Monthly Archives: December 2023

2024 Elections, international affairs, world order, Writing

2024: The year that changed democracy?

The Indian general election will go beyond reaffirming the power of democracy; it could make 2024 the year that took democracy home to the people of the world.

Over 50 nations will hold elections in 2024, causing an unprecedented churn in political mandates, governing institutions, and international affairs. No continent will be exempt.

Globally, national progress is being assessed feverishly and people’s voices are coalescing into verdicts. Indeed, 2024 will be consequential for democracy and the world order.

This is the first time in the digital age that major democracies will go to polls in the same year. The key electoral attributes of individual participation, mass mobilisation, political messaging and outreach will soon assume centre stage. But so will the inescapable elements that pervert democratic processes—online misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. If the United States (US) election of 2016, with its deluge of fake news, was a watershed event, it may pale in comparison to what 2024 portends.

Globally, national progress is being assessed feverishly and people’s voices are coalescing into verdicts.

Among the most significant and keenly watched elections will be India’s. The world’s largest democracy—and arguably the world’s longest-running pluralistic society, given that the ancient doctrine of “dharma” was, in a sense, India’s original unwritten Constitution—will deliver a fresh mandate in the era of ChatGPT, deepfakes, and vlogs.

What is unique about the Indian general election is, quite simply, that it involves India. The country is one of the fastest-growing economies. It has completed a remarkably successful tenure as president of the G20. It is the single most development-obsessed geography, with its vision of inclusive development encompassing all of the Global South. One of India’s first interventions as G20 president, for instance, was to host the ‘Voice of the Global South Summit’, where it engaged with 125 other developing nations to understand their concerns and to shape its priorities at the G20 accordingly.

India is also one of the world’s most advanced digital societies. It has consolidated its position as a global tech-enabled services hub; its world-class model of digital public infrastructure (DPI) is being adopted and adapted by advanced and developing countries alike; and it is the highest-ranked country internationally in terms of AI skill penetration and talent concentration.

The key electoral attributes of individual participation, mass mobilisation, political messaging and outreach will soon assume centre stage.

The upcoming election will witness the interplay of India’s democratic urges, developmental aspirations, and technological sophistication.

During its G20 presidency, India rightly laid claim to being the “mother of democracy”, and re-emphasised democratic principles as an Eastern virtue. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out at the G20 Parliamentary Speakers’ Summit, millennia-old Indian scriptures mention the prevalence of assemblies, open debates, and democratic deliberations, “where collective decisions were made for the betterment of society”. This democratic concern for the greater good underpins the civilisational attribute of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (One Earth, One Family, One Future) that has guided India’s internal and external engagements.

India’s economic prowess, digital achievements, and diplomatic capabilities, coupled with its democratic credentials, make it the North Star of the Global South. Developing nations engaged in political and socio-cultural soul-searching need no longer choose between an unrelatable West and an authoritarian China. An Indian approach and example, more attuned to the needs of developing and emerging economies, is at hand.

It is the single most development-obsessed geography, with its vision of inclusive development encompassing all of the Global South.

The great Indian election: Delivery versus narratives

Today, India is on the verge of becoming a US$ 5-trillion economy. The International Monetary Fund says India could cross this milestone in 2026-27. Since the mid-2010s, the country’s GDP per capita has risen swiftly—from around US$ 1,600 per capita in 2014 to over US$ 2,612 today. Yet, the Indian leadership has advocated for a shift from a “GDP-centric worldview to a human-centric one”, and a liberal, people-focused economic vision that ensures personal growth and well-being.

This vision is in evidence across India. Over 99.9 percent of Indian adults have an Aadhaar digital identity today, transforming their ability to access public services. The country operates the world’s largest financial inclusion programme, serving over 500 million individuals, with 55.5 percent of these bank accounts belonging to women. And 30 million Indians make online financial transactions every day using the homegrown Unified Payments Interface and galvanising the global digital economy.

As the election of 2024 nears, other changes are palpable as well. Between 2006 and 2021, India lifted 415 million people out of poverty. A long-standing Indian focus on women-led development has reaped dividends: women now occupy 36 percent of senior and leadership positions at mid-sized businesses in India, surpassing the global average by 4 percent. Since 2013, the infant mortality rate has dropped from 39.082 to 26.619, and maternal mortality from 167 (per 100,000 live births) to 103. The country’s food grain production touched a record 315.7 million tonnes in 2021-22, bolstering food security.

The country operates the world’s largest financial inclusion programme, serving over 500 million individuals, with 55.5 percent of these bank accounts belonging to women.

These are inspiring stories. These are the reports of progress Indian citizens would like to wake up to every morning. Yet global media narratives mislead and distort and deliberately draw attention to cleavages and fault lines that any multicultural society, anywhere in the world, has to manage. A cursory look at leading Western media outlets—print, television, and digital—shows that they have chosen to position themselves as the ‘Opposition’ to Prime Minister Modi in these coming elections.

In 2019, Time magazine branded Prime Minister Modi as “India’s divider-in-chief” and wondered—misguidedly, as it turned out—if “the world’s largest democracy [could] ensure another five years of a Modi government”. The New York Times proclaims shrilly that “Since Mr. Modi took power in 2014, India’s once-proud claim to being a free democratic society has collapsed on many fronts”. The Washington Post believes that India appears to be “sliding into authoritarianism”. And the BBC—citing an Oxfam report—laments that the “richest 1% own 40.5% of India’s wealth”, failing to note that even as India creates wealth at the top it spurs mobility at the bottom, and is thus intrinsically different from the nature of European oligarchy.

PM Modi has been identified as one of the world’s most tech-savvy leaders. His government is using technology to deliver benefits to citizens and to communicate its goals at a population scale. There are thus two competing forces at work—on the one hand, the use of digital platforms by the global media to position itself as the anti-Modi coalition; and on the other hand, the use of technology by the Indian leadership to deliver transformational growth and attract people to their proposition.

There are thus two competing forces at work—on the one hand, the use of digital platforms by the global media to position itself as the anti-Modi coalition.

The Indian election will help us decisively evaluate the influence of the global media on domestic affairs, and answer two central questions. Can media narratives trump delivery, or will good governance and last-mile success trump narratives? And would we have been guilty of overhyping the role of the media if, in the end, lived experience and on-ground delivery win?

South rising: Why Indian democracy matters 

Democracy is not a Western endowment and need not have a Western texture and tonality. Indeed, democracy for India is—as it is for much of the Global South—about promoting inclusive growth, infrastructure investments, climate action, women-led development, the mass adoption of environment-friendly lifestyles, and the establishment of DPI that universalises public service delivery, among other interventions. These are the building blocks of equity, without which there is no meaningful democracy. India has delivered in each of these areas. Its advocacy of women-led development at the G20 was accompanied by the passage of a landmark bill that reserves one-third of the seats in the lower house of the Indian parliament and state legislative assemblies for women. It is working on multiple fronts to meet its pledge of achieving net zero by 2070; its pathbreaking LiFE (lifestyle for environment) movement is gaining traction worldwide; and a broad spectrum of nations are partnering with India to build their DPI.

The country has co-opted big tech platforms as part of its growth story and upheld Indian laws while rebuffing sometimes anarchist Southern Californian ideas about freedom of expression.

India also recognises that for the deeply heterogeneous societies of the developing world, online safety is far more important than evangelical and absolutist free speech. Even as American platforms strive to homogenise the global understanding of free speech, India has wisely defended its Constitutional scheme of “reasonable restrictions”. The country has co-opted big tech platforms as part of its growth story and upheld Indian laws while rebuffing sometimes anarchist Southern Californian ideas about freedom of expression.

Collectively, these characteristics make democratic India a lighthouse for countries of the rising South. Since the pioneering ‘Voice of the Global South Summit’ at the outset of its G20 presidency in January 2023, all the way to the New Delhi Leaders’ Summit in September 2023, India has been hailed as the legitimate spokesperson of the Global South. At such a juncture, the Indian general election—the biggest democratic exercise on the planet—will go beyond reaffirming the power of democracy; it could make 2024 the year that took democracy home to the people of the world.

Source : ORF Website

Standard
Global South, India, Writing

How India can become the bank for the Global South

Today, India is poised at the moment and GDP that China was in in 2007. Does it have the same gumption?

In 2007, China’s GDP was about $3.6 trillion. Today, India’s GDP is $3.7 trillion — perhaps more. This parallel is crucial to understanding the big moment that Indian diplomacy, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is recognising. A moment, if supported by India’s people, its companies and the state apparatus, will reshape the global order. An appreciation of this moment and putting its lessons into concrete actions is the big legacy of 2023 as India concludes a transformational diplomatic year — the year of its G20 stewardship.

Look back at history. In 2007, China was not yet the geoeconomic behemoth it is now. But with a GDP lower than India’s today, it became the go-to nation during the global financial crisis a year later. Every nation sought to deepen relations with Beijing, and to create a special place in their diplomacy for the People’s Republic. Its leaders were the toast of Davos and at business salons. China provided institutional and geoeconomic responses — a development bank, a cross-continental lending programme that galvanised infrastructure accretion without the legacy constraints of Western agencies, and a series of economic projects that eventually coalesced into the Belt and Road Initiative.

It is true that some of these have run into trouble. Nevertheless, the fact is China used its economic promise in 2008 to gain oversized economic and political influence that continues to stand it in good stead. It did this by offering itself as a vital additionality to the global order. At a time when the US was struggling to recover from the financial crisis and the Eurozone was tearing itself apart, it was China that promised stability and economic dynamism. The world wanted and needed an additional engine of growth and an additional source of investment. And so it also welcomed an additional centre of geopolitical power.

India is poised at a similar moment and with a similar GDP. Does it have the same gumption? As we enter 2024, this is the framework within which Indians must understand their place in the world today. The recent past teaches us that an India-sized economy of about $4 trillion can exert a huge influence. With vision and skilful diplomacy, it can carve a space for itself alongside economies that are four or five times large, like the United States, the European Union and China.

This is a real Indian opportunity in 2024, as Europe stagnates, the US turns inward and China deals with internal problems and its share of the global economy that is shrinking in nominal terms. The agenda for India’s next government must simply be this: Demonstrate India’s potential, and the additionality that it can provide for global growth, institutions, and security.

Additionality does not require extraordinariness. After all, China’s growth in recent years has not been extraordinary. But it had momentum, and that is what India has today. It has its own trajectory and the motive force, one better suited to a green and digital future. If China had mass manufacturing, the growth engine of the 2010s, India has its platform economy, the dynamo of the 2020s.

But additionality must have attributes. What Beijing offered 15 years ago was not an inchoate promise. There was a system, a schema, to the China proposition. This roadmap excited China’s partners. An entire future-focused architecture served as the loudest possible announcement that a $4-trillion economy would punch with the weight of a $15-trillion one.

Also, a new cooperation architecture needs to be put in place because India, in a very short while, will be spending serious money globally. The private sector is mobilising to support connectivity, supply chains, and resource resilience projects across the world. But public development finance will also grow alongside, and indeed, faster than India’s economy.

This is the substance behind India’s additionality. Even if we assume India grows at only 10 per cent a year in current dollars, below its recent benchmark, it will be a major new source of development finance. If India slowly but steadily raises its development cooperation budget to less than 0.5 per cent of its GDP by 2030, it will still have put around $70 billion into the global system. India is already the voice of the Global South; it will become the bank of the Global South.

This finance needs to be undergirded by India’s unique proposition, its own roadmap, and its own offering to the world. It urgently needs an outward-focused development finance corporation that can catalyse projects globally. It needs a bank, its own version of the China Development Bank, that will focus on global corporate needs beyond just trade finance. And it needs an imagery that is understood by others.

India’s government has shown this ambition at home. The prime minister’s Gati Shakti initiative links disparate infrastructure projects with a common vision. Similarly, we need an external engagement approach. Together with like-minded partners, India needs maps plotting priority infrastructure, connectivity routes, business and trading hubs and developmental projects. It needs to do this boldly and determinedly, identifying vital regions and sectors where it will resolutely plant the Tricolour. 2024 is the year for inking a world map described by India’s vision for its role in the world.

Source : Indian Express, December 13, 2023

Standard
climate change, COP28, Global South, international affairs, Writing

Controversies aside, COP28 is a real chance to put Global South at centre

As the world reels from the impact of the hottest year on record in 2023, the attention of the global community turns to COP28 for solutions to the climate challenge. While the previous decades of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations have failed to deliver effective and equitable climate action, this year’s COP in the UAE is a unique opportunity to move from empty promises to real action.

Real action on climate requires pragmatism. It would centre the specific needs of energy-poor countries in the Global South. It would recognise that the energy transition for much of the world is just that: a transition, in which legacy fuels are both rendered more efficient and used to finance the scale-up of renewables. Sermonising western COP presidencies have rarely understood the basic needs of the developing world.

While COP28 might have attracted concern for naming a president-designate who also runs a large fossil fuel company, the fact is that this is cause for optimism. Dr Sultan Al  Jaber does indeed run Abu Dhabi’s national oil company — but he also founded the renewable energy giant Masdar, which pioneered efforts to spread green capital across multiple countries and geographies. A pragmatic climate solution for the Global South would similarly prioritise the spread of enterprise, of solutions, and of technology.

Dr Al Jaber and COP28 have a hard task ahead of them. Estimates indicate that nearly all developed nations, with only two exceptions, are significantly off-course in meeting their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This stark deviation stands as the primary obstacle preventing the realisation of the Paris Climate Goals. Those most culpable for the climate crisis persist in evading their responsibilities. Responsibility for climate finance is even more important. Developing economies will require around $2 trillion annually to meet emission targets and cope with the impact of climate change. In stark contrast, the world has fixated on bickering over a meagre $100 billion annual target for financing from the developed world. We are currently fighting over bicycles when what is required is a Mercedes.

The UAE COP is well placed to establish a new pathway that places the Global South at the centre. It also comes at a time when there is already momentum around Global South led multilateral cooperation. In particular, the Indian G20 Presidency has already demonstrated the ability to build consensus around such a climate agenda. Notably, the inclusion of the Green Development Pact in the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration creates a cohesive narrative around climate action as a catalyst for sustainable and inclusive growth. India has highlighted a few priority action areas which must now be taken forward in the coming year, and COP28 is an ideal starting point.

First, reducing cost of green capital in the developing world is crucial, as these can be nearly seven times higher than in OECD countries. The IMF estimates that emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) have accounted for 80% of global growth since 2008. However, only 25% of climate finance has flowed to these geographies. By design, the current international financial architecture prevents growth from being green. It is imperative to create a global inventory of green projects with a guarantee that each project can access capital at a similar cost. This guarantee can be facilitated by a transnational institution similar to the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). Response to a planetary crisis must not be compromised by perceived political risks.


Second, COP28 must look to institutionalise climate action as an explicit mandate for Multilateral Development Banks, aligning with the MDB reform agenda put forward during the Indian G20 Presidency. The recently expanded BRICS grouping can also be utilised to further the reform agenda. The newer capital-rich members of the grouping should be galvanised to create a line of funds for Green Transitions within the New Development Bank. This can serve as a boutique model which can increase pressure on West-controlled institutions to accelerate their efforts.

Third, progress must be made on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) with a focus on identifying concrete instruments to meet the distinct adaptation finance needs of different regions, particularly for the most vulnerable communities. Furthermore, the GGA should serve as a platform to underscore the repercussions of climate change on health and gender, identifying integrated strategies to tackle these interconnected crises. The Loss and Damage Fund must also be operationalised with concrete financing commitment from the developed world.

Fourth, innovation in climate technologies in the Global South must be encouraged. In particular, green startups should be supported by creating effective knowledge sharing mechanism within the UNFCCC and establishing a social impact fund to support promising green projects.

Finally, it is crucial to diversify and make green technology value chains accessible to all. Presently, China holds disproportionate control over the raw materials and technologies vital for green energy. It is critical to break free from this monopoly and ensure that Beijing does not wield a veto over our green future. 

Source : Times of India, December 3, 2023

Standard