Voss-Lecture

Die Frithjof Voss-Stiftung hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die Geographie in Wissenschaft und Forschung sowie als Schulfach zu fördern und damit ihre anwendungsbezogene Bedeutung in der Öffentlichkeit zu stärken. Dafür verleiht sie alle zwei Jahre zwei Wissenschaftspreise und einen Innovationspreis für Schulgeographie sowie alle vier Jahre alternierend den Internationalen Wissenschaftspreis der Deutschen Geographie und den Forschungspreis Geographie und Geschichte.

Reimagining India in a Changing Global Order

The world is at an inflection point. After transiting from bipolarity to unipolarity in the closing decade of the last century, the world has drifted towards multipolarity. In an era of rapidly shifting balance of power, the US, China and the EU are significant poles, but Russia, Japan and India are playing a crucial role in shaping the emerging world order. This is an extraordinary moment for India to secure a strong power position as it navigates a geopolitical landscape in flux. It is well recognized now that China and India will be indispensable powers – whether they rise democratically and respect human rights or not. More recently, some Western powers (governments) are approaching global issues largely from market and realpolitik perspectives and human rights issues are either ignored or get a decorative coverage.

India has great potential advantages and assets to achieve a major power status considering many dimensions such as ancient and medieval cultural legacy and values; roots in democracy; scientific achievements; ICT and digitalization leader; rich resource base; skilled-ICT manpower and geostrategic location. India’s post-independent political, governance and justice institutional structure is sound and congruent with modern nation states. India decidedly has lead on latter grounds when compared with dictatorial and autocratic regimes vying for world power like China and Russia. Recent bilateral and multi-lateral military, economic, strategic alliances of big industrialized countries with India partly supports this premise.

Notwithstanding significant social, economic and technological achievements in post-independence India, after an era of darkness of the British empire, India has serious national level caveats and deficiencies to become a hard power. Its hard power in comparison to its soft power is relatively inadequate. India’s GDP is almost one-sixth of China, with same population size, despite being at par until the early 90s. Poverty ratio is of course getting lower, still close to 200 million people live in multidimensional poverty. As regards per capita income, India is not even included in first hundred countries. Regional and social disparities along with income inequalities are huge and even critical. Many global and national agencies and institutions rank India poorly on parameters like ease of doing business, fair elections, economic and social infrastructure. Investment in crucial human development indicators like quality education and health is not adequate for inclusive development. More lately, human rights, freedom of press and speech and secularism credentials of India are being compromised and challenged. Before India stands among the powerful nations, such internal contradictions and illusionary claims of an emerging global power need to be demystified and ameliorated. Gurcharan Das, a scholar and political commentator, asserts that “India has always had a weak state and a strong society, which means that achieving something better will be an uphill struggle”.

Reimagining India is the idea of unlocking the potential of Asia’s next super power.

This includes envisioning a better version of the country, a way of looking at its challenges and opportunities with new perspective and solutions. It is about asking hard questions, challenging the status quo, and taking the initiative to create a new India that embraces the best of its past and embraces the possibilities of its future. Reimagining India can also refer to initiatives that foster collaboration, innovation, and economic growth in order to create a more sustainable and equitable India for all. It also emphasizes to remove regional disparities by following the models of states that stand high on human development indicators.

Second, for reimagining India as a super power globally or regionally, the speaker takes a soft power approach as conceptualized by Joseph S. Nye, Jr. in late 80s. In short, it is the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion. It can be achieved through diplomacy, cultural influence, development assistance, persuasion and promoting and advocating human rights, international law, sustainable development and climate change issues. The soft power approach is in tune with historical and present potentialities and advantages that India possesses. Among many soft power dimensions, the speaker has chosen those that matter most and are based on our inherent and present capacities and capabilities. These include:

1. Assuring India’s secular and inclusive character for promotion of business and tourism

2. Promoting cultural and spiritual heritage through cultural diplomacy.

3. Strengthening and expanding India’s global ICT and digitalizing advantage through artificial intelligence, quantum compounding, robotics, crypto technologies and human genome projects in this transformative era.

4. Raising financial investments in a big way in R&D. for strengthening science and ICT, fundamental research and innovations to promote knowledge economy.

5. Strengthening our foreign policy and diplomacy based on non-alignment principles and peaceful humanitarian grounds (human rights, freedom of press and speech and secularism.

6. Promoting the ideas and approaches of our past political thinkers, peace makers, statesmen and spiritual philosophers.

Prof. Dr. Surinder Aggarwal is the recipient of the 2021 Internationaler Wissenschaftspreis der Deutschen Geographie. He is distinguished UGC Emeritus Fellow at Kurukshetra University, visiting faculty at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and associated with the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi as ICSSR National Fellow.

Surinder Aggarwal received MA, M.S and Ph. D. education from Panjab University, the University of Akron and Kent State University, USA respectively. Before joining the University of Delhi in 1985 as Associate Professor of Geography, Surinder Aggarwal taught at the University of Akron, Kent State University, Bowling Green State University, USA and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He Chaired the Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi and was Faculty Advisor, Delhi School of Economics. Surinder Aggarwal has been deeply involved with Delhi University administration in various capacities as Provost, Member of the Academic Council, University Court and Chairman of World University Health Services.