Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 128

India’s Search for Economic Prosperity and Global Power
since the 1990s, and the third part evaluates
India’s future prospects. As India
grows in economic stature on the world
stage, she suggests that India simultaneously,
and paradoxically, sees itself
as a “great civilization with much to
offer the world” while often seeking to
“remain aloof of world entanglements”
(65). This remains the basis of India’s
foreign policy thinking as it attempts
to transition from a “balancing” to a
“leading” power under the Modi government;
a process she suggests that is
a work in progress and will take time.
While the rise of India’s global
power can be seen in various domains,
Ayres points out that India has traditionally
been a cautious actor on the
world stage, though the preference for
caution has begun to weaken in recent
times. Ayres expects India to retain
some of its habitual caution even as it attempts
to become a leading power, due
to constraints imposed by geopolitics—
particularly China’s and Pakistan’s strategies,
India’s own inheritance of nonalignment
and nonintervention, and
the contentious nature of its domestic
politics, which she suggests constraints
the country’s international diplomacy.
An element of suspicion of foreign involvement
in India’s affairs, which was
at its height during Indira Gandhi’s
time in office in the 1970s, continues to
be evident, and she cites examples such
as the Foreign Contribution Regulatory
Act in this regard.
The final section focuses on India’s
future trajectory along two lines—
India’s attempts to build alternative
institutions at the international level
that give it greater voice and changes
in the Indian economy aimed at higher
growth. Given the constraints that it has
faced in gaining a greater role in established
multilateral institutions, Ayres
suggests that India has actively been
working to develop alternative institutions
with other BRICS countries, Indian
Ocean countries, as well as in Asia
as part of its “Look East” policy. Interestingly,
and perhaps unconventionally,
Ayres discusses India’s dominance in
the International Cricket Council as an
example of how a powerful India might
act in the future.
Ayres recognizes that India’s
future prospects are predicated on
continued economic growth. While
identifying several current constraints
to continued economic progress, she
seems to be optimistic regarding India’s
efforts to remove some of these constraints,
such as initiatives to make the
manufacturing sector more competitive.
The book concludes with a variety
of specific recommendations for how
the United States should work with a
rising India such as “approach India as
a joint venture partner, not an ally in
waiting” (216), “bring India into economic
organizations” (220), and “develop
stronger bilateral trade ties” (221).
In the final analysis, “India, as a major
rising power of Asia, should be better
understood and better appreciated on
its own terms—as a competitiveness issue
for U.S. economic and business interests,
and as a matter of the demands
of the new global diplomacy in which
all of Asia plays a much more pivotal
role” (242).
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