Abstract
Indians have always known that their nation has the potential to be a significant power in a way in which citizens of nations with smaller populations do not. Nehru himself, for all that he emphasised the benign nature of Indian power, was clear in his mind that India, with its vast resources and population, ‘will always make a difference in the world... Fate’, he said, ‘has marked us for big things.’1
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Endnotes
Quoted in Baldev Raj Nayar, ‘A World Role: The Dialectics of Purpose and Power’ in John W. Mellor (ed.), India: A Rising Middle Power, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1979, p. 123.
For an account of the limitations of Indian power in the South Asian region see Mohammed Ayoob, ‘India as Regional Hegemon: External Opportunities and Internal Constraints’, International Journal, Vol. XLVI, No. 3, Summer 1991.
For a view that the Indian political system is in a state of systemic decay see for example, Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.
See The Roots of Instability, Part 2, below.
Barry Buzan, ‘A Sea of Troubles? Sources of Dispute in the New Ocean Regime’ , Adelphi Papers, No. 143, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1978, p. 30.
Stephen Cohen, India’s Role in the New Global Order’, The United States and India in the Post-Soviet World: Proceedings of the Third Indo-US Strategic Symposium, National Defense University, Washington DC, 1993, p. 57.
For one such view of India’s growing power see US Government, Department of Defense, Soviet Military Power: Prospects for Change 1989, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1989, pp. 123–4.
See M.V. Bratersky and S.I. Lunyov, ‘India at the End of the Century: Transformation into an Asian Regional Power’, Asian Survey, Vol. XXX, No. 10, October 1990, p. 928.
See George K. Tanham, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay, Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, California, 1992, for an excellent discussion of India strategic culture. W. Howard Wriggins exploits the influence of Kautilyan thought on Indian strategic thinking in ‘South Asian Regional Politics: Asymmetrical Balance or One-State Dominance?, in Howard Wriggins (ed.), Dynamics of Regional Politics: Four Systems on the Indian Ocean Rim, Columbia University Press, New York, 1992, p. 108. An unpublished PhD thesis by Bruce Vaughn (India Ascendent: An Interpretation of India’s Aspirations to Great Power Status’, Australian National University, 1994) also contains a useful and extensive discussion of the roots of Indian strategic culture. In a book that only became available just before this manuscript was submitted, Chris Smith also explores the roots of defence policy-making in India. See India’ s Ad Hoc Arsenal: Direction or Drift in Defence Policy?, SIPRI (through Oxford University Press), Oxford, 1994.
See for example Robert W. Stern, Changing India: Bourgeois revolution on the subcontinent, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, p. 1. See also the writers referred to in footnote 2, Chapter 2, Part II, below, who are all engaged in interpreting change in India.
See for example Robert A. Scalapino, ‘National Political Institutions and Leadership in Asia’, The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 1992, p. 157.
Ved Mehta, ‘The Mosque and the Temple: The Rise of Fundamentalism’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 2, p. 18.
Manoj Joshi, ‘Strategic Conundrums: The West and India’s Middle Path’, Times of India, 24 August 1993.
See Peter Lyon, ‘South Asia and the geostrategics of the 1990s’, Contemporary South Asia, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1992, p. 25.
‘Security obsession’, Economic Times, 20 July 1993.
For an account of the way in which the 1974 detonation was kept secret through compartmentalisation see Ashok Raina, Inside RAW: The Story of India’s Secret Service, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1981, p. 77.
There are, however, many intormal channels of communication, suchas the one developed between the three service chiefs during the 1971 war with Pakistan.
B.G. Deshmukh, ‘Intelligence Agencies: Coordination a must’, Hindustan Times, 26 April 1993.
Manash Ghosh, ‘Spirit of Bengal’, The Statesman, 8 April 1993.
Interview with General Joshi, India Today, 15 July 1993, p. 78.
See the author, ‘Domestic Foundations of India’s Security Policy’, in R. Babbage and S. Gordon (eds), India’s Strategic Future: Regional State or Global Power?, The Macmillan Press, London, 1992, pp. 11–16. The expression was originally used by Lloyd and Suzanne Rudolph to describe the Indian state more generally.
Golwalkar, quoted in K.R. Mulkani, The RSS Story, Impex India, New Delhi, 1980, p. 42.
Girilal Jain, ‘Idiom of Public Debate: Combining Bhakti with Power’, Times of India, 30 November 1992.
See for example, Lk Col. G.D. Bakshi, Mahabharata: A Military Analysis, Lancer Intemational, New Delhi, 1990. The quotation used here is taken from the foreword by G.N. Pant, keeper of the National Museum, p. xix.
The failure of India’s efforts to resurrect the G-15 forum in the latter part of 1993 is a case in point.
It was, for example, an important factor in dictating reform of the Indian bureaucracy. See Shefali Bhimal, ‘Reluctant Reformers’, India Today, 15 September 1993, p. 82.
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Gordon, S. (1995). Introduction. In: India’s Rise to Power. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371804_1
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