The geopolitical importance of India

The geopolitical importance of India

Antonia Cordedda

Over the next few days India is going to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of independence from the UK on 15th August 1947. This happened by a peaceful revolution led by Mahatma Gandhi against the British Empire. India is still influenced by British culture (and vice-versa), and still has very tight bilateral relations with the UK. The Indians play cricket and the British eat curry. India is a parliamentary democracy and is the 7th biggest country in the world with 1.2 billion people. It is a very complex country due to its multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-religious characteristics. There are eight official languages. It is easy to understand that this country is potentially very difficult to govern.

This great variety of ethnic groups caused the country to be divided in the 1950s and the Muslim part of India separated to become the state of Pakistan. The conflict between India and Pakistan is ongoing at the present moment. The two countries have tried to improve relations, but India always feels threatened by Pakistan’s nuclear potential and the fanaticism of its Muslim minority. One recent event confirmed this fear of the Indian authorities – a terrorist attack in Mumbai at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel was blamed on the security services of Pakistan. This created high tension between the two countries and further negotiations will proceed on tiptoe.

India’s economy is growing fast, by roughly 8% a year. It is the twelfth largest economy in the world, but its per capita income is 128th. The economic strategy is to encourage investment from other countries, attract financial capital, and to try to sort out the problems of poverty and unemployment. But this positive outlook of the Indian authorities can be against Western interests. If a factory relocates to India or other emerging economies, it causes problems of unemployment in the developed countries. The growing trend of industrialization also comes into conflict with the American administration’s focus on global warming. From the Indian point of view, the campaign against global warming can be a pretext for keeping them down. However the problems of global warming cannot be denied, and it would be good if emerging countries could achieve growth in a more ecological way.