It was the kind of flex one might expect from a budding superpower. Early in March, India sent its two aircraft carriers, the INS Vikramaditya and the INS Vikrant, out to conduct exercises in the Arabian Sea. India is one of 12 countries with an aircraft carrier, and one of just six with more than one. The move came after destroyers from the Indian Navy had played a key role in rescuing crewmembers from a cargo ship that had been attacked by Houthi terrorists. China’s People’s Liberation Army called the rescue missions “publicity stunts”.
But India’s president, Droupadi Murmu – whose role in the Indian government is largely symbolic – implied that China and the world should expect more of the same, stating that, “With India emerging as a global power, the need for supporting the Indian Navy through efficient logistic management using the most advanced technology cannot be overemphasized, especially during these times of geopolitical churning.”
Power list: The 10 criteria by which to measure a moral superpower, one dedicated not to conquering or dominating other countries but to safeguarding freedom and enabling prosperity for all nations. (Source of right image: Shutterstock)
Part One of our series on India’s transformation into a potential global superpower focused on the first five of ten critical traits required of any candidate nation. The series’ thesis is that India is not just an impressive emerging economy, nor merely a conventional rising power, but a nation that could become a moral superpower, capable of projecting authority in a way that safeguards freedom and builds prosperity. This is the role that the United States has fulfilled for the last eight decades, but seems increasingly incapable of sustaining.
Part Two will examine the remaining five traits, starting with perhaps the most obvious and important one.
Six: A Large, Technologically-Advanced Military
With more than 1.2 million active-service troops and nearly 1 million reserves, India has the world’s second largest military, after China, and the largest volunteer army in the world. It has the third-largest defense budget, and – according to recent Global Firepower rankings – the fourth most powerful military overall. India trails the U.S. in military technology, as all countries do, but is rapidly modernizing.
India is also one of nine nations with nuclear weapons. With the second-smallest stockpile of warheads, however, it is trailing everyone but Israel. As befits a would-be moral superpower, India has been a responsible steward of such weapons and knows they are not to be used, except in the most extreme self-defence circumstances. It has been a vocal proponent of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, though it hasn’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, almost certainly because Pakistan – which has a slightly larger arsenal – hasn’t either. India has fought several wars and numerous skirmishes with Pakistan, defeating the smaller country virtually every time. But the presence of hostile, nuclear-equipped neighbours, including China, puts India in the position of needing an immense and tough military to maintain superiority over Pakistan and achieve at least a minimal level of deterrence vis-a-vis China.
India is not shy about advertising its military preparedness and rapidly modernizing defence technology. Its defence ministry’s webpage highlights some of the cutting-edge work being done including, for example, its Missiles and Strategic Systems Cluster comprising five major laboratories and research centres working on, among other technologies, solid-liquid-ramjet-scramjet-propulsion for next-generation supersonic fighter jets. The army, working with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is developing software that uses artificial intelligence to analyze military data, make decisions and execute operations.
India has the world’s fourth-largest air force, and just this month the government approved a plan to build fifth-generation fighter jets known as Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) for the air force and navy. The aircraft have already been designed and are (perhaps optimistically) slated to roll out of the assembly plant in three-and-a-half years. They will have stealth technology to avoid detection by enemy radar and allow India to become just the fourth country in the world, after the U.S., China and, arguably, Russia, to have developed a fifth-generation fighter. The fact it is being developed and built in India rather than purchased from the U.S. is testament to India’s technological advancement – as long as the new design proves capable of actual flight.
As mentioned, India has two aircraft carriers — the same number as China — and is building a third, part of both countries’ scramble to expand their naval capabilities amidst their growing rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region. Last summer India conducted a “mega exercise” in the Arabian Sea with the two carriers, 35 combat jets and multiple warships including submarines. Navy Spokesperson Commander Vivek Madhwal called it “a significant milestone in the Indian Navy’s pursuit of enhancing maritime security and power-projection in the Indian Ocean, and beyond.”
Aircraft carriers are critical for responding to “emerging threats” and safeguarding Indian interests around the world, Madhwal said, adding “they provide our friends with an assurance that the Indian Navy is capable and ready to support our ‘collective’ security needs in the region.” Collective security – the real kind, such as was established and has been practised by NATO for 75 years under U.S. leadership – is one of the hallmarks of a moral superpower. This contrasts with countries that impose their will on lesser nations, as the Soviet Union did to Eastern Europe for 45 years, and as Russia now seeks to do in its arc of so-called “Near Abroad” countries.
India’s drone program is something it’s less eager to brag about. It put four advanced long-range drones purchased from Israel into service last year, and has bought 31 Predator drones from the U.S. as well, but its efforts to build its own have resulted in cost overruns and missed deadlines.
Its cyberwarfare capacity is also lacking. Globally, according to a report by the Observer Research Foundation in late 2022, cyberwarfare (as opposed to cybersecurity) is still in its infancy. “Of the 426 publicly known state-sponsored cyber-attacks, none have qualified at the level of armed conflict,” the organization said. But virtually everyone expects that to change before long. The International Institute for Strategic Studies places India in the third tier of nations – alongside the likes of Indonesia, Japan and Iran – and said it still lacks “a comprehensive, modern, and updated cyber warfare strategy.” India’s Defence Cyber Agency addresses only cybersecurity – protecting civil and military data – and not the use of technology to conduct digital warfare. The ORF’s conclusion: “India needs to adopt a more proactive approach and foresee the potential of cyber technologies in an active war scenario.”
Despite lagging in drone production and cybersecurity, India is beginning to project power on a wider regional basis while balancing delicate relations with other nuclear-armed powers. It has proved able to use the threat of its large and powerful military as a strategic deterrent, strengthening its security and navigating tense situations with hostile neighbours without sparking a larger conflagration. There is good reason to consider all this as further evidence of India’s potential as a global hegemon.
Rating: Strong, and getting stronger. Score: 8 out of 10.
Seven: Elections and Overall Freedom, Guaranteed in a Functional Constitution
Why must a moral superpower be free, hold elections and have a constitution? The only other options, centuries of history have taught, are autocracy, tyranny, chaos and/or anarchy. More to the point, it’s not in the world’s interests for a global or regional hegemon to be an oppressive, rapacious dictatorship.
The biggest democracy on Earth, India holds elections that are shockingly smooth and largely absent corruption. The contrast to the violence and chaos experienced by neighbours – Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and even the Maldives – “could not be more stark,” said The Economist in 2014, in an article entitled “Why India is so good at organizing elections.” The magazine called Indian elections “the biggest democratic exercise on Earth”; 912 million people were eligible to vote in the 2019 election and turnout was over 67 per cent. That rate is higher than Canada’s 2021 federal election turnout of 62.6 percent.
“Political parties may break limits on what they are supposed to spend, but elections in India are broadly clean, in the sense that results are not rigged,” said The Economist. “Nor does anybody see a serious threat of violence, even in areas afflicted by Maoist or other insurgents.” The Supreme Court of India recently moved to protect the system’s integrity by banning a new means of fundraising, known as electoral bonds, brought in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in 2017 that allowed individuals and companies to donate anonymously and without limits.
The country has a Westminster-style parliamentary system, with members of the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, elected by the legislatures of the states and territories, and 543 members of the lower house, the Lok Sabha, elected directly by voters to represent their constituencies. As in the UK and Canada, the leader of the winning party becomes Prime Minister. Unlike the UK and Canada, India also has a president, chosen by an electoral college comprising both houses of parliament and the legislatures of the states, though the office is largely symbolic.
“Indians love their democracy,” said Nallan Suresh, Distinguished Professor of Operations Management and Strategy at the University of Buffalo, New York, in an interview. “They’re very argumentative. Everyone has an opinion.” The election commission that administers voting, Suresh says, is an apolitical body that has developed “brilliant” electronic voting systems. “It is very strong because of the logistics involved in elections in a country of over one billion people.”
India’s Constitution is a wonder all its own. At 146,385 words in English, it’s the longest written constitution of any sovereign nation in the world – longer than the Victorian historical novel A Tale of Two Cities. Its preamble declares India to be a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic” and to “secure to all its citizens, justice – social, economic and political; liberty – of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; equality – of status and opportunity; and to promote among them all fraternity – assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation.” The objectives specified in the preamble cannot be amended. Work on the Constitution started in 1946, before independence; an “elected constituent assembly of nearly 300 members spent four years debating and defining every aspect of the Constitution,” write journalists Vishnu Padmanabhan and Pooja Dantewadia, “from the idea of India itself to the finer intricacies of federalism.”
And it has stood the test of time. In their 2009 book The Endurance of National Constitutions, American academics Zachary Elkins, Tom Ginsburg and James Melton show that, on average, constitutions persist only 17 years. India’s, by contrast, has so far lasted 73. Moreover, constitutions written in the post-colonial nations that gained independence after World War II have been especially delicate. “Pakistan, for example, has had three different Constitutions and large periods of rule without any Constitution,” the authors state. “Among the 12 Asian countries that gained independence soon after World War II and drafted Constitutions, only three Constitutions have survived – India’s, Taiwan’s and South Korea’s.”
Rating: Strong, but requiring vigilance. Score: 7 out of 10.
Eight: Widespread Religion
Although India is a nominally secular country – its Constitution says so – the population remains widely religious. A recent survey found 60 percent of Indians pray daily and 84 percent say religion is important in their daily lives.
It might seem odd, or unnecessary, to include religion as a requirement of a superpower, but it’s an important component because it brings moral standards to bear on a nation’s behaviour. America’s fundamental Christian values arguably helped it to become a superpower and shaped its worldview. Its efforts to rebuild Germany and Japan after the Second World War are difficult to comprehend without the Christian concepts of mercy and forgiveness. Similarly, its diplomatic treatment of African countries is hard to understand without the moral/religious concepts of guilt, shame and atonement regarding slavery and racial oppression.
Much the same can be found in India’s main religion. More than 70 percent of the population is Hindu although, as Suresh explains, “Hinduism is not a monolithic religion. It has many different sects.” Yet the values embodied in Hinduism generally resemble those conservative Christian values that made American society great. Even more than Christianity, there is a doctrine of nonviolence at Hinduism’s core, and tolerance for different beliefs even within the faith, that speaks to an essential respect for freedom. “There is a whole spectrum, a lot of diversity, not one rigid way or one set of beliefs,” says Suresh. “But if a person is Hindu, he will be peaceful and kind, and compassionate, emphasis on compassion. He stands for the right conduct, the right action. He would never loot stores in anger.”
“India is a tolerant, largely conservative country,” said a Times of India headline about national attitudes. As an example of how India balances a conservative ethos with a respect for freedom, Suresh points to the Kamasutra, a religious treatise on sexual relations: “[It’s] very permissive and very liberal. Hinduism has very liberal traditions when it comes to sex. But it should be mentioned that most Hindus are very orthodox, so when it comes to sexual relations and other things they are also very conservative.” Homosexuality will not result in a person being shunned or excommunicated, for example, though the vast majority of Hindus are conservative in their behaviour.
Another sign of India’s basic moral conservatism is the continued widespread opposition to gay marriage, a view that prevails not only among ordinary people but some of India’s institutions and elites. Last October the Supreme Court declined to make gay marriage legal, noting that it is not in the business of making law, only interpreting it. Modi’s government, in petitions to the court, had said same-sex marriage is not “comparable with the Indian family unit concept of a husband, a wife and children.” (And, despite significant opposition, India also retains the death penalty, which has been abolished in just about every Western country except the U.S.)
Rating: Devout, conservative. Score: 7 out of 10.
Nine: Protective Seas and Strong Borders
Protective seas form the most powerful natural defence against the threat of external violence or invasion, allowing a nation to develop relatively unmolested and giving a superpower a safe base from which to operate. The U.S. has benefitted immensely from the two great oceans on either side of the huge country; a previous superpower, Great Britain, is surrounded by oceans that protected it while it built its empire.
India is bracketed by the Arabian Sea in the west and the Bay of Bengal in the east, both part of the larger India Ocean. The waters prevent any immediate physical threat that might emerge from either of these directions as well as from the south. No major powers lie in any direction across the Indian Ocean, making a seaborne invasion all but unimaginable and greatly strengthening India’s security. Thanks to significant geographical barriers along its land borders, India would also be quite difficult to invade by land, except from Pakistan.
All of this is especially important given that India does have serious enemies to the north. It understands the need for strong northern borders and takes their defence seriously, as a superpower should. Its Border Security Force is the world’s largest. It was expanded from 25 battalions in 1965, after the second Indo-Pakistan war, to 192 battalions as of 2016-17, with a strength of 270,000 personnel including an air wing, navy, an artillery regiment and specialized units.
Continuing tensions between China and India along their disputed border in the Himalayan region have erupted into open fighting and deadly clashes with Chinese troops have occurred. These clashes once escalated into full-scale warfare – in 1962 – ending with India defeated decisively, but with both sides giving up territory.
Relations between India and China remain uneasy at best, particularly since the most recent border skirmishes in 2020-21. According to Daniel Markey and Andrew Scobell at the United States Institute of Peace, China wants to contain India in “a geostrategic South Asian box with the lid on tight… Chinese leaders perceive India as an over-sized middle power with great power pretentions” that’s an “impediment to China as the dominant Asian power.” Beijing has taken note, the writers say, of India’s growing economy, expanding military capability and position as the world’s most populous country. To deter China, they advise India to continue strengthening its border defences and to cultivate closer ties to Western nations, particularly the U.S.
Pakistan is another ongoing threat to India’s borders – the primary flashpoint being the disputed and divided region of Kashmir (of which China also controls a portion), where military clashes and insurgency have erupted numerous times. Because India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons, care must be taken to avoid escalation into a great conflagration. “The pressure exists always,” says Suresh. “The conflict won’t be solved soon. Part of Kashmir wants to remain part of India but part wants to be part of Pakistan.” Suresh notes that Pakistan’s economic problems and “dysfunctional” internal politics – with the military playing an outsized but ever-shifting political role in the ostensible democracy – create internal instabilities that exacerbate the risks to India. Suresh finds it remarkable that larger and far more diverse India is the more stable of the two countries.
Rating: Seemingly safe at present, but always on guard. Score: 6 out of 10.
Ten: Effective Diplomacy
It’s axiomatic that the exercise of diplomacy – defusing potential international conflicts and negotiating solutions before they erupt into war, while also of course peacefully pursuing a range of objectives that are in the general interests of all civilized countries, such as agreements concerning international trade, aviation, shipping, tourism and educational/scientific/cultural relations – is the job of a global superpower. With two global hotspots – the Ukraine and the Middle East – having erupted into war already, and a third – China/Taiwan – a source of concern, the need for powerful but moral international diplomacy is especially acute.
India, as a budding moral superpower, is well-placed to help. The country hasn’t as yet the economic capacity or military might to engage in the kind of massive efforts America undertook in the postwar years: the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe, or the web of international alliances and foreign aid spending that largely contained the Soviet Union. It must be remembered, though, that India as an independent country is merely 77 years old, and its economy has only emerged in recent decades from a failed socialist agenda. India needs a bit more time.
Certainly India has also been known to flex its muscles in ways that are not obviously helpful. Like a schoolyard bully, it enacted damaging blockades of its weak, poor neighbour Nepal in 1969, 1989 and 2015. The last one was over India’s displeasure with Nepal’s new constitution, and came only months after the tiny country suffered 9,000 deaths from two earthquakes. India was criticized for political blackmailing. It was not the country’s finest hour, but it must be remembered the U.S. too has behaved badly toward smaller countries at times, while retaining an overall track record as a global force for good.
Indeed, in many other areas India’s record in diplomacy is positive. When it comes to soft or cultural diplomacy, trying to influence others by sharing appealing values, India succeeds in innumerable ways, from its prodigious Bollywood film and TV production industry to personal activities such as yoga, to exporting its unique clothing and food, to showcasing its mid-20th century history of nonviolence to gain independence. Its multiple languages and the largely peaceful coexistence of its religious faiths in recent years are all parts of India’s “soft power” arsenal. India is building a global aura as an essentially likable nation – akin to how Americans and all things American were admired and even loved in many countries following the Second World War. India’s economic diplomacy – expanding its markets and economic influence outside the Western world – is growing as well.
While India remains officially non-aligned with any of the world’s three main powers, it has shown a distinct swing away from socialist dictatorships and towards the West. While the process is complex and decidedly non-linear, the following example is illustrative. In 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon sent the nuclear-powered and armed aircraft carrier USS Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal to pressure India to back off from its apparent plan to defeat Pakistan utterly. The USSR sent submarines to back India. What a difference a half century makes. In 2020 the U.S. sent the USS Nimitz and its battle group to the same waters in a show of solidarity with New Delhi amid tensions both countries have with China. India’s de facto identification with the West strengthens the prospects of its developing into a moral superpower.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that India has good relations with Israel. Modi was one of the first global leaders to condemn the horrific October 7 attacks by Hamas and express solidarity with Israel. Later India abstained from voting on a UN motion calling for an Israeli ceasefire because the motion did not mention Hamas or condemn its unprovoked and deadly attacks. That India can diplomatically favour Israel – the lone democracy in a hostile neighbourhood – when most other countries and the United Nations condemn the Jewish state says a lot. “When I was growing up, when I was young, India was very openly supportive of Palestinians and was anti-Israel, especially leaders like Indira Gandhi,” says Suresh. “But, during the last 15 or 20 years, India’s thinking has changed. India sees Israel as a fellow country struggling for its existence, surrounded by enemies. And so, our country has become very deeply sympathetic to Israel.”
Rating: Emerging into a diplomatic force. Score: 7 out of 10.
The Final Score
It may still be hard to imagine India – not long ago the international symbol of Third World poverty and widespread corruption, and today still technically a developing nation – as a moral superpower, meeting all ten of the critical criteria stated above, and in the dangerous, destabilizing twilight years of American power stepping into the role of benign global hegemon. Certainly, there are plenty of caveats and but-what-abouts, and India clearly still has much work to do.
For Canada’s entire existence, we have depended on the good graces of benign superpowers – first Great Britain, then the United States – to safeguard our international security and facilitate our prosperity. As America declines, our leaders should prepare for the end of the free ride on the coattails of that friendly, well-armed neighbour to the south.
Possibly the biggest caveat is the lasting stain of sectarian violence in the Punjab. Demand for equal rights by India’s Sikh minority – rights that many Sikhs felt had been denied them after India’s partition following independence – became a fight for a separate Sikh homeland proponents call Khalistan. Terrorism was met with reprisals and oppression. Brutal violence left thousands dead, though certainly not just Sikhs. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was herself assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, and 329 travellers flying from Montreal to New Delhi on Air India Flight 182 in June 1985 were killed by a Sikh terrorist bomb planted in the cargo hold. The violent conflict largely subsided in the mid-1990s, though tensions linger.
This is the backdrop to the recent diplomatic dustup between Modi and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, wherein the latter alleged India was involved in the murder last June on Canadian soil of Indian-born Canadian national Hardeep Singh Nijjar. New Delhi has designated Nijjar a terrorist who supports a banned militant group; his supporters claim he has only tried to highlight human rights abuses by India’s government. If Indian operatives carried out an extra-judicial killing of a Canadian citizen that must certainly be condemned.
In most ways, however, India is becoming a bigger and more responsible player on the world stage. Seven years ago, the former global basket-case that recurringly was on the verge of literal starvation crossed over to become a net donor of foreign aid to other counties. As the New Indian Express put it, this was “part of a conscious effort on [the] part of India commensurate to its role as an emerging power.” India’s foreign aid grants and loans have increased since then. It disburses much of that financial help in its own region, with Bhutan, Nepal and Mauritius being the largest recipients, followed by Myanmar and Afghanistan. But it is also making a push to extend credit to African nations – the continent is now the second-biggest recipient of loans from India – a move seen as a way to counter China’s influence. India has opened 18 new embassies or consulates in Africa in the last nine years.
The bigger picture is of an emerging superpower taking its place on the right side of history – that is, as a free-market-based democracy that stands to become a force for a safer, more peaceful and more prosperous world.
This two-part series has founded its overall assertion of India’s world-leading potential upon evaluating India by 10 criteria that America previously fulfilled in its role as the world’s moral superpower. India is performing well by demographic and economic measures. It has the world’s largest population, of whom the vast majority are patriotic. Its people are reasonably well-educated, having made great strides in the past two generations, though India still lags in this critical area. Its economy is the world’s fifth-largest – and growing faster than any other major country. It has transitioned from a socialist backwater to a free-market powerhouse. It still has work to do in erasing lingering poverty, but has made remarkable progress. It is rich in some strategic natural resources, though poor in crude oil. A large proportion of Indians speak English – the language of commerce and digital communication.
On the measures considered in Part Two – including the all-important question of military might – India has made remarkable progress and is taking its place among the world’s leading powers. Its military is the second-largest and fourth-most-powerful in the world, and is rapidly modernizing. India is committed to freedom and to the hard work of democracy, no easy feat in a nation of 1.4 billion. Its conservative religious ethos gives it a strong moral bearing. It has the geographical positioning of a great power. And it is emerging as a responsible international diplomatic actor. India has work to do on all of these characteristics, and it faces the perennial threats of hostile neighbours to the north and a good deal of geopolitical turmoil to the west.
Having shown strength in all ten areas, but significant gaps and no perfect scores, India’s overall score is 71 out of 100.
It might well be time for Canadians to start thinking of India as the potential new global hegemon. For our entire existence, we’ve depended on the good graces of benign superpowers – first Great Britain, then the United States – to safeguard our international security and facilitate our prosperity. As America declines, our leaders should prepare for the end of the free ride on the coattails of that friendly, well-armed neighbour to the south. India may not be able to protect us directly from global bad guys, or soon provide a market the size of America’s. But a rising, democratic India will still be a very good friend to have.
Lynne Cohen is a journalist and non-practising lawyer from Ottawa. She has four books published, including the biography Let Right Be Done: The Life and Times of Bill Simpson.
Source of main image: Shutterstock.
