operation of states which I earlier mentioned as integral to a functioning and mutually successful multipolarity. However, again in both cases, the challenges which must be overcome prove themselves too powerful for even groups of Gods working together.

The Churning of the Sea of Milk produces the Halahala poison – and only through the heroic intervention of Mahadev is its noxious lethality prevented from spreading further and subduing all those it comes across. This is an exceedingly important action on the part of Lord Shiva, albeit one which is not undertaken without significant personal cost [hence His marking and epithet as Neelakantha – ‘The Blue Throated’].

And in the case of the struggle against Mahishasur – as well as the closely comparable myth of the slaying of Durgasur – the sheer power and precise characteristics of this demon were such that no Divinity other than Durga would likely have been able to best him. To the general relief and acclaim of the rest of creation.

The application of these narratives to the present geopolitical situation ought be plainly apparent. And not least due to the fight against Durgamasur taking place both in and over Himalayan territories falsely claimed by an aggressor. Still, I do not mean to go so far as to directly suggest that the extant Chinese leadership are under Demonic sway – nor, for that matter, that Chinese influence is literally toxic and life-destroying. But in each of the above instances, great calamity for a large swathe of the world at the hands of expansionist or otherwise ambitious forces was only prevented via the serious and strenuous exertions of a mighty figure.

Although it is also worth noting that in both the Halahala and Mahishasura episodes, that ready assistance was provided to both Mahadev and Mata JI from others. In the case of the former, Lady Parvati’s efforts to keep the poison from leaving Lord Shiva’s throat; and as applies the latter, the bestowing of various boons of weaponry from the Pantheon at large to Their empowered Champion.

Again, there is a potent metaphor here. Namely, that if we wish to benefit from the protection provided to us by Indian power and Indian sacrifice, then we must also seek opportunity to make our own active contributions to these efforts, and rally – whether alongside or behind.

The Chinese have already been markedly successful at spreading the tendrils of both soft-power influence and real-politik hard economic ensnarement out there to an array of countries.

And while I am not directly aware of any comparable Indian efforts to the Chinese ‘Confucius Institutes’ which have sprung up in attachment to universities throughout the globe with the goal of promulgating Chinese culture and perspectives … this does not necessarily mean that India is ‘starting from behind’ in this area. After all, India already has some several thousand years’ experience as the hub for the diffusion of an ancient and noble culture that had reached all the way from Bali in the east to the Mediterranean and Europe in the west long before the last (official) Imperial Dynasty of China had swept in off the Steppes; whilst the Arthashastra stands as one of the world’s oldest treatises upon the successful advancement of politics, influence, and diplomacy.

With all of that in mind, I am therefore hopeful that articles such as these and publications like Samrajya Magazine are able to make a meaningful contribution to advancing the position of India on the world stage. Whether by positively influencing perceptions, correcting misapprehensions, or more directly shaping the future – there are many ways for those of us capable of wielding the pen in our hand and the tongue in our head to assist with this most important mission. And in the process thereof, hopefully not only help in some small way with fueling India’s rise, but also aiding in bringing closer together those who will benefit from Her ongoing (re-)ascent along with it.

On that note, it occurs that the ray of light I see peering over the horizon in the early hours of this Independence Morning  … is possibly not just the newly re-emergent Sun telling me I should have been asleep hours ago rather than up all night frantically attempting to finish this article.

Instead, it may very well be that rarest of commodities in matters of geopolitical analysis:

Hope.

Hope for both a better future, and for a resolution of the present situation worth celebrating.

So from the perspective of this New Zealander upon the occasion of India’s 70th anniversary of Independence, then, may I sincerely express my most fervent desire that these rays from the Adityas continue to shine down upon Her forever more.