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BOOKS
Power And Glory
Stephen Cohen celebrates rising India and asks the
US to take note.
By Amitabh Mattoo
 Celebrating
India has rarely ever been academically trendy. In contrast, there is
a sustained proliferation of writings debunking India, especially in the
West. For instance, India's ambition of carving a greater niche in the
international system is often projected as an antediluvian fantasy of
a third-rate power that is seeking to blast its way to greatness by testing
nuclear weapons. Similarly, the country's growing economic might has been
scorned at; India, it is claimed, is only a step beyond being a basket
case. And even India's claims to being the largest functioning democracy
invite contempt, with academic treatises peppered with references to conspiracies
being hatched by the forces of Hindutva, human rights violations in Kashmir
and the Northeast and the continued "oppression" of Dalits.
In sum, much of what is churned out by "the other", in the usual
parsimonious preference for the negative, has been a series of obituaries
of the idea of India and Indian nationhood-not different from Katherine
Mayo's Mother India, which appeared in 1927, and which provoked even Gandhi
to call it "a drain-inspector's report".
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INDIA: EMERGING POWER
By Stephen Philip Cohen
The Brookings Institution
Pages: 377 |
In a refreshing contrast to the bilge produced
by India-bashers, the doyen of South Asian studies in the US, Stephen
Cohen, has produced a remarkable endorsement of India and its march towards
being a power that matters. Those more in tune with South Asian studies
in the US may experience a déjà vu. In 1979, Cohen had co-authored
India: Emergent Power? and concluded that within 25 years India may go
beyond being a regional hegemony to being a major Asian power. In his
new book, Cohen demonstrates that his prediction has been proven right.
Cohen's study must be read at two levels. Most
important, the book carefully and systematically examines the proposition
that India is becoming a power to reckon with, and concludes that not
only is India overcoming its traditional deficiencies but discovering
new strengths. Cohen is convinced of a rising India. This includes: the
new approach to economics and development that has turned India into one
of the world's fastest-growing economies; its democracy, which is valuable
in its own right, is no longer seen as a liability; India's cultural influence
is growing; its central geostrategic position; it is part of a chain of
actual or potential nuclear weapons states (in a remarkable display of
candour, Cohen bluntly asserts that the 1998 nuclear tests increased "India's
prestige and status" and thus "indirectly improved its net security");
and its international reputation is beginning to change-the country is
being courted by the major powers of the world.
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THE SUCCESS
OF INDIA'S DEMOCRACY
Edited by
Atul Kohli
Cambridge
Price: Rs 695
Pages: 298
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Cohen's work must also be read as an introduction
to India for a new generation of US policymakers who are beginning to
rediscover India, and a comprehensive analysis of Delhi's growing importance
to the US. Although the study suggests that Delhi has a greater stake
in the relationship, it asserts that India will be of increasing importance
to the US because it will be a major player in two critical areas-"the
high technology revolution and the nuclear revolution".
No less important to the re-assessment of India
is the collection of essays edited by Atul Kohli, with chapters by some
of the best-known political scientists working on India, mostly in Europe
and the US. These include Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, James Manor, Mary
Katzenstein, Subrata Mitra and James Manor. A single question binds the
essays: Why has democracy succeeded in an India with ethnic diversity,
widespread poverty and illiteracy, and in defiance of prevailing theories
and wisdom? Kohli argues that the answer lies in the manner in which power
distribution has been negotiated to manage conflicts. India has, on the
one hand, struck a balance between centralisation and decentralisation
and, on the other, the interests of the powerful have been served without
excluding weaker groups. With despondency beginning to overwhelm the Indian
intelligentsia, a reading of both books may help revive faith in the magic
of India.
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