Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
One of the principal factors underlying this new convergence of interests is the
common concern about American hegemony. Both sides have therefore
repeatedly expressed an interest in the formation of a more multipolar world, one
that would give greater weight to their interests and interests of other mid-level
powers.
During much of the Cold War, fearful of offending its Muslim minority
population and seeking nonaligned solidarity with the Arab world, India
maintained the most limited diplomatic contacts with Israel. With nonalignment
having lost all vestiges of vitality, and with Third World solidarity with the
Muslim Arab world at bay, India's leadership has chosen to enhance relations
with Israel. As P.R.Kumaraswamy shows in his contribution, the long-feared
backlash from India's Muslim community failed to materialize. Since the initial
decision to improve the Indo-Israeli relationship in 1992, it has flourished.
Today, as Kumaraswamy demonstrates, robust bonds have been fashioned in
areas ranging from trade to arms transfers.
This special issue would be incomplete without some discussion of India's
new economic trajectory. As is well known, India's pathway of economic
development after independence long led it down the road of import-substituting
industrialization. This regime, despite some limited initial success, did little or
nothing to ameliorate mass poverty or promote significant economic growth.
Since 1991, India has been involved in a fitful process of economic reform
which triggered a severe economic crisis involving a deep balance of payments
crisis. The subsequent progress of reform was in large part driven by the
significant benefits that the efforts toward economic liberalization had already
generated. Shortly after embarking upon its reforms, India's growth rate climbed
from about 5 per cent or less to about 7 per cent per annum.
This process of economic reform, as Sunila Kale shows, is still far from
complete, and important barriers remain. At a material level, these bottlenecks
involve weak infrastructure in the pivotal areas of transportation,
telecommunications, and power. At the socio-political level, critical reforms,
especially in the labor and financial sectors, remain in abeyance.
It remains to be seen if India's political leadership can grasp these nettlesome
issues and thereby complete the process started more than a decade ago. The
ability to complete the reform process will, in considerable measure, shape
India's economic future. More to the point, unless India can achieve sustained
economic growth at around 7 per cent annually for the next decade, it will not be
able to make a significant dent on endemic poverty. Nor, for that matter, will it
be able to sustain the defense expenditures commensurate with addressing its
perceived security concerns.
