INDIANS DON’T
UNDERSTAND HISTORY
Or, How India Can Reclaim Its Civilisational Destiny
Synopsis
Most Indians, even those who consider themselves savvy about current
affairs, suffer from a shocking ignorance of India’s civilisational history.
The malaise afflicts analysts, commentators and policymakers as well,
and it has serious negative consequences for the prospects of the Indian
nation-state.
This paper lays out the scale of the problem, the impediments towards
establishing a genuine civilisational narrative, and the epiphanies that
can follow from such a narrative.
The
implications
for
India’s
foreign
policy,
and
indeed
India’s
civilisational destiny, are mind-boggling.
Read on.
1
Table of Contents
Synopsis................................................................................................................................................1
PART 1 — WHAT AILS INDIA..........................................................................................................3
1.1 Wandering In The Wilderness Without A Compass...................................................................3
1.2 A Social Experiment That Illustrates The Problem....................................................................5
PART 2 — A SOLUTION TOOLKIT..................................................................................................8
2.1 The Notion Of Identity...............................................................................................................8
2.2 The Power Of A Civilisational Identity...................................................................................10
PART 3 — A CIVILISATIONAL VIEW OF INDIAN HISTORY....................................................12
3.1 Geography................................................................................................................................12
3.2 Population................................................................................................................................12
3.3 Genetics...................................................................................................................................13
3.4 Culture.....................................................................................................................................15
3.5 The ‘Sinificant’ Other..............................................................................................................18
3.6 The Turning Point?..................................................................................................................21
3.7 Whodunnit...............................................................................................................................23
3.8 The Gory Details......................................................................................................................26
3.9 A Baffling Acquittal.................................................................................................................29
3.10 A Double Murder...................................................................................................................30
3.11 A Fortuitous Escape...............................................................................................................30
3.12 The Accused — Reformed or Remorseless?...........................................................................35
PART 4 — SEEING THE WORLD ANEW......................................................................................42
4.1 The Rules Of The Game..........................................................................................................44
4.2 The Civilisational Identity Of The West..................................................................................50
4.3 Civilisational Values Old And New.........................................................................................54
4.4 The Real Threat To India.........................................................................................................58
4.5 The Social Experiment Redone...............................................................................................61
PART 5 — THE WAY FORWARD....................................................................................................63
5.1 An Example Of Civilisational Thinking In The Modern World..............................................63
5.2 India’s Civilisational Destiny Spelt Out..................................................................................66
5.3 The Opportunity.......................................................................................................................69
5.3.1 The Emerging Schism Within The West..........................................................................69
5.3.2 The Distraction Of The US..............................................................................................71
5.4 The Strategy.............................................................................................................................73
5.4.1 China — The Key To India’s Tryst With Destiny............................................................75
5.4.2 Is China Really A Threat?................................................................................................75
5.4.3 Choosing Sides.................................................................................................................77
5.4.4 The Parable Of The Indian Crab.....................................................................................81
5.4.5 From Guns To Butter........................................................................................................82
5.4.6 Beyond The Immediate Future – Jostling Within The Fold.............................................84
5.5 The Risks Of Inaction..............................................................................................................86
PART 6 — SUMMARY AND CALL TO ACTION..........................................................................88
2
PART 1 — WHAT AILS INDIA
1.1 Wandering In The Wilderness Without A Compass
An external observer of India today would struggle to make sense of
what the country stands for and where it is going. One does not see a
confident nation striding forth with a clear sense of direction and
purpose, its wealth and power steadily increasing.
India’s potential remains unrealised, its economy still fettered, its
demographic dividend untapped, its society still riven by poverty and
inequality, its world ranking abysmal on most developmental indices, its
longstanding disputes with neighbours still unresolved, its old allies
distancing themselves, its new ones playing difficult, and facing a
number of recent setbacks to its influence both in its immediate
neighbourhood and further beyond.
The net result is that the Indian ship of state is floundering in a
geostrategic sense, forever falling short of its potential as an economic
behemoth, a progressive and harmonious society, a benignly influential
world power, and an inspiring role model to other nations.
I submit that the fundamental reason for India’s track record of never
failing to disappoint is that Indians do not understand history. India is
not just a country but a civilisation, yet Indians today lack an
overarching civilisational narrative to orient and guide them.
A civilisational narrative is a broad-brush view of history that puts
events
into
a
coherent
context
and
tells
a
meaningful
story.
3
Unfortunately, Indians have so far only had two kinds of history taught
to them.
One is the history found in school textbooks, which provides a relatively
aseptic chronicle of events and biographies of personalities, without an
underlying context to explain how these have shaped them as a people,
and what they imply for their future. This kind of history is academic
and not actionable. It provides a collection of facts but leaves a person
wondering, “So what?”
The other kind is the overly simplistic interpretation of history provided
by ideological narratives such as Communism and Hindutva, which
selectively play up certain angles (e.g., class warfare or threats to
religious identity) and ignore others, with the sole purpose of achieving
certain present-day political objectives. This is of course actionable. Its
fundamental purpose is in fact social mobilisation through polarisation,
and hence it is action-oriented but ultimately self-harming. The
compulsion to manufacture enemies and create internal divisions in the
pursuit of political power weakens a society, in contrast to a
civilisational narrative that unites and strengthens it.
What India sorely needs in its civilisational narrative is a history that is
evidence-based and faithful to all facts, yet holistic and multidisciplinary
in being able to pull together an understanding of geography, genetics,
socio-economics, psychology, technology, and every other factor that has
shaped the evolution of its people, informed their values, endowed them
with unique strengths and advantages, and suggests at the various
opportunities and constraints that will shape their destiny into the
future.
4
With a common understanding of their civilisational narrative, both
India’s leaders and the population at large would know how to interpret
what is happening in the world around them, and what the country
needs to do to further its interests. It is particularly tragic when a sixth
of humanity remains ignorant about who they are and of their place in
the world.
1.2 A Social Experiment That Illustrates The Problem
The case may be illustrated with an informal survey that anyone can
perform and verify.
1. Ask any random Indian who professes to be well-informed on current
affairs which country or countries pose the greatest threat to India
today. The answer will be either China or Pakistan, or the two combined.
2. Ask them who was responsible for the decline of Indian civilisation.
Their response will generally be the Muslim invaders, and secondarily
the British Raj. Present-day trends such as Westernisation/globalisation
may be a weak third.
3. Ask them whether they view the West as India’s friend or enemy.
Enthusiasm about the West in its own right may vary, but citing the
shared threat to both India and the West from China (and additionally
from Islamic fundamentalism), an alliance with the West may be
pronounced unavoidable. “An enemy’s enemy is a friend” may sum up
the attitude.
4. Ask them about the strategy of “divide and rule” employed by foreign
powers against Indians. They will probably recount the historical
5
examples of Jaichand and Mir Jafar, but in present-day terms, they may
struggle to provide a factual example involving India. (Let us ignore
conspiracy theories!)
Such typical answers betray a shocking ignorance of civilisational
history. Why do I say so? We will explore this in greater depth later, but
for now, just consider the attitude towards China in these responses.
India and China are both ancient civilisations, having coexisted for
millennia. Has there been a single recorded conflict between the two
civilisations in all these millennia until the war of 1962? And what was
the 1962 clash about? It wasn’t historical enmity, a fundamental conflict
of interests, or a competition for resources. It was simply a dispute over
the delineation of their common border. The territory (still) under
dispute isn’t fertile, habitable, or particularly resource-rich, but desolate
and inhospitable mountain terrain. Further, the area of the territory in
dispute is an insignificant fraction of the total land area of either of the
two claimants.
From the standpoint of both history and geography, it is fairly selfevident that two ancient and supposedly wise civilisations should not
have allowed a relatively recent dispute over a small patch of arid land
to impact their relationship, yet most Indians today have formed the
view that China is a dangerous enemy with abiding ill-will towards their
country. Millennia of peaceful coexistence have rather abruptly given
way to unallayable suspicion and deep hostility because of a dispute
over a few thousand square kilometres of inhospitable terrain.
6
Does this situation not strike one as being utterly ludicrous? It’s like two
cousins in their sixties, cordial but not close, suddenly becoming
estranged in a single week after a series of minor misunderstandings
over a pencil, and now utterly convinced of each other’s fundamental
untrustworthiness and bad character!
The example of China is just one of many that shows Indians have no
civilisational perspective to help them interpret history. That is what
leads to attitudes and situations that seem inevitable but are entirely
avoidable.
How would a civilisational narrative help to overcome such Greek
tragedies? How else could an Indian answer the above survey?
7
PART 2 — A SOLUTION TOOLKIT
Before we provide these alternative answers, let us step back a bit to
explore the critical notion of identity, which would lie at the core of any
civilisational narrative.
2.1 The Notion Of Identity
Broadly speaking, identity is the meaning we give to the situations in
which we find ourselves. Two people in the same situation could view it
in very different ways, and their identities would consequently differ.
Two men looked out from prison bars; one saw the
mud, the other stars.
Identity is important because it is the story we each tell ourselves.
Identity explains how each of us got to where we are, and it helps us
decide where to go from here.
You see where I am going with this. A civilisational narrative can give
meaning to an entire society’s existence and guide the actions of its
people and its leaders, so we need to understand the components of
individual identity that form a civilisational narrative.
Individuals
have
multiple,
simultaneous
identities,
e.g.,
gender,
ethnicity, language, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, etc.
These interact in complex ways.
For the purpose of this discussion, let us restrict ourselves to a few
relevant ones.
8
Nation-states come and go, and hence national identities are relatively
ephemeral. For example, a person living in Dhaka who considered
themselves Indian before 1947 may have considered themselves
Pakistani between 1947 and 1971, and Bangladeshi thereafter.
National identities are also coloured by context. An Indian may see
themselves as very different from a Pakistani, often in an extreme “us
versus them” sense, but the same Indian living in a Western country
might feel a sense of kinship with a Pakistani if they were the only two
South Asians in a room full of Western people. This suggests that
cultural identity may be a richer and more subtle marker than national
identity in terms of telling people who they are. As we will discuss later,
shared cultural identity can also help win friends and influence people
in complex situations involving many diverse players.
Cultural identities are also more durable than national identities, as we
saw with the example of the person from Dhaka, whose identity as a
Bengali and perhaps as a Muslim remained constant even as their
national identity changed over the years. Linguistic and religious
cultural identities are powerful and deep-rooted. So are identities
rooted in genetics, such as the notions of race and ethnicity, since
physical appearance strongly influences how people see themselves and
others.
9
2.2 The Power Of A Civilisational Identity
By far the most composite form of cultural identity is what we could call
a civilisational identity. Civilisational identity encompasses but also
transcends genetics, geographical origin, language and religion. In
addition, civilisational identities are associated with long histories, and
naturally tell a story about who a people are, where they came from, the
forces that moulded their philosophy, their idea of their place in the
world, and how they wish to be seen by others.
To avoid confusion with the modern Indian nation-state, I will hereafter
use the term “Indic” rather than “Indian” to refer to the civilisation,
especially since around a dozen other nation-states in South and Southeast Asia share India’s civilisational roots. They are all Indic.
(It is important to be clear about the differences between the related
concepts of the Indian nation-state, the Indic civilisation, and the
Hindu religion. Conflating the three, whether as part of a deliberate
political ideology or out of ignorance, can stymie the development of a
civilisational narrative.)
Civilisational identity is powerful, and when channelled positively, can
give people and nation-states existential meaning while also influencing
their affinities and guiding their actions and decisions. Civilisational
identity gives every individual within a country an equal feeling of
belonging, as opposed to a feeling of exclusion or alienation that can
arise from more sectarian identities. This power of affinity can extend
beyond national borders as well, and lead to influential alliances and
groupings.
10
Let’s explore Indian history afresh, through a civilisational lens.
11
PART 3 — A CIVILISATIONAL VIEW OF INDIAN
HISTORY
As we have seen, there are many aspects to civilisational identity, so
let’s explore these one by one in the context of India.
3.1 Geography
The Indic civilisation has been fundamentally shaped by geography. The
impassable Himalayas and Hindukush mountains to the north and
northwest, with their extension into the mountainous Rakhine forests to
the east, have enclosed and bounded off a certain region of Asia, which
is the Indian subcontinent. The Indian Ocean is another forbidding
geographical boundary that separates this landmass from other regions
of the world. These geographical boundaries that isolate the Indian
subcontinent had long ago laid the foundation for the development of a
unique society within.
The civilisation did not remain completely isolated though, because from
time to time, other peoples did manage to cross the “impassable”
geographical
boundaries
of
the
subcontinent,
mainly
from
the
northwest, and influence its history. Also, conquerors and traders from
the subcontinent ventured out to other geographies, and extended the
reach of the Indic civilisation, notably to South-east Asia.
3.2 Population
The Indic civilisation, although fated by geography to be isolated and
unique, has never been small in terms of numbers. The fertile IndoGangetic plain and the other river systems within this bounded
12
geographical area have had the ability to provide sustenance for a very
large population.
It is no wonder that one of the most populous civilisations in the world
arose in this region.
In a later section, we will see why the size of the Indic civilisation’s
population has been a fateful factor in determining its history, and why
it will play a crucial role in shaping its destiny.
3.3 Genetics
In recent decades, one particular aspect of Indian history has become
unnecessarily mired in ideological battles. Although genetic research
has conclusively established that there were three distinct groups of
people who migrated to India in successive waves and contributed to its
current genetic profile, there has been ideologically based resistance
from the Hindu right wing to these findings.
Genetically
and
culturally,
the
Indic
civilisation
has
received
contributions from these three groups of people:

South Asian hunter-gatherers, who arrived from Africa at least
50,000 years ago

Iranian agriculturalists, who arrived between 10,000 BCE and
4,000 BCE

Steppes pastoralists (popularly called “Aryans”), who arrived
around 2,000 BCE
13
While the actual picture is not as simplistic as Aryans conquering
Dravidians, that picture is not completely inaccurate either. Between
10,000 BCE and 4,000 BCE, Iranian agriculturists intermixed with the
aboriginal South Asian hunter-gatherers to form what are known as
“Ancestral South Indians” (ASI), who are also popularly known as
“Dravidians”. Around 2,000 BCE, Steppes pastoralists, popularly known
as “Aryans”, then intermixed with the ASI people in more than one
wave, creating groups of people called “Ancestral North Indians” (ANI).
ANI and ASI people further intermixed over the coming years, resulting
in the genetic profile of Indians that persists to this day.
All modern Indians have a mix of ANI and ASI genes, with the exception
of the inhabitants of the Andaman islands, who are “Ancient Ancestral
South Indians” (AASI). So there is some truth to the statement that all
Indians have a similar genetic profile. However, the opposite is also
simultaneously true! North Indians have more ANI than ASI, and South
Indians have more ASI than ANI, so there is a genetic difference
between North Indians and South Indians after all, although it is just a
matter of degree.
There is also a caste angle to this. The so-called “upper castes” tend to
have more ANI than ASI, and vice-versa. Genetic research has also
established that “strict endogamy”, or the rules against inter-marriage
between genetic groups, began 1900 years ago. Strict endogamy laid
the foundations of the caste system that endures to this day.
These are now matters of scientific record.
All that being said, the cultural impact of the Aryans on the Indic
civilisation was much higher than their genetic influence.
14
The ideological resistance to these findings from Hindutva proponents is
because they would like to believe that “Vedic culture” originated within
India. The genetic evidence that Aryans (i.e., Steppes pastoralists) came
to India from outside, bringing with them a proto-Sanskritic language,
culture and rituals, torpedoes their narrative of an autochthonous Hindu
culture that has a superior claim to the territory of India compared to
other religious groups.
Understanding India’s civilisational history requires a repudiation of the
ideological pseudo-science propagated by Hindutva culture warriors,
who will even deny scientific evidence in order to hold on to their
cherished narrative of the Indic civilisation being synonymous with the
Hindu religion.
So this is the first, and perhaps most difficult, step when establishing a
civilisational narrative for India. We have to unlearn motivated
ideological narratives that have no basis in scientific fact. Genetics has
settled the issue, and Indians must learn to accept facts and move on.
3.4 Culture
The Steppes pastoralists (“Aryans”) brought with them a culture that
formed the basis of Hindu society, which was the earliest form of Indic
society. The pre-existing “Dravidian” culture fused with the Aryan,
contributing to its pantheon of gods (Shiva was most probably a
Dravidian god) and to various cultural practices. This became the basis
of what is called “Vedic” culture, which then became for a time the
dominant culture of the Indic civilisation. Other smaller ethnic
influences lapped at this Indic civilisation, influencing it around the
edges. Greeks (called “Yavanas”), as well as various Himalayan groups
15
(the Sakyas, Huns, and Kushanas), all integrated with the Indic
civilisation. The Greek influence on Indic culture can be seen in the
Gandhara school of art used in Buddhism. The Buddha himself was a
Sakya prince, and the subsequent interplay between Buddhism and
Vedic Hinduism forms a fascinating side-story of its own.
When we talk about the Indic civilisation in antiquity (i.e., from about
10,000 BCE until the first contact with Islam around 700 CE), we are
referring to the crucible that took in genetic and cultural components in
three major waves (and a few minor ones), and established a society
distinct from others in the world.
Hinduism as a set of cultural beliefs and practices was an important
aspect of this civilisation, but as we have seen, there was nothing
autochthonous about it. The civilisation has been a melting pot with
some indigenous elements and further cultural layers added from
external sources. This is why “Indic” is not the same as “Hindu”, and
why conflating the two is ideological mischief. The civilisation has
always been Indic by definition, but only a specific hybrid culture from a
certain period onwards could be recognisably called Hindu. Talking
about a “Hindu civilisation” right from antiquity achieves important
present-day political goals for certain ideological groups, but the Hindu
cultural identity is only one strand within the Indic civilisational identity,
albeit an important one.
This is a viewpoint contrary to most mainstream narratives, so it may
take some time to assimilate. However, the results of this shift in
thinking are worthwhile, not just because it can heal the frayed fabric of
contemporary Indian society and strengthen its cohesiveness, but also
16
because of the complex world that lies outside its national boundaries,
even beyond the confines of the subcontinent. There will soon come a
need for India to leverage its civilisational affinity with Indic nationstates that are non-Hindu, in order to expand its influence and resist the
dominance of other civilisations. More on this later.
Let’s now explore this larger world by crossing one of these
geographical boundaries.
17
3.5 The ‘Sinificant’ Other
The Himalayas, the geographical feature that forms the northern
boundary of the Indic civilisation, separates the plains of India from the
Tibetan plateau. This region is the world’s largest reservoir of
freshwater outside the polar regions, and feeds the southward-flowing
river systems that are critical to the Indic civilisation — the Indus, the
Ganges and the Brahmaputra. It also gives birth to rivers that flow
northwards and eastwards, and this has simultaneously provided the
conditions for another civilisation to develop. This other civilisation also
happens to be geographically isolated, by vast deserts to its west, by
barren, frozen wastes to its north, and by ocean to its east. This is the
Sinic civilisation that developed in its own isolated crucible.
18
The Tibetan plateau – nurturer of two populous civilisations
From a geographical perspective therefore, it should not be surprising
that the towering Himalayan ranges and the Tibetan plateau with their
glacier-fed river systems should be simultaneously capable of nurturing
and mutually isolating two unique civilisations , the Indic and the Sinic.
Neither should it be surprising that the two civilisations are of roughly
equal age, or have sustained equally large populations from time
immemorial.
Just like the Indic civilisation, the Sinic civilisation too has been
influenced
by
geography,
population,
genetics
and
culture.
Its
geographical isolation has been similarly imperfect. Invasion and
subjugation by Mongols (the Yuan dynasty) and Manchus (the Qing
19
dynasty) at various points of time in its history have influenced its
genetics and culture. Over the centuries, it too managed to fold those
external influences into its rich cultural tapestry, and the many
innovations that these then-foreign rulers ushered in have only served
to aid China’s progress as a civilisation.
The Indic and the Sinic civilisations have both been around for over
3000 years, perhaps 4000. They developed in close proximity, yet
remained separated by the impassable Himalayas. In all these millennia
(before the fateful encounter of 1962), there was little contact between
the two, let alone any conflict. A Bodhidharma may have crossed the
Himalayas to spread Buddhism in China, a Fahien (Fa Xian) or a Hiuen
Tsang (Xuan Zang) may have done the same in the opposite direction to
chronicle life in India in their time, and some trade in tea and spices
may have taken place through land and sea. Apart from these peripheral
interactions, the two great civilisations of the East have had little mass
contact throughout their histories. They may not have been friends, but
they were not enemies, and they were certainly not existential threats to
each other.
Importantly though, for most of recorded history (except for the last
three centuries), the two civilisations have together contributed over
50% of world GDP and 50% of global trade, with each accounting for
about half of those numbers. Thanks to the rich and fertile alluvial
plains of their perennial rivers, these two civilisations have been the
most populous on the planet, which in turn served to elevate them to
being among the most significant. Over the many thousands of years of
their history, it is also little wonder that these prosperous societies were
20
able
to
host
thriving
cultures
boasting
advances
in
literature,
philosophy, science, technology and the arts.
The uniqueness, size, wealth, prosperity and rich culture of both the
Indic and Sinic civilisations were in a sense foreordained by geography.
But then something happened two to three centuries ago that tragically
reversed the fortunes of both.
3.6 The Turning Point?
How did India stumble and fall? A commonly held belief is that the wave
of Muslim invasions starting from about 700 CE destroyed the original
character of the Indic civilisation and initiated its decline, which was
then hastened by the later advent of European colonialism.
However, when we view this chapter of history not from a religiocultural standpoint but from a civilisational one, i.e., the fortunes of
the society that lived within those never-changing geographical
boundaries, we see a very different picture.
India suffered invasion at the hands of three Muslim rulers — Mahmud
of Ghazni, Timur (Tamerlane) of Samarkand, and Nader Shah of Persia,
who plundered the wealth of the subcontinent and carted it off to their
capitals. These Muslim invaders certainly damaged the Indic civilisation.
However, the overwhelming majority of India’s Muslim rulers did not
plunder
India’s
wealth
to
cart
it
away.
On
the
contrary,
the
subcontinent’s wealth and power increased manifold under them. They
were in effect naturalised Indians because they stayed on and ruled
21
local kingdoms. Akbar’s empire in 1583 was far richer and stronger
than the England of Queen Elizabeth I. Alauddin Khilji fought off a
fearsome Mongol threat and saved the subcontinent from a fate that
other victims of the Mongols took centuries to recover from. Rather
than being invaders and plunderers, most Muslim rulers of the
subcontinent were its defenders and builders. The civilisation had coopted them, such that they worked for it rather than against it.
To be sure, not all of India’s Muslim rulers were benevolent and wise.
Some were cruel and tyrannical, and often religiously intolerant. But
from a civilisational standpoint, this is irrelevant. What is important is
that these rulers all advanced the interests of their kingdoms that
existed within the geographical boundaries of the Indic civilisation. Far
from it being the case that India was weakened by its contact with
Islam, Indic civilisation, over a few centuries, succeeded in absorbing
and integrating Islamic elements into its already rich culture, and
continued to develop and progress as a composite civilisation.
It is important to understand that while Hindutva proponents view the
influence of Islam as a “pollutant” to the prevalent Hindu culture, it
did not weaken the Indic civilisation. On the contrary, it served to
enrich it in every way, from economic wealth to military power, from
administrative structures to transport and communications, from
agriculture to philosophy, from cuisine to the arts. Hybrids are richer
and more successful than purebreds, and India as a hybrid society has
been no exception. Remember that the Aryans, the Greeks, the Sakyas,
Kushanas and Huns had all been folded into the Indic civilisation in
earlier centuries, and subcontinental Islam was just the latest fold in the
civilisation’s cultural tapestry.
22
Apart from the occasional hiccup of invasions, Indic civilisation in fact
progressed to greater heights by integrating the Islamic influence.
Islam, as it turned out, was not disruptive to the continued progress of
the Indic civilisation in terms of its wealth, power and dynamism. (This
is an important example of how a civilisational narrative differs from an
ideological one. Civilisations develop through the assimilation of
external influences. They are therefore dynamic and evolving. Ideologies
are fixated on idealised and unrealistic notions of purity, are wistful
about an imagined past that may never have existed, and are therefore
resistant to cultural evolution.)
The bottomline is that after centuries of Muslim rule, India still
contributed 24% of world GDP in the year 1700. So it wasn’t the
Muslims who brought about the downfall of the Indic civilisation after
all. Who was it then?
3.7 Whodunnit
The answer stares us in the face. There was one — and only one —
power responsible for reducing India, from an ancient, rich and proud
civilisation accounting for a quarter of world GDP, to a wretchedly poor
“Third World” country with a paltry 3% of world GDP in 1947, one that
could not even feed its own people.
That power was Great Britain.
Although the Indic civilisation had seen many tumultuous events over
the millennia of its existence, from the Aryan Invasion to the advent of
Islam, British colonial rule was a fundamentally different juncture in its
history, one that was without precedent. It was a rupture in the
23
otherwise continuous evolution of the Indic civilisation, and it is this
aspect of civilisational history that even educated Indians find hard to
grasp.
The crucial lesson that Indians need to understand from their
civilisational history is this.
The relationship between the Indic and Sinic civilisations was armslength and of equals, neither hostile nor overly friendly. India was not
seen in China as a tributary state but as a civilisational equal.
The relationship between the Indic and Islamic civilisations (whether
Persian, Turkic, Mongol or Arab) was one of adaptation and integration,
resulting in a new cultural strain of “subcontinental Islam” that is as
Indic as it is Islamic. India did not become Muslim, since the
overwhelming majority of its population remained Hindu. It was Islam
that became Indic, within the subcontinent. The Sufi strain of Islam has
deep links to the subcontinent, and Sufism has also influenced the
Barelvi school of Islam that the majority of South Asian Muslims follow.
It’s also interesting that nowhere else in the world do Muslims (or
others) speak Urdu. The language is unique to the subcontinent.
Likewise, Mughal architecture and Mughlai cuisine are unique to the
subcontinent. The two civilisations have thus influenced each other in
equal measure and produced a rich and unique hybrid culture which has
been folded back to form yet another layer of the Indic civilisation.
In contrast to all these prior interactions with peer-equal civilisations,
the relationship between the Indic and Western civilisations that began
with the advent of the British was one where the Indic civilisation very
24
rapidly shrank to an inferior position, and where Western civilisation
became dominant and exploitative. The British chose what they wanted
to take from India, i.e., not only its natural resources but also elements
of its culture, cuisine and vocabulary when it suited them. Britain too
was hence influenced by India, but it was not the interaction of equals.
To be fair, the Indic civilisation did evolve in a progressive direction in
many respects as a result of the interaction with Western civilisation.
The improvement in the treatment of women, especially widows, the
sensitisation to the undesirability of caste-based discrimination, and to
individual rights in general, were all the result of Western influence. The
modern Indian nation-state as defined by the Indian constitution and
jurisprudence, the English language, as well as “modern” ways of
thinking in general, all reflect the positive influence of Western
civilisation.
However, the power imbalance between East and West that oversaw
these influences had the unfortunate side-effect of creating a deep
cultural insecurity among the people of the Indic civilisation. To this day,
the attitude of Indians (and other colonised people) towards Western
civilisation betrays an inferiority/superiority complex, with feelings of
inadequacy alternating with feelings of jingoism. The popularity of
Hindutva
—
resentments,
a
heady
convenient
cocktail
of
scapegoats,
cultural
insecurity,
overblown
notions
historical
of
past
achievements, and a belief in shortcuts to glory — is a symptom of the
Indian hunger for acceptance and respect that cuts across all classes,
including the educated elite. An equilibrium in terms of cultural security
has yet to be reached, and will probably not be reached until the Indic
25
civilisation finds a viable way to regain its place in the world, with its
uniqueness acknowledged and respected by all.
How that happy situation can be achieved will be discussed a bit later,
but let us first digest the important lesson here. It’s that the Indic
civilisation has had interactions with many others over the centuries,
and even when the fortunes of individual rulers and kingdoms within it
waxed and waned, the overall growth and progress of the civilisation as
a whole were never impeded. It was the last of these civilisational
interactions — with
Western
civilisation — that
brought
about
its
comprehensive downfall.
Although painful, this chapter of Indian civilisational history is therefore
important enough to study in greater detail.
3.8 The Gory Details
Let us return to that crucial period in the history of the Indic civilisation
when the British began to strengthen their foothold in the subcontinent,
to see how the power asymmetry between East and West was reversed
from the time of Akbar and Elizabeth I.
In a happy coincidence for Britain (but not for India!), colonial
expansion and the Industrial Revolution took place at around the same
time. For a time, England was not even a great European power. France
and Prussia were traditional land powers, while Spain was a naval
power. Once Britain decisively defeated Spain at sea in 1588 and France
on land in 1815, it became a great European power and thereafter a
global power.
26
Step by step, by exploiting rivalries and imposing obligations on the
parties that they assisted in defeating their rivals, the British gradually
gained control over the entire territory of India. The parts of India that
were not directly under the crown were ruled by vassal kings who only
wielded nominal control. The British strategy of “divide and rule”
proved phenomenally successful in delivering an entire civilisation into
the hands of a colonial power in little more than a century.
In the late eighteenth, the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries,
Britain fuelled its Industrial Revolution with raw material from its
richest colony, India. India was known as the “Jewel in the Crown” of the
British Empire, not as a respectful acknowledgement of its cultural
greatness, but purely as a measure of its economic benefit to the
Empire. Indian coal, iron ore, timber and cotton powered the industrial
cities of England. This was not trade, nor was it an equitable purchase.
Indian citizens (subjects of the British Empire after 1857) received no
compensation for these resources that Britain helped itself to. On the
contrary, Britain’s Indian subjects even paid taxes to the crown. To this
day, junior officials in the Indian civil service are called “collectors”,
illustrating the exploitative nature of the bureaucracy that Britain put in
place. The roads, railways, and ports that the British built in India were
not for the benefit of Indians, except incidentally. They were all built to
facilitate the export of India’s natural resources in the service of
Britain’s Industrial Revolution.
Moreover, Britain designed a tax system for India that ensured British
monopoly on manufactured goods, favoured British imports over local
production (the Salt Tax being a particularly infamous example), and
discouraged Indian investments in industry. These measures not only
27
disadvantaged India during British rule, they caused a significant
atrophy of the economy, leaving the country unable to compete on the
global stage for quite a while after the British left.
It was such a comprehensive loot and plunder of the civilisation that
reduced it from wealth and glory to utter poverty in a span of just two
centuries. Economist Utsa Patnaik estimates the magnitude of the loot
to be US $45 trillion at 2017 prices. Britain used that loot to raise itself
to the status of an advanced country. (A trivia item loaded with meta
irony is that “loot” is itself an Indian word that the English language has
generously helped itself to.)
To put it in starkly evocative terms, Britain stood on India’s back to
climb higher, while simultaneously pushing India down into poverty and
backwardness. The “Jewel in the Crown” was bled dry.
28
3.9 A Baffling Acquittal
India was robbed blind, stripped of its civilisational greatness, its
economic wealth, and its cultural self-respect. Yet strangely enough,
Indians today bear no rancour towards Britain. They are proud to send
their offspring to study at the London School of Economics, and will
happily show off that photo album from their last UK visit. They think
nothing of paying 30 pounds to enter the Tower of London for the
privilege of viewing the Kohinoor diamond that the British stole from
their country.
No, the animosity of many Indians today is directed only towards
Muslims and towards China, even though, as we have seen, India’s
Muslim rulers and China have done nothing to the civilisation that even
remotely compares with the damage inflicted by Great Britain!
Hence the thesis of this document that Indians do not understand
history.
The Hindutva narrative has politicised religious identity using historical
grievances so as to set Indian against Indian. The ideology is hugely
successful at raising passions and winning elections, but Indian society
as a whole has ended up divided against itself and weakened. Although
this ideology regularly uses the word “civilisation”, it is only focused on
its Hindu cultural strand, not the whole of the civilisation. Those blinded
by the Hindutva ideology are incapable of seeing the bigger picture and
its obvious conclusions.
In similar fashion, nationalism alone without a civilisational perspective
leads one down a different cul-de-sac. One is reduced to reacting to
29
immediate events on their country’s borders without deeper reflection.
Those trapped in nationalistic rhetoric are unable to break out of the
cycle of suspicion and hostility to re-examine their premises , educate
themselves about historical events that have been kept deliberately
hidden
by
their
own
governments, and gain
a
more balanced
understanding of the positions of their own and other countries.
If Indians cannot even comprehend the nature and circumstances of
their civilisation’s downfall, how can they hope to restore its greatness?
3.10 A Double Murder
And here’s another side-story. What Britain did to India, it did to China
too, hand in hand with other colonial powers. Britain fought two “Opium
Wars” against China, and won them both. Essentially, the British Empire
was a drug mafia that pushed drugs onto an unwilling country by
military force. What’s more, the opium was grown in colonial India,
Indian business houses like the Tatas were involved in the opium trade,
and Indian sepoys were used to put down revolts in China. The British
used one subjugated Eastern civilisation to oppress another.
China has not forgotten its Century of Humiliation when six colonial
powers, including Britain, dictated terms to its powerless emperor. On
the contrary, every Chinese schoolchild is taught this history. That sense
of history has resulted in an abiding sentiment among Chinese people
that they are going to recover the greatness that was robbed from them,
and further, that no foreign power will ever again dictate terms to them.
3.11 A Fortuitous Escape
While the shared sufferings of the Indic and Sinic civilisations at the
hands of Western civilisation have been written about and discussed a
30
great deal, what has often escaped attention is the fortuitous survival
of both, on account of a crucial civilisational trait that they share — the
size of their populations. We touched upon population size earlier when
talking about the attributes of a civilisational identity, but we can only
now begin to appreciate its significance given the context of colonial
plunder.
Both civilisations endured a period of colonial oppression, and after that
period, their colonisers withdrew and left them alone once more. This
did not happen by accident. Their liberation only occurred thanks
to the size of their population. To see what might have been, we need
look no further than what is known as the New World (the Americas and
Australia), where the original inhabitants of the land were not very
populous relative to the new settlers. In hindsight, we can see that these
groups of people fell below a certain critical mass required for
civilisational survival. That is why Native Americans and Australian
Aboriginal people are now an insignificant minority in their ancestral
lands, and these lands have now morphed into being predominantly
Western in terms of their civilisational characteristics.
New Zealand is perhaps the unique example of a native population
being of exactly the critical mass required for survival. The Maoris
were strong enough and populous enough to avoid being wiped out, but
not enough to push the colonialists out. It was in effect a civilisational
stalemate. The two cultures coexist today, in perhaps the only country
belonging to the Western civilisation that shares power on a semi-equal
basis with an indigenous culture.
Western civilisation, which originated in a small continent called
Europe, spread to three larger continents — North America, South
31
America, and Australia/New Zealand — over the span of five centuries by
conquering and displacing their native peoples. Four continents today
belong to the Western civilisation thanks to this displacement. (Latin
America has a complicated relationship with the West. Its culture is
predominantly Spanish/Portuguese and hence technically Western, but it
is widely considered to belong to the Global South.)
32
Western civilisation then and now — the most virulent and rapacious civilisation in
history. It has occupied lands and turned them Western when genocide of natives was
feasible, and exploited resources, both natural and human, for as long as possible
otherwise. Its impact dwarfs even that of the Mongol Empire with its ravaging
hordes.
But for the crucial civilisational trait of overwhelming population
size, it’s entirely possible that India and China too may have suffered
such
demographic
displacement
and
become
Western.
Western
colonialists may never have left these fertile lands rich in natural
resources. The bulk of the indigenous population may have been wiped
out, and modern India and China could be white countries today, with
the native populations confined to reservations. The cultures of the Indic
and Sinic civilisations may only have lived on in short memorial
speeches, such as those regularly made in Australia today to briefly
acknowledge the “traditional owners of the land”, before the business of
Western civilisation resumes.
In short, when civilisations are viewed from the perspective of the whole
of human history, it is clear that Western civilisation has been the most
virulent and rapacious of all the civilisations that have ever existed.
Other civilisations fought against their immediate neighbours and saw
their boundaries pushed back and forth, but it was only Western
civilisation that expanded across the globe to permanently occupy vast
territories belonging to other peoples, wiping them out when it had a
numerical advantage, and plundering their resources for the longest
possible time when it didn’t.
The realisation that the two modern nation-states of India and China
have managed to survive with their populations and cultural identities
intact even after the tsunami of Western colonialism — only thanks to
one shared civilisational trait — is a sobering thought.
33
A chilling thought, in fact.
34
3.12 The Accused — Reformed or Remorseless?
The deeds of the West over the past few centuries are indeed damning.
But is all of that still relevant, or should it be viewed as just ancient
history? As we know, the baton of leadership within the West has passed
from the UK and other European colonial powers to the US, and
Western societies have also become much more enlightened and
progressive, so today’s West is not the same as the one responsible for
the colonisation and humiliation of the East, or the genocide of smaller
native populations elsewhere.
Should we really be digging up old grievances? Can’t we let bygones be
bygones?
It depends on whether the West has fundamentally changed in its
attitude towards other civilisations.
For example, the West claims to be a like-minded democratic ally that
will support India against the threat from an authoritarian and
expansionist China. Should we take that claim at face value, or is the
West once again playing the cynical, time-tested game of “divide and
rule” by pitting the two former civilisational giants against each other,
so as to remain on top? In the cold calculus of geopolitical power,
internal systems of government are irrelevant, hence it would be unwise
to let the emotive bond of shared democratic traditions between India
and the West distract us from more fundamental conflicts of interest
that may exist.
Prima facie, there is a plethora of circumstantial evidence that the
overarching strategic objective of the West is to retain its primacy in
35
world affairs against all challengers. It’s telling that, although the West
accounts for just 12% of the world’s population, most articles and books
by Western authors and think-tanks talk about how the West can
“manage the rise” of emerging economies, not about how the West
should graciously cede power to them. The unspoken reason is that
a world in which the West no longer makes the rules or calls the shots is
an absolutely terrifying prospect to every Westerner, right from their
political leaders and intellectual elites down to the average citizen. We
didn’t come all this way just to let the barbarians take over!
Circumstantial evidence aside, the United States is the superpower
whose lead all other Western nations follow, so let’s study the
fundamental drivers of US foreign policy today, so as to guage if the
“new” West is fundamentally different from the West that damaged the
rest of the world so severely in the recent past. (In doing so, we will
disregard the Monroe Doctrine, which could be considered a mere
assertion of “turf” against remote powers. We are looking to understand
the attitude of the US towards countries in other parts of the world that
have no interest in interfering in the Americas.)
The following is not mere conjecture on my part. More than one
independent enunciation of American geopolitical strategy describes it
in such similar and unambiguous detail that it cannot be dismissed as a
fringe ideology. Moreover, the history of US interventions around the
world provides ample real-world evidence that these views reflect actual
American policy.
1. A monograph from the American geopolitical consultancy
Stratfor “The Geopolitics of the United States (Part 1)”: The
American polity has a set of imperatives to be a successful nation.
36
Although rarely declared elements of national policy, they are a set
of guidelines that most governments — regardless of composition or
ideology — find themselves following. The most important of these
is “Prevent any Potential Challengers from Rising”. The most
likely region from where a threat to the US is likely to arise is
Eurasia. The imperative of the US is to ensure that Eurasian unity
never happens, to keep Eurasia divided among as many different
(preferably mutually hostile) powers as possible.
2. American
political
scientist
and
international
relations
scholar John Mearsheimer’s theory of Offensive Realism: The
greater the military advantage one state has over other states, the
more secure it is. States seek to increase their military strength to
the detriment of other states within the system with hegemony,
i.e., being the only great power in the state system, as their
ultimate goal. Great powers recognize that the best way to ensure
their security is to achieve hegemony now, thus eliminating any
possibility of a challenge by another great power – a “peer
competitor”.
Only
a
misguided
state
would
pass
up
an
opportunity to be the hegemon in the system because it thought it
already had sufficient power to survive. Accordingly, a state’s best
strategy to increase its relative power to the point of achieving
hegemony is to rely on offensive tactics. Provided that it is rational
for them to act aggressively, great powers will likely pursue
expansionist policies, which will bring them closer to hegemony.
3. Former
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s
book “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its
Geostrategic Imperatives”: In brief, for the United States,
37
Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of
geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of
geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests
of America in the short-term preservation of its unique
global power and in the long run transformation of it into
increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a
terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient
empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy
are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence
among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected,
and to keep the barbarians from coming together.
4. Former
US Deputy
Assistant Secretary
of Defense for
Strategy Elbridge Colby’s book “The Strategy of Denial”: The
fundamental purpose of American strategy is to provide Americans
with physical security, freedom, and prosperity. The US has to
retain a favorable balance of power with respect to its key
interests, i.e., remain the most powerful state in all respects,
everywhere. The most effective way to check another from doing
something one does not want to abide is to be more powerful than
the other. Physical force, especially the ability to kill, is the
ultimate form of coercive leverage. While there are other sources
of influence, they are all dominated by the power to kill. One with
the ability to kill another can, if willing, escalate any dispute to
that level and thus prevail. Left unaddressed, might trumps right.
Therefore, to protect its interests, the US must be especially
concerned about the use of physical force. China is a threat
because it’s on a trajectory where the US might one day not
38
be a threat to it. The US should retain the ability to kill China
and the prospect of China evading this is the “China threat”.
It should be clear from the remarkable congruence of these independent
policy voices that the culture of paranoia structurally ingrained within
US foreign policy mandates a view of China (and of India too!) as
threats to the US. Why is this so? It is once again the core
civilisational trait of population size that plays a fateful role in
determining how these two Eastern civilisations are viewed by another.
The population of China is four times that of the US, and so is the
population of India. If China and India wish their citizens to enjoy a
standard of living comparable to that of US citizens (a perfectly
reasonable desire), the parity in per-capita wealth that this implies
would translate to each of these economies being four times bigger
than that of the US. There is nothing inherently threatening in this.
Yet according to the geopolitical principles that govern the approach of
the US to other powers,
competitors
to
emerge!
the US simply cannot allow
Relatively
small
countries
peer
such
as
Switzerland may attain higher per-capita levels of wealth without being
seen as threats, but large countries cannot, by definition, rise peacefully.
Their very emergence out of poverty would trigger alarm bells in the US
as they crossed certain wealth thresholds.
The US can therefore be expected to do whatever it takes to thwart the
rise of China and India. Note that this is a conclusion based not on
personal prejudice but on stated US geopolitical doctrine – a doctrine
that says the US must be willing to use any means necessary, including
pre-emptive force, to prevent the rise of a peer competitor.
39
How would the US deal with such a perceived threat from China and
India? As the Stratfor monograph makes clear in the context of Eurasia,
US strategy should be to keep these two powers divided and mutually
hostile. Et voilà! That is indeed the situation we see today — India and
China as mutual antagonists, and the US allying with the smaller power
to balance the larger.
It is not implausible that the US played a role in fomenting or
exacerbating tensions between the new republics of India and China in
the early 1950s so as to set them on a course of mutual suspicion and
simmering conflict. The role of the CIA in aiding Tibetan rebels is wellknown. The incentives and actions of the US are a factor that India and
China need to consider when contemplating the state of their
relationship.
As a thought experiment, if the positions of India and China were
switched, with India being the bigger power, the US would right now be
allying with China to contain India. That is the classic way in which the
game of “divide and rule” is played.
And so, with this unblinkered comprehension of American
geopolitical doctrine as enunciated by their own influential policy
figures, we have to regretfully conclude that the West has not in
fact changed at all in its attitude towards other civilisations. A
past generation was responsible for barefacedly robbing the East of its
wealth and glory. The current generation wears a more civilised mask,
but crucially, is unwilling to cede the civilisational primacy it has
inherited. The baton may have passed from Europe to the US, but
Western civilisation as a whole remains an oppressive power that will
jealously guard its primacy.
40
There is a pecking order among the countries of the Western
civilisation, which we will examine shortly, but non-Western civilisations
will always remain the “other”, to be used as pawns against one another
and never allowed to develop into credible challengers. The willingness
to act remorselessly and with extreme violence to prevent the rise of a
peer competitor can only be described as psychopathic.
We — the non-Western world — need to look past the benign façade of the
West’s liberal and democratic societies, and instead focus on its
geopolitical behaviour, in order to understand the true nature of the
state that we’re dealing with.
To put it bluntly, we’re dealing with a psychopath.
41
PART 4 — SEEING THE WORLD ANEW
The world appears quite different when history is seen through the lens
of civilisational interactions.
We can now summarise India’s civilisational history in a paragraph:
The Indic civilisation’s wealth and power have been steadily growing
over the millennia of its existence, while remaining roughly unchanged
in relative terms (i.e., a share of world GDP and global trade
commensurate with its relative population). Its various interactions with
peer civilisations (mainly the Sinic and the Islamic) contributed to its
evolution but did not diminish it. Around three centuries ago, the Indic
civilisation (along with the Sinic) suffered an unprecedented collapse,
when Western civilisation wrested its wealth and power by force, and
established its global dominance that continues to this day.
Viewed more generally and not just from an Indic viewpoint,
The old world order was multipolar, where
civilisations jostled with one another on a co-equal
basis for domination of one or another region of
the world. The new world order is unipolar and
globally dominated by a single civilisation, one that
sets limits on how high other societies can rise
based on a civilisational pecking order, and that
42
has the will and (thus far) the means to cut down
perceived
challengers
through
a
variety
of
instruments.
In fact, seen from a civilisational perspective, everything that Indians
seem to take for granted gets stood on its head — not just India’s own
history but the very nature of the modern world. With this new
understanding, we can then begin to comprehend what stands in the
way of India’s rise, and the path India needs to follow to retake its
rightful place on the global stage.
The most fundamental of these misconceptions pertains to the equitable
treatment that India expects as it develops, not comprehending that in a
unipolar world dominated by one civilisation and one nation-state within
that civilisation, the concept of exceptionalism coupled with paranoia
about rising powers dictates an extremely inequitable world order, one
where a civilisational outsider like India cannot hope to rise beyond a
point, and will even face existential threats beyond a certain threshold
of its development.
So how does this world work?
43
4.1 The Rules Of The Game
There are rules that have governed the relations of kingdoms and
nation-states from antiquity, rules that are meant to be fair and
equitable. In modern parlance, these are referred to as “International
Law”.
However, in recent times, we have begun to hear a different term — the
“Rules-Based International Order”.
What does this new term mean, and how is it different from
International Law, if it is at all different? Does it make any difference to
India which term is used?
A civilisational perspective makes the distinction between these terms
glaringly obvious. International Law is relatively easy to understand.
There is a common set of rules that apply to all countries. All of them
are expected to behave in similar ways, and any punishment for
violating the rules is to be applied impartially. In other words,
International Law is a level playing field, and is “civilisation-blind”.
The diagram below illustrates this concept.
44
One would expect that International Law would be governed by the
United Nations, and that all countries would submit to its authority. It is
here that the assertion of “exceptionalism” by the US sets its behaviour
outside of International Law.
For example,
1. Despite projecting itself as the champion of human rights, the US
has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
which even North Korea has done.
2. The US has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,
even though it asserts Freedom of Navigation through Indian
waters.
45
3. The US has not itself ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
adopted by the UN general assembly, which it expects India to sign
and ratify.
4. The US has not only not ratified the Rome Statute that established
the International Criminal Court, it has also withdrawn its
signature from the original statute. The ICC was specifically set up
to bring to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and
“crimes against humanity”. The US has further underlined that the
ICC has no jurisdiction over US military personnel accused of war
crimes, by passing the American Service-Members' Protection Act,
popularly referred to as the “Hague Invasion Act”, because it
empowers the US to use military force to invade the Netherlands
where the ICC is headquartered, and to rescue members of its
military who may be held in custody undergoing trial for war
crimes.
It’s clear why the US prefers to use the term “Rules-Based International
Order” instead of “International Law”. International Law would put the
US at par with all the other nations of the world in being answerable to
a higher body, which runs counter to the principle of exceptionalism that
the US asserts with regard to itself. Further, this constrains its ability to
respond with unilateral force against nations that threaten to become
peer competitors, yet behave in accordance with International Law, such
as China.
The Rules-Based International Order appears to imply a common set of
rules for all countries, but the term is deliberately left undefined and
vague because it is meant to accommodate exceptions for the US and
46
for the countries the US deems worthy. This is not a level playing field
with an impartial referee, but a pecking order unilaterally defined by
some of the players, which other players are expected to abide by.
Recall the stark terminology employed by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his
book
“The
Geostrategic
Grand
Chessboard:
Imperatives”,
where
American
he
listed
Primacy
the
and
three
its
grand
imperatives of imperial geostrategy:
1. To prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the
vassals
2. To keep tributaries pliant and protected
3. To keep the barbarians from coming together
We can now see who these terms refer to:
1. vassals — the Anglosphere and Europe
2. tributaries — non-Western “allies”, i.e., client states
3. barbarians — potential peer competitors
We are now able to see that the deliberately undefined term “RulesBased International Order” is in fact a pecking order based on
civilisational characteristics, and can illustrate its operating model in
the form of a diagram.
47
A civilisational view of the “Rules-Based International Order”, a pecking order from the West to the Rest.
48
It’s
clear
from
International
the
Order”
diagram
is
above
that
emphatically
the
not
“Rules-Based
the
same
as
International Law.
What Indians in particular need to understand is that the best position
India, as a non-Western civilisation, can hope to attain is in the secondoutermost circle of client states or “tributaries”. (Russia and China are
currently in the outermost circle of enemies or “barbarians”.) Only
Western countries can be allies or “vassals”. India can never hope to
cross the civilisational “moat” that the US-defined “Rules-Based
International Order” implicitly defines. Submitting to this order places
India at a systemic disadvantage that can never be overcome, because
of its civilisational roots.
Equitable treatment is not on the menu.
This should not in fact be surprising when one sizes up the West in
terms of its behavioural traits, or in other words, its civilisational
identity.
49
4.2 The Civilisational Identity Of The West
If Western civilisation over the last 5 to 6 centuries could be personified
by a single individual, a good representation would perhaps be Francis
Drake.
“Sir” Francis Drake — slave-trader, pirate and war criminal — who, instead of being
punished for his crimes, was elevated to the status of nobility
50
As any honest biography of Francis Drake will retell, his personal
origins were modest and agrarian. He eschewed the life of a farmer and
began his career in the merchant navy instead. Those initial years were
spent peacefully in shipping legal merchandise, but he soon moved into
a more militant role, first as a privateer (a pirate with official sanction),
and later as a full-fledged naval officer. His accomplishments included
exploration of new lands, and he was the second person in history to
circumnavigate the globe. His long career in the navy (both private and
under commission) went beyond regular trade to include raids for
treasure, the plunder of other lands, slave-trading, armed conflicts with
other navies, and war crimes such as the slaughter of conquered
civilians.
In short, Drake’s personal biography reads remarkably like the history
of the West itself, foreshadowing the age of exploration and colonialism.
Europeans began to venture abroad as they acquired oceanfaring
abilities, and they then discovered new lands and new routes to old
ones. Many Eastern civilisations were initially approached by Western
merchants seeking trade, and were then conquered by privately owned
armies (such as those of the French, Dutch and English East India
companies), before being taken over as formal colonies by European
governments. (The lands of the “New World” were simply taken over
and their peoples displaced by force.) All these regions suffered
unlimited plunder of their wealth and their natural resouces, including
their human resources, who were often taken away as slaves or as
indentured labour. They were treated with little humanity, often
sustaining massacres, especially as reprisals for resistance. They often
saw rival colonial powers competing for control of their land and their
51
resources, such as the Anglo-French wars on the Indian subcontinent
and the Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the Malay region.
In spite of the innumerable and horrific crimes committed against nonWestern peoples, the perpetrators have never been punished or made to
offer reparations. Rather, we see another remarkable parallel with the
life of “Sir” Francis Drake, who was not just gentrified but actually
knighted and raised to the status of nobility!
After centuries of plunder and slavery, massacres and genocide,
conquest and permanent occupation of other peoples’ territories, the
West has in effect knighted itself and now struts about as nobility in a
world of plebians. What’s more, the rest of the world has been awed into
not questioning the legitimacy of this self-awarded social elevation.
When “Sir” West commands, the rest still leap to obey.
Interestingly, the justification provided by Western scholars for the
vaunted
civilisational
superiority
of
the
West
is
the
European
Enlightenment. The West claims a value system derived from JudeoChristian ethics and morality, Greek philosophy and Roman law, all
significantly
modernised
through
the
influence
of
Enlightenment
principles such as the elevation of reason over superstition, the
separation of church and state, the rights of the individual, and
tolerance for diverse views. It is this civilisational bedrock upon which
modern Western nation-states are based, and since these societies are
largely peaceful, stable and congenial to live in, the superiority of
Western civilisation seems self-evident.
Not so fast.
52
53
4.3 Civilisational Values Old And New
For a start, ancient civilisations do have some evolved values to show for
their millennia of existence.
The innovations of the non-Western world, whether the numerical placevalue system and the concept of zero from the Indic civilisation, the
invention of paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder by the Sinic,
or the advances in algebra and alchemy by the Islamic, show that
reason and the scientific method were not fresh discoveries of the
European Enlightenment but had been in existence in the world for
centuries earlier.
Numerous schools of philosophy have existed in the East, along with
traditions of intellectual debate. Philosophy and tolerance are not
Western innovations either.
Ethics and morality have played a role in every Eastern civilisation, such
as the concept of dharma (righteousness) in the Indic and the
Confucian notion of 义 Yì (inherent goodness) in the Sinic.
Compassion, a concept beyond mere tolerance, has been part of the
Eastern ethos since before the time of Christ. Both Buddhism and
Jainism from the Indic civilisation stress ahimsa (non-violence) towards
all living beings, which also finds an echo in the Confucian virtue of 仁
Rén (benevolence).
54
In a predominantly feudal world, a classless society based on the
equality of all men (although admittedly not women) was a novel
egalitarian concept introduced by the Islamic civilisation.
With the significant contact and cultural cross-pollination witnessed
between Eastern civilisations, it is not inconceivable that the ideas
known as “Enlightenment values” could have come about and been
widely adopted in due course even without the influence of the West.
Besides, Western Enlightenment values were applied rather differently
at home and abroad. While European society progressed as a result of
these values, the same could not be said of the societies dominated by
the West.
Perhaps the best description of what happened was that Western values,
both pre- and post-Enlightenment, were weaponised by the West for
use against other societies.
Judeo-Christian concepts did not result in other societies being treated
with love-thy-neighbour brotherhood. Rather, they fostered an attitude
of saved believer versus damned heathen, which then justified the most
abhorrent treatment of the latter.
The Roman tradition of law did not mean justice but just legal sophistry
to legitimise criminal acts, such as when the legal concept of Terra
Nullius was invoked to usurp the lands of Australian Aboriginal people,
or when the Doctrine of Lapse was employed to usurp the kingdoms of
Indian monarchs who died without a male heir, or when the concept of
Manifest Destiny was invoked to justify the westward expansion of the
United States and the usurpation of the lands of Native American
55
people. What’s more, the legal concept called the Statute of Limitations
ensures that the right to property can be asserted by its current owner,
but cannot be challenged by those whose ancestors may have been
cheated of that property. (Thus, white farmers of European colonial
descent who account for less than 10% of the population of an African
country like South Africa or Zimbabwe can legally own 70–85% of the
country’s arable land, but the government of such an African country
that attempts to transfer that land back to the black people to whom it
originally belonged is considered uncivilised for committing such
unlawful acts.)
Finally, reason and scientific thinking were not used to improve the
quality of life of all peoples. Science and technology were instead
weaponised to provide the West with industrial-scale warmaking
capability, which sealed the dominance of Western civilisation over all
others.
To summarise, the history of the last five to six centuries is not a
validation of Western civilisation’s moral superiority over all others. It
only demonstrates that might is right.
The ancient civilisations of the East need not suffer from any sense of
inferiority with regard to the West, except in a military and political
sense. We are not barbarians being gradually civilised by a more
enlightened society. We have been outgunned and outmanoeuvred by a
ruthless and resourceful adversary, that is all.
The current unipolar world order has been established through unjust
and unlawful means. It can and must be replaced by a more equitable,
56
multipolar world order, which is the way the world had always been run
before the West’s takeover.
Intuition suggests that India will be in a far better position within a
multipolar world order governed by International Law than where it
stands within the pecking order of the current Western-dominated
“Rules-Based International Order”. But how do we assess this more
objectively?
Let’s first look at the types of threats faced by a nation-state to
comprehend the situation India is in.
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4.4 The Real Threat To India
In general, these are the three types of threats that a nation-state may
face, in decreasing order of severity:
1. Existential — a country may cease to exist, by political dissolution if
not by genocide, e.g., what happened to the erstwhile Soviet Union
or Yugoslavia.
2. Denial of destiny — a country may be prevented from attaining the
degree of power, wealth and control of its destiny that it otherwise
could achieve.
3. Threats to territorial integrity and/or internal security — a
country’s territory may be claimed by others, and there could be
security threats such as terrorist attacks, which don’t do much
damage in real terms, but have a disproportionate psychological
impact.
It is perhaps safe to say the Indian nation-state is currently not under an
existential threat of any kind. There are, however, constant threats to
territorial integrity (e.g., border incursions) and periodic breaches of
internal security (e.g., terror attacks), which dominate the headlines,
and thereby distract the attention of policymakers and the public.
By far the most effective threat to India though, has been the
denial of its destiny. This is not as obvious as an existential or security
threat, because it is hard to point at what is missing. However, this
denial has been in effect ever since India’s civilisational downfall.
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Denial of destiny is a much bigger threat than
threats to territorial integrity or internal security, but
much harder to recognise. If your wallet is stolen,
you will realise it at once and feel outraged, but if
you are quietly cheated of an inheritance of
millions that you didn’t know you were in line to
receive, you will remain in blissful ignorance of the
life you could have had, even though the loss to
you is far greater.
To understand the significance of the denial of India’s destiny, consider
that the Indian Ocean was the centre of the world economy from ancient
times up until 500 years ago, with busy trade routes linking Africa and
the Middle East with the Far East. Throughout history, the Indian
peninsula has been jutting out into the Indian Ocean like an unsinkable
aircraft carrier. One would therefore expect India to be a major naval
power, indeed the pre-eminent Indian Ocean power, in total control of
the waters from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of Australia.
And unsurprisingly, that was in fact the case, the Chola imperial navy
providing dramatic examples of Indic power projection far afield.
Why is this not the case anymore? India today has been confined within
its subcontinental landmass, unable to play its civilisational role as the
pre-eminent naval power in one of the most important economic regions
59
of the world. Even today, the combined population of the nations that
form the Indian Ocean rim is 2.5 billion, or a third of humanity. Yet
Indian power is conspicuously missing in its own backyard, while the
navy of a Western power (the US) rules these waves. This starkly
epitomises the denial of destiny that the Indic civilisation has been
suffering even after notional independence.
This is why it is important to have a civilisational view of history. One
then understands exactly how one has been robbed, and who one’s
adversaries and potential allies are.
This shift of worldview based on civilisational history has enormous
implications for India’s approach to China and the West. It turns India’s
threat perceptions around 180 degrees.
A saying that describes India’s geopolitical situation quite accurately
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4.5 The Social Experiment Redone
To answer the survey questions we posed at the beginning,
1. The countries that are the greatest threat to India today are those of
the West, specifically the US-led countries of the Anglosphere. The
nature of the threat is the US compulsion to thwart the rise of a peer
competitor in a united Eurasia, a corollary of which is the denial of
India’s destiny as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean region.
(If this seems a stretch, just ask yourself which incumbent Indian
Ocean power would be most threatened if India reasserted its
historical control. That power is India’s strategic adversary.)
Furthermore, if India’s wealth and power relative to the rest of the
world ever began to re-approach its historical levels, it would
automatically be seen by the US as a peer competitor in its own
right, and the resulting threat to India would escalate to an
existential one as the US deployed every weapon in its arsenal to
neutralise it.
2. The one and only entity responsible for the calamitous decline of the
Indic civilisation was Great Britain. (This is not an incitement to hate
the UK, merely a reminder of the facts, as a rebuttal to the
convenient trope that the culprit was Muslim rule, and that presentday Indian Muslims are somehow to blame.)
3. The intentions of the West towards India are hardly benign. Any
putative friendship with India has the ulterior motive of securing
Western primacy at any cost. India’s role is to be cannon fodder in
61
the West’s struggle to contain China, because China is the immediate
peer competitor that the US has in its crosshairs.
4. “Divide and rule” is happening right now, on a civilisational scale.
The Indic and Sinic civilisations that have historically never been in
conflict are being encouraged to fight, in order to serve the interests
of a third, the Western civilisation. History is repeating itself, and
Indians must not fall for it this time.
These new answers are not just refreshingly different; they are
immediately actionable and suggest a logical way forward.
62
PART 5 — THE WAY FORWARD
It has often been argued that political decisions need to be made in the
here and now, and that civilisational history does not have much of a
bearing on present-day alliances or conflicts. It is a valid viewpoint that
there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent
interests.
However, as Robert D Kaplan has argued in his book “The Revenge of
Geography”, even the most modern nation-states cannot fight the forces
of history that have determined their destinies.
Hence it may not be a case of civilisational history itself directly
influencing present-day policy as much as the recognition that the
forces that have shaped a civilisation continue to cast a long shadow on
the choices and constraints faced by the modern nation-state that is the
civilisation’s heir.
To make this abstract argument concrete, let us look at a remarkable
textbook example of civilisational thinking applied to national strategy.
5.1 An Example Of Civilisational Thinking In The
Modern World
China provides a case study for the ages. This is a country that has not
only understood its civilisational identity, but has also worked out
how to leverage its civilisational traits in the service of its future.
63
China’s civilisational identity is that of The Middle Kingdom. (This is
in fact an indelible part of the Chinese identity. The Chinese word for
China is 中 国 zhōng guó, where the ideographs themselves graphically
illustrate the terms “middle” by a rectangle sliced in half, and
“kingdom” by a box around the word for jade. Jade is the material from
which the seal of the Chinese emperor was traditionally made, and the
box therefore represents the bounded region under the emperor’s writ.
Pictorially and phonetically,
the Chinese are reminded of their
civilisational identity whenever they refer to their country by name.)
“The Middle Kingdom” is not just a poetic or allegorical phrase. In its
modern interpretation, China’s vision is to be the engine room of the
world’s economy, and the central hub of the world’s trade network.
That’s how China sees itself — The Middle Kingdom is the beating heart
of the Earth itself — economically, culturally, perhaps even politically.
China’s ambition is to reclaim its position of old as a powerful and
universally respected civilisation at the centre of the world.
And how does China plan to realise this vision? A large part of its
strategy is by reviving an ancient civilisational legacy — the Silk Road.
The old overland and maritime Silk Roads are now recast as the Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI), a sprawling trade network with China as its
hub, which promises to rejuvenate the Chinese civilisation-state, while
also delivering economic growth to all the other lands through which
the network passes.
What’s more, the Silk Road (whether in its ancient or modern form) is
part of the familiar civilisational architecture of the Old World — Asia,
Europe and Africa. It is not a threat to any of the modern nation-states
that lie along the BRI’s many routes, because they were once part of
64
this architecture, and they had prospered on account of it. They can
prosper once again by aligning with The Middle Kingdom. It’s a
compelling vision from a modern nation-state that is based on sound
civilisational foundations.
China has a win-win model for its development that promises to carry
along all the civilisations of the Old World. The only modern nationstates that would struggle to find their place in this time-honoured
economic architecture are those of the New World, primarily the United
States. It is little wonder that the US sees a threat not just in China’s
rise, but in the very mechanism that China is employing to effect that
rise, which shows the US up as a parvenu in the comity of civilisations.
Interestingly, the United States is not an inherent threat from China’s
perspective. It is merely a new land to the East of the Middle Kingdom,
across the Pacific Ocean — a potential new trading partner and nothing
more. But to the United States, whose civilisational identity is based on
its own exceptionalism, being relegated to the periphery of another
empire is almost an existential threat! It will be a painful adjustment for
the US to learn to think of itself as just another country, if China
succeeds in re-establishing itself as The Middle Kingdom.
Will it? I personally believe that China’s vision will prevail, because it
goes along the grain of civilisational history. The powers that
oppose it are going against that grain, and will therefore likely fail.
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5.2 India’s Civilisational Destiny Spelt Out
With that elegant and powerful example of civilisational thinking in its
own immediate neighbourhood, it should not be difficult for India to look
at its own civilisational history for similar clues.
Finding a short and evocative phrase like “The Middle Kingdom” to
capture India’s civilisational identity is an interesting creative exercise
that I will leave to my readers, but that is not a prerequisite to working
out either India’s civilisational destiny, or a suitable strategy to achieve
it.
Remembering that the core traits of a civilisation are geography, size,
genetics and culture, India’s civilisational destiny begins to suggest
itself.
A reasonable version of this could be:
1. to grow to the point where the Indian economy contributes a sixth of
global GDP and trade, in line with the historical norm that reflects its
share of the world’s population;
2. to be the pre-eminent Indian Ocean power, which is virtually dictated
by its strategic geographical location and by the size of its population
and economy;
3. to provide leadership and be the cultural fountainhead for a dozen
Asian countries that share its civilisational roots and aspects of its
culture.
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Peninsular India as an unsinkable aircraft carrier. With a sixth of the world’s
population and a commensurate share of the world economy, India’s strategic
geographical location dictates that it be the pre-eminent Indian Ocean power and the
flagship nation-state among the countries of the Indic civilisation.
Needless to say, India should find it easier to achieve this destiny in a
multipolar world than in the current Western-dominated unipolar one.
The impediments that would still remain are India’s own characteristic
blind spots and consequent choices.
67
 Creating internal enemies helps political parties win elections, but
the resulting social disharmony impedes the ability of Indian society
to progress towards these goals. “United we stand; divided we
fall” is a saying rooted in deep wisdom.
 Antagonism with China (and by corollary, with Pakistan) serves to
consume a disproportionate share of India’s resources towards
defending contested land borders, and to divert attention away from
developing its economy and naval power.
 Aligning with the West does not help to achieve this destiny, since the
US will only tolerate India as a client state that serves its own
interests, and will never allow India to rise to a position resembling
that of a peer competitor. And in any event, there is little possibility of
the US willingly ceding control of the Indian Ocean. India needs
powerful allies with a congruence of interests to push the US out.
 Far more actionable than the amorphous goal of being a “vishwa-
guru” (Teacher to the World) is leadership of the nations belonging to
the Indic civilisation, through cultural or soft power.
 There are no shortcuts to gaining global respect. Harping on past
glory, especially through fake claims, only makes the country a
laughing stock. Respect will naturally follow on the heels of
Comprehensive National Power, because no one respects a poor and
powerless nation, no matter how culturally rich it may be.
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5.3 The Opportunity
Normally, it would be extremely dangerous to even attempt to escape
the clutches of an intelligent and powerful psychopath, which is what
the US-dominated world order is. However, a remarkable opportunity
has recently opened up, thanks to two fortuitous occurrences.
5.3.1 The Emerging Schism Within The West
The Ukraine crisis, while seemingly driving Europe and the US even
closer together, has in fact exposed a deep schism between the two. This
comprehensive analysis of the roots of the crisis , as observed from the
Global South, offers much more insightful detail than the conventional
(and superficial) Western narrative of Russian aggression.
The bottomline is that the crisis in Europe (precipitated by none other
than the US, as it turns out) has succeeded in driving a wedge between
Russia and its European customers. Europe is forced to abandon a
willing supplier of inexpensive energy, fertiliser and agricultural
products as a result of having to take the side of Ukraine. The US has
gained enormously, by being able to sell energy, arms and other
products to Europe, at much higher prices than Europe is traditionally
used to paying. Europe’s dependence on the US has also greatly
increased, reducing the Eurozone’s independence and global influence.
As the initial outrage at Russia wanes and Europe adjusts to a less
comfortable existence for the long haul, more clearheaded analysis may
give rise to feelings of resentment against the US. Europeans can now
see the downside of the US-imposed pecking order. Europe has been
enjoying a share of the spoils as long as the non-Western world was
69
being exploited, but can now see how readily it will itself be thrown
under the bus when the interests of the US are threatened.
An irreverent illustration of Europe’s uncomfortable situation (original creator
unknown)
This is a schism that the Global South can exploit, as we will discuss
later.
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5.3.2 The Distraction Of The US
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to three decades of
unchallenged US power. In hindsight, it appears that this period without
a credible peer competitor created a sense of complacency that led the
US into committing three costly blunders:
1. Allowing foreign policy to be guided by the interests of the
capitalist class rather than national interest
2. Being distracted by the bogeyman of Islamic terror
3. Failing to keep Russia onside
In short, the US oligarchy saw its interests best served by outsourcing
manufacturing to China, even acquiescing in the transfer of intellectual
property to Chinese companies. This funnelled hundreds of billions of
dollars of US investment into China, which helped build it up into the
peer competitor that rational geopolitical strategy should never have
allowed. China deliberately kept a low and non-threatening profile even
as it grew in strength, while the US remained distracted for a decade by
Al Qaeda, and the next decade by ISIS. Finally, the US forgot the crucial
strategy of “divide and rule” when it came to Russia and China. By
targetting both of them simultaneously, the US effectively forced an
alliance between its two main adversaries.
The rise of China and the formation of the powerful Russia-China axis
have also provided the Global South a unique opportunity to escape the
psychopathic clutches of the unipolar, Western-controlled world order.
(A glimmer of hope also comes from the biography of the murderous
nobleman Francis Drake, our allegory for Western civilisation. Once he
71
passed his prime, he suffered a string of defeats and finally died of
dysentery.)
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5.4 The Strategy
India needs to draw key lessons from the nation-building strategy of
Otto von Bismarck, the architect of modern Germany. In 7 short years
and with 3 decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France in that
order, Bismarck succeeded in uniting several Germanic states under
the leadership of Prussia to form the German Empire.
The key takeaway from Bismarck’s strategy is that a country in a state
of tension with many others must line up its conflicts in the right
order.
1. India’s first conflict is already in progress and needs an immediate
ceasefire. The conflagration is politically motivated, and is being
waged against imaginary internal enemies. And so, India should
first heal its own internal divisions by imbibing the harmony
inherent in its civilisational unity. All Indians belong to the Indic
civilisation (No, not the fake ideological construct of the “Hindu
civilisation”, but the larger Indic civilisation.) Indian Muslims
and Indian Christians are not aliens or enemies, but are as Indic as
Indian Hindus. Indians of all religions, all castes, and all linguistic
groups, are Indic. Internal unity is the essential first step of
the Bismarckian plan.
2. India should next align with other Eurasian powers (Iran and
Russia) under China’s umbrella to exploit the schism in the West
and end the hegemony of the US. The current unipolar world order
dominated by the West is the biggest threat responsible for the
denial of destiny of the Eastern civilisations, as well as a
potential existential threat as they continue to rise. Asian unity
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against Western domination is the second step in the
Bismarckian plan.
3. India should grow its strength over a generation or so, to the point
where it is able to lead the Indic nations out of China’s tent into its
own cultural sphere of influence. Indic unity against Sinic
domination is the third step in the Bismarckian plan.
Let’s look at these steps in detail.
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5.4.1 China — The Key To India’s Tryst With Destiny
The Indic civilisation was once a participant in China’s ancient Silk
Road. India exported gold and spices to Rome through this overland
route before the sea route overtook it in popularity. The fact that India
views the BRI as a new threat rather than as a familiar opportunity is
yet another indication that Indian policymakers are ignorant of
civilisational history.
From India’s point of view, China should be seen as (1) an equally
ancient and great civilisation, (2) a fellow sufferer at the hands of
Western exploitation, (3) a familiar trading partner and (4) a powerful
potential ally in re-establishing a multipolar world order.
5.4.2 Is China Really A Threat?
If China appears to be India’s enemy today, it is because India has
decided that China is its enemy. China will just as easily be an ally of
India if India is willing to be an ally of China. It’s that simple. There is
no structurally irreconcilable set of differences between the two nationstates, nor is there any historical baggage between the two civilisations
that have coexisted peacefully for millennia. The bogeyman of IndiaChina rivalry is something cooked up by Western analysts for
consumption by insecure Indians, and it has contributed, conveniently
but unfortunately, into turning a minor border clash into a situation of
enduring suspicion and hostility.
In actual fact, the threat from China is real — but only to the West. The
power struggle between the West and China is zero-sum in nature
because of the framing of the relationship by the US as a security
struggle between peer competitors. Hence if China wins, the West loses.
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However, India’s situation is not the same as the West’s at all! As
we have seen, Western geopolitical strategy implies blocking India’s
path to achieving its civilisational destiny. In contrast, a path to that
destiny can potentially be negotiated with China, since the history of
peaceful coexistence over the past millennia supports a myriad of winwin solutions.
There is a corollary to the realisation that denial of destiny is a far
more serious threat to a nation than threats to territorial integrity or
internal security. If a country can trade some territory for a chance to
regain its civilisational destiny, it is a very small price to pay. Yet the
knee-jerk “nationalist” response is exactly the opposite. To lesser minds,
a small but tangible loss outweighs a large but intangible gain. The
unthinking would rather condemn their country to an indefinitely
stalemated destiny than “part with an inch of land”.
From a civilisational perspective, events like the India-China border
clash of 1962 pale into insignificance. What is more important — a few
thousand square kilometres of land, or the restoration of civilisational
greatness and geostrategic importance for both peoples? Why should
the latter be held to ransom by the former? Wouldn’t collaboration and
concerted action deliver much richer dividends than mutual suspicion?
The India-China border dispute has festered over time and begun to
assume seemingly intractable proportions, yet it’s nothing that wise
statesmanship shouldn’t be able to resolve in a jiffy.
This does not mean that India must yield territory to China. It only
means that India should assign less importance to territory than to the
benefits of an alliance with China.
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It could well be that China sees India’s willingness to ally as sufficient
quid pro quo to settle the border along previously proposed terms, with
both sides just keeping what they already hold, and not having to
exchange fresh territory.
The “threat” from China to India can be neutralised very simply. The
best way to destroy one’s enemy is to make them your friend.
5.4.3 Choosing Sides
Meanwhile, the battle lines have already been drawn. The West,
especially the Anglosphere countries, have tightened their alliance
against the Chinese threat to their global primacy. (The Quad is just a
decoy. AUKUS is the real deal. The difference between the two
organisations is obvious from their civilisational make-up.)
On the other side, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan have closed ranks.
To put it bluntly, India is on the wrong side. Ignorant of history, it is
allying with those who seek to perpetuate a civilisation-based pecking
order where non-Western civilisations are kept suppressed and inferior.
India should instead be working closely with China to ensure that the
great civilisations of Eurasia (including Persia (Iran) and Russia) rise
again and take their place in the sun.
There are irresponsible analysts in India today who blithely talk about a
“two-front war” with China and Pakistan, with no apparent concern for
the devastating setback to India’s progress from such a conflict. Instead
of fatalistically preparing for such a two-front war, India would be better
77
off working to establish a peaceful and multipolar world governed by
International Law.
This is not possible by aligning with the forces that run the current
unipolar world order. Non-alignment between East and West (which
some Indians favour) is also a non-strategy. India needs to see Asia
through unblinkered Western eyes. The Asian Century is a threat to the
US, and its natural reaction is to thwart this rise. The US-led West is
therefore a strategic adversary, and India’s engagement with the West
needs to be informed by an understanding of the inherent conflict
between an established power and a rising power.
Hence an alliance of the non-Western powers is the only way forward.
Imagine Russia, India, Iran and Pakistan all standing together on the
same side as China. They form a Fortress Eurasia that no external
civilisational power can break. Indeed, India will need the protection of
such an alliance as it grows in wealth and power, since even a peaceful
rise will cause it to be seen by the US as a peer competitor to be cut
down.
Today, India’s refusal to join hands with its natural civilisational allies is
a source of much relief and glee in the West, since India is unknowingly
playing along in their geostrategic game of “divide and rule”. India
needs to switch sides, and fast. Not just India but all the non-Western
civilisations will immediately start to regain the control over their
destiny that they have not had for the last three centuries.
Indeed, the East now has the opportunity to play the “divide and rule”
game against the West! As we discussed before, there is already a
schism developing between the US and Europe, and it is likely to
78
deepen as life gets harder for Europeans following the rupture of ties
with Russia that has been forced on them by the US. If India throws its
considerable heft behind Russia and China, it could provide Europe the
critical impetus to break with the US and engage with this compellingly
large Eastern bloc that represents more than a third of humanity.
Europe should be able to see the benefits of a truly multipolar world
order as opposed to the current pecking order where Europe’s interests
are sacrificed if they conflict with those of the US. If Europe asserts its
independence and begins to re-engage with Asia, the Stratfor nightmare
of a Eurasian peer competitor to the US will become reality, and the
Global South will be free.
A cartoon highlighting the sacrifices that Europe is being forced to make to serve the
interests of the US
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India’s switch can be the decisive moment that ends the US-dominated
unipolar world, and ushers in a truly multipolar world governed by
International Law.
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5.4.4 The Parable Of The Indian Crab
A fisherman had a basket of live crabs displayed in
the market. A curious customer asked him why he
didn’t cover the basket to keep the crabs from
escaping. He answered with a laugh that they were
Indian crabs. If one ever tried to climb up the side
of the basket to escape, the others could be
trusted to pull it back down.
The tendency to pull down the most successful of their own kind is a
trait that Indians self-disparagingly acknowledge.
There are over a hundred crabs belonging to the Global South trapped
in the basket of the current world order. (The Ukraine conflict has
revealed that European crabs too might be in the same basket with no
more hope of freedom than the others!) China, the biggest crab of all, is
climbing up the side of the basket and is about to escape. The Chinese
crab is so big that when it climbs over the top, the entire basket is going
to tip over, allowing all the other crabs to flee.
India should not fear the escape of China from the fisherman’s basket,
because it too will be free once the basket tips over. The fisherman
expects India to be a good Indian crab and pull China back down, but it
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is very important that India fight its innate tendency and help the
Chinese crab over the top instead.
5.4.5 From Guns To Butter
An alliance with China can immediately settle
both of India’s
longstanding and vexatious border disputes, not just the dispute with
China itself. India will gain much-needed breathing space to grow its
economy instead.
India has already shown in past negotiations with Pakistan that it is
willing to accept the Line of Control (LOC) as the international border
between the two countries. India is opposing China’s Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) on the grounds that part of it (the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor or CPEC) passes through “disputed” territory in
Kashmir. So this is a deal waiting to be made. Formalise the LOC as the
international border, and India drops its objections to the CPEC.
As a side-benefit to rapprochement with China, India’s problems with
Pakistan can also be solved. China has enormous influence over
Pakistani policy. A Pax Sinica will tame the Pakistani threat to India
because China does not want any conflict to disrupt the trade network it
is putting in place. The transformation in India-Pakistan relations will be
unrecognisable and unprecedented.
Going even further, India should recognise its own historical part in the
Old Silk Road, and use the BRI to re-establish itself as an important link
between China and Rome (or in today’s terms, Europe). India should
offer to connect its Golden Quadrilateral transport network to the BRI
through the Karakoram Highway and the BCIM Corridor, to provide
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China a much more reliable path to the Indian Ocean through a choice
of 13 Indian ports, and to gain an overland access route to Europe. The
synergy between the two Asian giants will benefit both of them
immensely. Not only that, India would be taking a leaf out of China’s
own playbook. By enmeshing itself inextricably into China’s economy,
India will effectively be tying China’s hands against future hostility. Just
as Western countries are finding that the entanglement of their
economies and supply chains with China is preventing them from taking
any hard steps against China, China could one day find itself in the same
position, if India plays its cards right.
With a clear understanding of its civilisational destiny, India can bargain
with China for its piece of the pie. Freed from the constant need to
watch over contested land borders, and in return for India’s support for
China in all of China’s theatres of conflict with the West, India must
negotiate an acknowledgement of its pre-eminence in the Indian Ocean
region. Each civilisation then gets back what belongs to it. Rather than
view China’s “necklace of pearls” as a threat, India should ask to
become its pendant, securing the entire Indian Ocean region on behalf
of the Eastern civilisations.
We could be looking at a new era of peace, stability, infrastructure
development and explosive economic growth in South Asia once India
and China join hands.
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5.4.6 Beyond The Immediate Future – Jostling Within The
Fold
Many more wrinkles will appear as events unfold.
In the future, after the Western threat has been beaten back and Asia
emerges out of the shadow of Western dominance, there will be some
inevitable jostling for influence between the civilisations of the East.
Civilisations exist in a continuous state of “co-opetition”, and so the
allies of today could become the rivals of tomorrow.
Apart from the Indic civilisation of South and South-east Asia, and the
Sinic and its closely related civilisations of East and North-east Asia,
there is also the Turkic civilisation of North-west Asia and the Persian
civilisation of South-west Asia.
Of these, the Sinic civilisation looks set to be the most dominant
because of its combined population and wealth, but the others have
their own unique civilisational identity that will not be co-opted by the
Sinic civilisation, no matter how rich and powerful it becomes.
India needs to develop a Bismarckian plan not just for a marriage of
convenience with China in the immediate future, but also for a velvet
divorce after a generation or so.
Strength respects strength. If India is to gain China’s genuine respect
as opposed to being valued merely for its contribution to the alliance, it
first needs to grow its own strength. Both hard and soft power depend
on economic growth, and India needs to spend the next few decades of
peace with China building up its economy. That’s another leaf from
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China’s own playbook, when the country acted deferential towards the
West and gained valuable time to grow its strength.
As the flagship nation-state of the Indic civilisation, India has to raise
the civilisation’s brand value so that other nation-states within the
subcontinent and ASEAN are inspired to identify as Indic. This is where
a shared cultural identity helps to win friends and influence people. To
take some obvious examples, Thailand is Buddhist, Indonesia is Muslim,
and the Philippines is Christian. However, all of them have Indic roots,
and can be drawn into affinity with a strong and prosperous India.
Even Pakistan can potentially be weaned away from China using soft
civilisational power, given time and diplomatic wisdom. As a further
example of the superiority of civilisational thinking over ideology,
treating Urdu as the shared Indic language that it is, instead of viewing
it as alien, helps to exploit common ground and build bridges.
All this may superficially resemble the Hindutva ideology’s concept of
“Akhand Bharat” (undivided India), but there is a crucial difference.
The affinity being sought between nation-states is on the basis of a
civilisational identity that unifies, not a politico-religious identity
that isolates and divides. If India wishes to one day gather a dozen Indic
nations, not just Hindu Nepal, under its own tent and break away from
China’s dominance, it will need to emphasise the inclusionary rather
than the exclusionary aspects of its civilisation.
But that is a struggle for another day.
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5.5 The Risks Of Inaction
India’s current antagonistic stance towards China carries growing risk.
China is a rapidly growing power that shows no signs of slowing down,
regardless of the relentless propaganda from the West predicting “the
coming collapse of China”. That collapse has been predicted to happen
“any time now” for the last two decades but has been belied again and
again. It is a risky strategy for a smaller and weaker neighbour to
believe such Western propaganda. As time goes by and China gets even
stronger, India’s already limited options will become even bleaker.
India is sleepwalking into a defence and foreign policy nightmare
with its current stance. This is not just foolish but completely
avoidable.
China appears to have understood both the nature of the threat from the
West, and the need for India and China to be united against it. India has
not yet woken up.
Time is of the essence, and India can strike a good bargain right now at
a time when China is facing a concerted, multi-pronged attack from the
West and could use its support. Once China triumphs over the West, or
after its power crosses a certain threshold, it will no longer care about
India’s support, and India will have no bargaining power left.
There is no explanation for India’s current anti-China and pro-Western
foreign policy except an ignorance of civilisational identity and history,
and the related inability to think in civilisational terms, which renders
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both its leaders and its citizens vulnerable to superficial narratives that
suit the ends of other powers.
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PART 6 — SUMMARY AND CALL TO ACTION
The Indian ship of state is rudderless and adrift, its potential and
promise perpetually belied. It needs to find its bearings and follow a
determined course to reach its destiny.
A civilisational narrative is imperative to be able to see what is not
apparent either from a contextless reading of history, or through the
lens of self-serving political ideologies.
Ignorance of India’s civilisational identity has set Indian against
Indian
internally,
and
Asian
against
Asian
externally.
This
ignorance is costing India nothing less than the attainment of its
civilisational destiny.
In the near term, a polarised society and a shortsighted view of China as
an enemy lead to nothing but growing internal strife and the prospect of
humiliating external setbacks.
Internal unity is the essential prerequisite for India to achieve its
destiny. All Indians need to be united by a common civilisational
identity, not divided by sectarian ideological identities.
Indians must also see that a diabolical game of “divide and rule” is
being played right now, under which they have been led to think of
China as their enemy and of the West as their ally and benefactor. This
brainwashing is pervasive and frightening in its extent. In actual fact,
the strategic adversary of both India and China is the US-led West,
which fundamentally acts to retain its global primacy, maintain an
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inequitable
pecking
order,
and
thereby
deny
them
both
their
civilisational destiny.
India must switch sides post-haste so that the civilisations of the East
can jointly wrest back control of their destiny and re-establish a
multipolar world order.
India must thereafter grow its strength and bide its time until it can
establish its own sphere of influence, and the Indic civilisation can
finally find its place in the sun.
When will Indians learn the lessons of their civilisation’s history and do
themselves the greatest favour at this critical juncture?
Ganesh C Prasad, 2022
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