Rise of Assertive India!
India has arrived on the world stage, say many geopolitical analysts, and there are several reasons to believe them. Recent happenings concerning the Indian economy, military, diplomacy, culture, and sports highlight this fact.
Indian Economy
The Indian stock market recently overtook France to become the sixth-biggest in the world. Within a couple of years, India is expected to beat the UK and bag the fourth position. It is also the time when India’s forex reserves are at their highest by consistently touching over the $600 billion mark. Simultaneously, Indian exports, infotech, agriculture, infrastructure, etc., all are booming. To a large extent, this economic power is fueling the global rise of India, a market of 130+ crore people. With the economy opening up, those suffering financial losses from the pandemic are expecting an economic rebound.
Indian Military
With India’s recent deals for fighter jets, aircraft carriers, howitzers, submarines, etc., India is now the second-biggest arms importer in the world. Defence production companies are making a beeline for New Delhi with modern arms. Concurrently, India is opting for ‘Made-in-India’. Moreover, India aims to become a global manufacturing hub for defence and self-reliant in arms. India’s arms purchases and indigenous production has now begun to disturb China so much that it is believed that Beijing is the one who is planting false reports about Pakistan securing deals to sell military aircraft to countries like Argentina.
Indian Diplomacy
Yesterday, during a UN session, a young Indian Foreign Service officer Sneha Dubey asked Pakistan to vacate ‘Occupied Kashmir’ immediately and clearly labelled them a terror state. She has become synonymous with the ‘assertiveness’ with which India operates on the international stage.
Moreover, the points discussed during the recent bilateral meetings of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the state heads of the US, Japan and Australia, at the ‘Quad’ meeting and the UNGA certainly highlight the growing importance of India in the world order.
With India to resume export of Covid vaccines under its ‘Vaccine Maitri’ initiative from October, the Quad’s aim of doing ‘Global Good’ will start getting realised.
Indian Culture and Sports
India has begun reclaiming its lost glory by introducing highly advanced Vedic studies in education, bringing back stolen artefacts and re-erecting destroyed monuments. Besides, it is said that the state of sports is a mirror of any country. With India having bagged the best tally of medals at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, this front too is not left untouched by ‘Assertive India’.
India’s rise as a world power coincides with the phase when China may see a downturn with the world putting up a strong fight against the pandemic. Moreover, Beijing is suffering under its own actions due to correction in their domestic private sector, low confidence of military cadres as reflected in several surveys, global loss of face, etc. At the same time, the United States has lost its leadership position while Europe is fighting its own demons. All this makes India’s further rise inevitable and necessary for the world stability.