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A nation
is an idea that continues to be renewed by the passage of time. History
adds adjectives to it, the present provides new anxieties and the future
is invariably captured in that all-time favourite four letter word-hope.
The idea of India is in permanent evolution, like any other living democracy
with a rich civilisational identity, and making sense of it is a challenging
intellectual enterprise. That is what India Today continues to do. Its
first international conclave-India Tomorrow 2002: Opportunities and Threats-was
an ambitious extension of that enterprise beyond the pages of the magazine.
For three days (January 20-22), some of the finest minds in politics,
economics, diplomacy, business and media converged on Delhi to comprehend
the idea that is India, its power and possibilities, its sweep and scope,
its vulnerabilities and vitality, its fears and, most significantly, its
future. Its place in the world.
This is what has emerged: even if the future is not burning bright,
it is not bleak either, despite the darkness of the backdrop against which
the conclave was held-post-9/11, more intimately for India post-12/13.
As Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie said in his welcome speech, "The irony
is that after 100 years the world is free from any conflict of the great
powers. Today's conflicts are local and regional. Unfortunately, we (India)
happen to be one of them." It is for India to seize the moment and
make the best use of it-politically, economically, strategically. The
key word, as stressed by former US vice-president Al Gore, is "change".
A conclave can't change the world, or India. But it can give enough ideas
for change. The India Today Conclave saw the confluence as well as combat
of ideas, with 243 participants, 16 speakers and 11 sessions on various
aspects of security and terror: political management, diplomatic challenges,
strategic perceptions and economic opportunities.
At the end of it, the mood was not one of hope abandoned. The recurring
theme was: change or be damned. For, the force of history and the laws
of the market have shifted old paradigms, and thrown up brand new challenges
for nations like India. Good governance, political vision and the courage
to defy the burden of the past ... suggestions for a redeeming Indian
dawn were many at the conclave, a word which, as Purie said the first
day, was originally used to describe the meeting of cardinals to elect
a new pope. Well, there was no divine election, but, metaphorically at
least, white smoke emerged from the India Today Conclave on the third
day. Hope is not elsewhere, it is here and now, in today's India, if it
has the will and the vision, India tomorrow will be a power worthy of
bigger celebrations.
Al Gore
Former Vice-President, United States of America
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| THE REBORN COMMUNICATION: Gore address
the gala dinner |
Al Gore, in his own introductory words at the conclave,
was supposed to be the next president. "This is a time of transformation."
Though Gore was talking about his life after power, his statement could
very well have been about the geopolitical situation. Despite the endearing
anecdotes of self-mockery, the former vice-president's keynote address was
quite presidential and the style was that of a reborn communicator.
| India is a rising power destined to play
a major role in world affairs. |
The relationship between India and Pakistan may be one of hyphenated
tension, but that didn't stop Gore from celebrating the "biggest
change" in the Indo-US engagement: "Here is a fantastic opportunity
for both the countries to put the past behind. We are the largest democracies
in the world." Time to get past the Cold War mindset of "triangular
relationship"-India, the US and the former Soviet Union-and move
on with the common task of "managing change". There is a new
opening for "we are both leading it powers in the world". In
Gore's view, biotechnology is the area where India may shine in the coming
years. The former vice-president-all the more distinctive nowadays because
of the new gravitas provided by a post-election beard-has turned his first
Indian visit into an occasion for appreciation and admiration: a big thank
you for the Indian diaspora in America, the highest earning ethnic group;
thank you again for the post-9/11 emotional counselling to troubled Americans
over telephone ... for him, it was an India stretching from Mahatma Gandhi
to Narayana Murthy, a land of possibilities, "a rising world power"
destined to play a major role in the affairs of the world.
All the more decisive at the moment because India has become a frontline
state against terrorism. "We both are experiencing terror."
And Gore, who has a knack for moving from the humorous to the cerebral
with ease, gave a psycho-sociological interpretation to the terror of
radical Islam. "We as nations too feel rejected if our offering to
the world is not accepted. It is a primal feeling"-a geopolitical
extension of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Radical Islam is steeped
in that sense of rejection. Also at work is "memory as present reality".
It is a civilisational problem, and in radical Islam, the remembrance
of the glorious past has become a current tragedy. In India tomorrow,
Gore sees only triumph, which can, of course, be made greater by political
morality and leadership vision, by learning to change.
L.K. Advani
Home Minister of India
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President Musharraf has said with regard to terrorism originating
from Pakistan and aimed at Jammu and Kashmir seems tactical. It
does not indicate any strategic shift of approach. We have, therefore,
made it clear that we shall judge Pakistan's sincerity and commitment
to fight terrorism only after we have seen its corresponding action
on the ground.
Our cynicism and scepticism about Pakistan
runs so deep that nice-sounding words are no longer enough. India
has been bled by cross-border terrorism for far too long. We have
also been betrayed far too often. On top of this experience has
come the terrorist attack of December 13 on our Parliament by
organisations sheltered and patronised by Pakistan's ISI. It was
an attack on the temple of our democracy ... as far as India is
concerned, Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism crossed the
Laxman Rekha on that day.
We resolved on that day to put a decisive
end to cross-border terrorism. We also decided that our response
to the challenge of cross-border terrorism was going to be different
from what it has been so far. We took many diplomatic, political
and other initiatives in the wake of December 13 to convey our
resolve to Pakistan.
L.K.ADVANI
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The subject was "My India: the vision for
the future". The speaker was worthy of the subject. Though L.K. Advani,
the strongman among Indian nationalists, was characteristically modest
("I am not a philosopher or visionary but a man of day-to-day political
activity"), it was the vision thing that dominated his India of tomorrow.
Long ago, on the eve of the Independence, he found an inspiring idea of
India in the radio broadcast of Sri Aurobindo: "... India was arising,
not to serve her own material interests only, to achieve expansion, greatness,
power and prosperity ... and certainly not like others to acquire domination
of other peoples, but to live also for God and the world as a helper and
leader of the whole human race." It may sound Utopian, but then what
is a vision "if it does not have the power of a dream?" Terror
continues to puncture that dream.
It didn't need a remote reminder the day Advani spoke. That morning's
attack on the USIS in Kolkata provided an eerie immediacy to the vision
and cold realism of Advani's words. "We in India have accepted the
reality of Pakistan. However, I often wonder whether successive ruling
establishments in Pakistan have accepted the reality of a secular, democratic
and united India." Doesn't look like it. For, throughout the last
two decades Pakistan has been sponsoring terrorism against India. In 1977,
when he visited Pakistan as a minister, he could walk around in Karachi
without any security, he could go to his ancestral home, his school, and
to the shop where he used to eat his favourite palak pakora.
| A war has been inflicted on us for two decades.
Should our response change? |
"Everything has changed. Today the difference is due to the new
evil called terrorism." It is not about Jammu and Kashmir, sorry.
"Jammu and Kashmir is a part of India. That is my constitutional
oath. Also, PoK is a part of India." Pakistan doesn't accept this
difference in perception. And he told General Pervez Musharraf in Agra
that peace should not be held hostage to this perception. Still, people
continue to ask him, "Is there going to be an Indo-Pak war?"
His answer is: "A war has been inflicted on us for two decades. Should
our response change or not? After December 13, the Cabinet has decided
enough is enough." Still, "we accept Pakistan as a sovereign
country". And the Advani vision: "A confederation of India and
Pakistan."
Fareed Zakaria
Editor of Newsweek's international editions
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 There
are two paths to great powerdom in modern history: the political
path and the economic path. India has by and large chosen to attempt
the political path ... It is, I believe a treacherous, fragile and
ultimately unenduring path.
The much more difficult path is to modernise
one's economy, to modernise one's politics, one's society and this
path has always seemed much less attractive, I would not say this
to India but to the foreign policy elites of India ... that has
been to my mind one of the great tragedies of India's role in the
world over the last half century. This is a new opportunity. You
have the attention of the world, you have the attention of the US.
The point is to do something with it. And that requires diplomacy,
balancing acts ... seizing this opportunity and not being held back
by phobias and encrusted ideologies of the past.
FAREED ZAKARIA
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| The greatest cultures are the ones that were
able to blend with the world. |
Fareed Zakaria, the brainy editor of Newsweek's
international editions and the former managing editor of Foreign Affairs,
the prevailing bible of policy mavens, has already established himself
as a formidable conservative intellectual in the American ideas market.
At the session on "Security and terror: How can India and its neighbours
cope with it?", he was not kind to India, still steeped in old stereotypes
and new illusions. "During the 1990s, the world we had come to understand
was a world described by globalisation ... and politically there was a
sense that the 1990s represented the end of history." The paradigm
has shifted. Is India aware? He doesn't think so. "Stop going alone.
The world community is extending an offer. Work with the rest of the world,"
he said. Zakaria said that Pakistan after President Musharraf's
landmark January 12 speech had made India's Kashmir policy that much easier.
It was time Delhi responded to political extremism and violence. "The
Kashmiris have been denied political and economic opportunities for too
long." His formula: modernise the society. His co-panelist, Naresh
Chandra, argued for a stronger legal framework to deal with terrorism.
Jaswant Singh
External Affairs Minister of India
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| Map-making has come to an end, almost. But change
persists, in other spheres. |
As usual, Jaswant Singh was more professorial than pragmatic while elaborating
on the "new frontiers of diplomacy", his historical reference
points varying from Lord Curzon to Napoleon the Great to Ibn Khaldum to
the Mughal decay to the Battle of Plassey. Take this: "What are we
witnessing? Not certainly the end of history, but without doubt the beginning
of the end of a phase of political geography of the earth. Physical frontiers
are not by any means irrelevant, they are, in any event, now largely inviolate.
Map-making has come to an end, well, almost ... A certain fixity has arrived
in the frontier geography of the globe. But change persists, in other
spheres, though. And that is where our new frontiers lie." So goodbye
Mr Cartographer, and welcome the diplomatist of change.
Singh was less abstract during the interactive session. He even disagreed
with Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, who advocated that
both India and Pakistan accept the Line of Control as the boundary to
settle the Kashmir issue. "I am a servant of Parliament, whose resolution
on the issue is explicit. Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir is a part of India.
This has to be recognised by Pakistan." On the General's speech,
he was more sarcastic than enthusiastic: "Most of what the good General
said related to reforms within Pakistan ... a step long overdue ... well,
good luck to him ... It is not for me to judge how a military dictator
reforms his society and how fast ... He remains a military dictator although
some of you refer to him as a president, which creates an illusion."
The reality is: "A constantly new frontier of diplomacy is the territory
of change ... that is what our diplomacy has to conquer". Maybe the
soldier can relax, the diplomatist is at his idealistic best.
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CURRENT
ISSUE FEB 4, 2002
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