India and Emerging Challenges in International Relations and Area Studies

Introduction

Owing to an inextricable linkage between International Relations Studies (IRS) and Area Studies (AS), a consistent dialogue between these interrelated fields has always been mutually enriching. By now, as a nascent discipline, IRS is endowed with a plethora of theories and concepts that tend to explain the behaviour of multiple actors, including various state and non-state actors that broadly operate within the complex web of world politics. In turn, different areas in the world that come under the purview of area specialists can provide a viable ground to test such theories. Indeed, empirical insights from different areas have also led to the formation of theoretical constructs with wider applicability. For instance, empirical studies conducted by the Economic Commission of Latin America led by Argentine economist Raul Prebisch in the 1950s concerning trade between the USA and Latin American focussed on the deterioration in terms of trade over a long-term historical period. They demonstrated how countries producing primary goods are at a disadvantage vis-à-vis countries that produce manufactured products in the world market as the prices of the former constantly fluctuate and even depreciate while the prices of the latter constantly appreciate. Eventually, these insights led to the advent of structuralism and later dependency theories in social sciences. Intrinsically, the study of IRS as well as AS necessarily has to be inter-disciplinary. Both these fields have their specific requirements. IRS broadly draws from allied fields like political science, political economy, international trade, law, sociology, cultural studies and even natural sciences. Apart from building their understanding with the help of social and human sciences, the AS does have certain specific requirements. For instance, in order to consult primary sources, proficiency over language that is spoken in the area under investigation is essential. Similarly, field work adds to the authenticity of empirical research done under AS. To put it simply, the relationship between IRS and AS is complementary. Keeping this in the background, I would like to shed a light on how we in India can take a fresh look at IRS and AS. The sequence of this exercise could be placed thus. After locating international relations in the current context of globalisation, I would offer a critical overview of contending theories that help us to understand international relations. I will then move on to underline the significant realities of a few areas in the Global South and inter-area relationships to come to terms with challenges faced by IRS and AS.

Globalisation and International Relations

If relatively stable order under the Cold War left space to run international affairs with a measure of stability, globalisation has brought some disorder and even disruptions by its very nature. In theory, it signifies the free flow of ideas, knowledge, trade, finance, technology, culture, diseases and even terror. If globalisation has precipitated the forces of integration, it has also caused disintegration and movements that are opposed to it. Paradoxically, the USA under George H. Bush (1988–1992), after the end of the Cold War in 1991, promoted globalisation with vigour and the same USA under President Trump since 2017 is opposing free trade and transnational migration by underscoring the need of promoting ‘America First’. This is a significant shift in the USA’s policy as it is grappling to encounter complex and self-contradictory trends that characterise globalisation.

Since globalisation initially precipitated economic integration, two dominant and diametrically opposite perspectives emerged to explain it. While Bhagwati celebrated the process of free trade in a borderless world and privileged the role of market in shaping the world economy; Stiglitz underscored the hardships and discontents that developing countries had to undergo due to the policy of international donor agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) (Bhagwati, 2004; Stiglitz, 2002). The latter virtually forced the former to liberalise the economies by advancing loans with conditions. Subsequently, Stiglitz also began to think in terms of making globalisation work (Stiglitz, 2006). However, political economy is just one prism to view globalisation. As a complex phenomenon that eludes easy grasp, any study of globalisation would warrant a variety of prisms that shed light on the role of ethnicity, nationalism, underworld and even terror. Moreover, despite close linkages between the subfields of IRS and AS, the process of exploring their links is still unfolding itself in the current context.

Indeed, the nation-state which is central to the functioning of the IRS and AS is facing existential tensions across the world under globalisation. Due to pressures generated by the international regimes such as the IMF, the WB and the World Trade Organization (WTO) or different regional organisations such as the European Union (EU), the contemporary state is placed in a precarious predicament. On the one hand, international regimes came into de jure existence because the states as primary members of such bodies have brought them into being and, ironically, on the other hand, the individual states also tend to lose control or ingredients of their sovereignty voluntarily by submitting themselves to any international regime. Besides, the states are simultaneously constrained to negotiate with challenges posed by ethno-nationalist movements, within their respective territorial domain, in different parts of the world that betray secessionist tendencies. Countries such as Eritrea (1993) and South Sudan (2011) have emerged as independent states after getting liberated from Ethiopia and Sudan, respectively. However, in developed as well as developing countries, there are a number of instances where the ethno-nationalist movements are challenging the contemporary state. The so-called liberation movements in Quebec (Canada), Kurdistan (Turkey, Syria), Basque, Catalonia (Spain) and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka) till 2009 are cases in point. Globalisation, at some stage, signified de-territorialisation at least in some parts in the global north. With the passage of time, there have been instances where it can also signify re-territorialisation, especially the way in which new states have emerged in Central Asia, and the ones that are clamouring to be born through ethno-nationalist movements. Thus, the nation-state still enjoys primacy among all the other actors in the world politics. It is also the single dominant unit that is shaping the course of globalisation legally although subnational and transnational actors have also begun to matter under globalisation (Harshé, 2014).

Among the transnational actors, a multinational terrorist organisation such as Al Qaeda, operating in over 80 countries, also merit scholarly attention. Through its dispersed and surreptitious mechanism of operations, Al Qaeda has succeeded in building a wide network of terrorist groupings in different parts of the world, especially in West Asia. There are also terrorist outfits operating from specific regions such as Boko Haram (West Africa) and El Shabaab (East Africa). Most of the terrorist outfits that operate under radical Islamist banner are interconnected. With the advent of the Islamic State of Iraq Syria/Levant (ISIS) in 2014, the terrorist outfit had a definite territory to extract revenue and a base to consolidate its activities further. Even though the ISIS was allegedly wiped out from Syria and Iraq, the groups related to the ISIS caused explosions on the Easter Day in Sri Lanka on 21 April 2019, leaving over 250 people dead. Radical Islamic terrorist outfits have threatened security of countries such as the USA, France, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands apart from operating in other parts of Asia and Africa. However, terrorism need not be associated with any religion. Islam as a religion certainly requires more nuanced understanding because of its inherent diversities and heterogeneities as argued by Mamdani (2005). It needs to be underlined that the phenomenon of terror that is currently prevalent in the world could be better understood with all its complex nuances if scholars in IRS and AS conjointly decide to cooperate to build a viable understanding of this reality. Of course, there can as well be scholars who are keenly interested in both IRS and AS. Having spelt out the nature of relationship between the two distinct and yet interrelated fields in the current context, let me try to capture a brief overview of some of the major theories prevalent in international relations.

Glimpses of Theories

Although theories in IRS emanate from different persuasions, for example, realist, liberal and Marxist, one need not separate them into watertight compartments. Creative tensions between different theoretical paradigms, as it were, have often prompted diverse theoretical schools to draw from each other by being eclectic. Theories more often help us simplify realities and bring semblance of order in the anarchy of facts.

Among the contending theories of IRS, school of political realism has enjoyed the most dominant position. Hans Morgenthau and his fellow travellers such as Henry Kissinger, George Kennan, Klaus Knorr, Arnold Wolfers and Nicolas Spykman have enriched the school of realism through their contributions in different times in the post-war phase. Morgenthau had built state-centric theory of international relations on the basis of his analysis of power (Morgenthau, 1978). His theory acknowledged hierarchy among the nation-states owing to their different capacities in terms of power. All the states, in his view, are in perpetual competition with each other while serving their respective national interests on the basis of their actual/potential power, Morgenthau had argued that international relations are characterised by anarchy. Anarchy signified absence of central authority. Thus, politics among nations virtually mirrored the Hobbesian state of nature. Morgenthau’s oversimplified formulation enjoyed a hegemonic presence in the realm of theory. Subsequently, theorisations built upon Morgenthau’s basic understanding of international relations such as neo-realism or structural realism as propounded by Kenneth Waltz have continued to dominate the realm of theories of international relations (Waltz, 2010). In the light of changing political and social circumstances such as the rise of transnational actors, Waltz intervened within the school of realism by drawing his understanding from disciplines such as anthropology and economics to erect the so-called wider structure that allows international relations to operate. Accordingly, the states and their behaviour as units are conditioned by the structure. Further, there is an obvious interdependence among all the units as well as between the units and the structure as a whole. Like the traditional realists such as Morgenthau, Waltz also emphasised the existence of power hierarchies and anarchy as organising principles of international relations.

In contrast to Morgenthau and Waltz, the British school of realism led by Headley Bull, Martin Wight and others, chose to search order while explaining how there is a society of states in spite of anarchy in international relations. They perceived that the so-called order in the society of states has been built through compromises, accommodation, rule of law, laws of peace, international trade and mechanisms like collective security (Bull, 2002). Further, among the neo-realists, there were also institutional liberals such as Joseph Nye and Robert Keohane who underscored the importance of transnational actors such as transnational firms, international regional organisations that work on functional lines and tie up state and non-state actors involving technological and functional requirements through transnational regimes. They emphasised how power and interdependence operate in international relations (Keohane & Nye, 2011). Nye moved further to evolve the concept of soft power where powerful states influence the policies of weaker/other states by attracting and even co-opting them (Nye, 1990, 2004). Mainly, soft power operates through available technologies within the intellectual and cultural domains by pressing consensual mechanisms in service.

The constructivists approach of scholars such as Alexander Wendt, Nicolus Onuf and others sprang up as a challenge to neo-realist and neo-liberal understanding of international relations. By moving away from traditional concerns of the realist scholars that hinged around the distribution of power, hierarchy and anarchy, the constructivist emphasised ideational aspects that shape international relations (Wendt, 1999). They raised questions about the role of ideas, norms and identities in shaping international relations. In effect, they probed into how ideas define structures and how structures cause change in defining identities, interests and foreign policies. As a corollary, they also focussed on how structures reproduce themselves.

Among the critical theories, there are at least three approaches that demand scholarly attention. First, the Marxists and the neo-Marxists scholars have continuously shed light on the relationship between capitalism/imperialism and underdevelopment. The contribution of dependency theorists or the world system analysts in this context has been noteworthy. Moreover, there is a school of Marxism led by Robert Cox and Stephen Gill that has imaginatively applied the concept of hegemony as initially elucidated by Antonio Gramsci in the context of international relations (Cox, 1993; Gill, 1990, 1993). The concept of hegemony, to be operative, has to rest on a combination of consent as well as coercion. While Gramsci deployed the notion of hegemony in the context of state-civil society ties in a domestic set up of the countries of Western Europe as well as the former Soviet Russia, Cox and Gill have applied the concept of hegemony to the context of international relations. They both unveiled the nature of the British hegemony in the late-nineteenth century and the US hegemony in the first two decades after the Second World War within the world capitalist economy.

Second, the post-colonial theories too deserve a critical attention. Edward Said’s path finding study titled Orientalism sensitised scholars in humanities and social sciences as to how an industry flourished among the scholars in the west to constantly construct the orient and how such constructs were accepted by the orient (Said, 2001). His emphasis on contrapuntal analysis of a phenomenon helped shedding light on the interactive and even diverse nature of reactions to each other between the west and the east. Scholars from the post-colonial school conceive that the orient was getting constructed since Vasco da Gamma’s arrival in India in 1498 or Columbus’s arrival in America in 1492. That is why, in post-colonial states, past constantly mediates with the present before shaping their future understanding of any social/international reality. Third, critical theorists within the post-structural tradition essentially offered tools to challenge totalising, hegemonising and homogenising knowledge discourses that primarily emanated from modernity in the west. Its celebrated intellectuals such as Michel Foucault, by consistently exploring the relationship between knowledge and power have effectively exposed hegemonic exercises in knowledge building processes (Foucault, 2002). Let me now proceed to place the above theories in a critical perspective.

Critical Analysis of Theories

Practically, all the theories discussed above could be applied to the context of international relations relatively easily, at least in some measure, because they grew in the context of the Cold War and Détente. The systems of alliances led by the USA and the Soviet Union in a bipolar world offered a greater order and stability in the international system and made applicability of such theories possible. Since globalisation, as it were, has been a source of disruption/disorder; it has also witnessed the rise of other powers in the global south like China, India, Brazil and South Africa. East Asian economies too have done well. There are also new transnational regimes and a range of non-state actors from the NGOs to terrorist outfits that have flourished under globalisation. Besides, as the tensions between globalisation and the nation-state are becoming acute, these theories are falling short of accommodating new realities within their framework, effectively and thereby are unable to offer a satisfactory explanation of international/global realities. To start with, if one sticks to the conventional realism and its state-centric premise, the pressures that come from above and below in the functioning of a sovereign state do not get adequately addressed. Further, problems related to the environmental degradation, human rights and denuclearisation also warrant collective endeavour among the states. Ironically, the state continues to be the primary actor to address these issues and yet there are other forces required to shape the policy in these areas as well. Second, as a corollary, liberal institutionalism can work and deliver justice only if the institutional architecture is in tune with current realities. This would warrant suitable reforms in bodies such as the United Nations, the IMF and the WB to accommodate emerging/rising powers. Third, irrespective of a valiant attempt to deploy Gramscian perspective in international relations by Cox, it is not easy either to locate functioning of a vibrant global/ transnational civil society or hegemony. Can hegemony be located in a single state when there is no hegemonic power like the USA (1945–1965) or the late-nineteenth century Britain? Are we living in an age of multilateralism? Can hegemony be located in any ideology? These questions still beg answers. Fourth, the end of the Cold War left space for constructivism to emerge, but constructivism denaturalises what can be taken for granted by highlighting ideational and normative aspects leaving reality to be constructed socially to find alternative pathways. It can turn esoteric. Fifth, post-colonial studies have drawn from fiction, world travels and literature, and the entry of humanities is getting thermalised within international studies. In this context, Spivak’s question is worth noting. She asks whether the subaltern really speaks or whether the western researchers end up putting their speech into the dominant western frameworks (Spivak, 1988). Finally, the post-modernists have demonstrated the repercussions of the nexus between knowledge and power and offered critical modes of viewing international relations. However, their constant emphasis on heterogeneity, differences and diversities render generalisations and theory building more difficult than ever before.

Euro-Atlantic Biases

The Euro-Atlantic influences over the existing theories also need to be underscored. Among all the theories, the school of political realism/structural realism with its emphasis on the state-centric analysis has proved to be most influential within the academia and think tanks. However, whatever is dominant necessarily may not be universal. The modern nation-state that emerged after Westphalia Treaty in 1648, and which as at the base of political realism, has been grafted on the Afro-Asian map. It is artificial in the context where the people who have known stateless societies, kingdoms, empires and civilisations as a form of social and political organisation. The exercise towards the state and nation building in the global south is still work in progress. In a word, uncritical acceptance of plethora of theories that emanated from the Euro-Atlantic social and political context may not serve the purpose. Such theories indeed could be more suitable in the socio-political context of the western world. In general, some of the best philosophers from the west had their share of shortcomings when it came to building knowledge about the orient. For instance, G. W. F. Hegel thought of Africans as barbarians. Karl Marx did not see anything fundamentally wrong with the colonisation of either Algeria or India although these countries had glorious civilisations of centuries old. Both Marx and Hegel carried prejudices of their times about the orient. What is more, James Mill could write six volumes on the Indian history in English without ever visiting India and those volumes are read with academic seriousness. In a word, the writings from the west even if they were inadequate in depicting sensibilities of the east could earn respect universally owing to colonialism. What is more, in the post-colonial states it is quite normal to see scholars from India providing justification to western theories by doing empirical groundwork. Strangely, there are moments when scholars from the post-colonial states virtually tend to act as travel agents of the concepts of established scholars from the west. Indeed, there is every reason to promote critical thinking and learning in IRS and AS to ensure that we evolve our own lenses and perspective of looking at the global south without sounding nativist. This indeed is a slow process. As every new formulation emerges related to ground experience of countries from the south, an effort would be essential to make it a part of vocabulary of IRS and AS so that the transnational community of scholars can understand it and make it further intelligible.

Unsurprisingly, at the moment, the course syllabuses in international relations in India seem to borrow predominantly from the understanding of the western scholars, albeit, scholars from India and global south also find some space. As a result, students are deprived of critical understanding of the subject. Just to cite a few examples, the phase from 1815 to 1914 is often characterised as an era of peace in the history of international relations by the western scholars. Was that peace only meant to include only western countries? What was happening in those parts which were at the receiving end of imperialism? Interestingly, Opium War (1939–1942), India’s first war of independence (1857) and the conquest of Egypt (1885) occurred during the same period (Krishna, 2001). Further, the holocaust in Germany does get prominent place, but the partition of the Indian subcontinent must have been one of the most traumatic events in the human history which hardly finds an important place in conventional text books of international relations. Leaders and people fought over the validity of two-nation theory before the subcontinent was partitioned. Indeed, the process of nation and state building has often been quite violent everywhere. Thus, eventually as the subcontinent was partitioned, ordinary people were its worst victims. They had to face atrocities and violence before they were uprooted. More than drab scientific articles on such subjects, short stories of creative writers like Gulzar written in Hindi/Urdu tell a lot more about the trauma of partition. Obviously, there is a need to draw creative writings from the resources to enrich our understanding.

Studies concerned with human rights also deserve a fresh look. They need to be opened up more. For instance, how do communist countries like China look at human rights? Are notions of rights as they emerged in the west universal? Is the record of countries like the USA that holds the flag of human rights morally praiseworthy? Owing to the USA led imperialism, the rights of people were also affected in places such as Palestine, Vietnam and South Africa. The USA in the new Cold War phase that began after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was actively supporting dictatorial regimes including those of Pinochet (Chile), Marcos (Philippines) Mobutu (Zaire/Congo) and Zia Ul Haq (Pakistan) during the 1980s. In a word, even the criticism of the developed countries of the west regarding human rights of other countries cannot be taken without a pinch of salt. It is equally worth noting that in the process of achieving national integration, several countries in Africa have been rocked by ethnic conflicts and civil strife. I can venture to state that any study on human rights will remain incomplete without going through the violation of human rights in Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Rwanda, apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa and Zimbabwe in contemporary times.

Most of the syllabuses almost ignore the study of race and international relations. For instance, if imperio-racist powers practised racial discrimination, does race shape perceptions of the scholars from different parts of the world? Are developing countries, in general, placed in a negative light and portrayed as dysfunctional compared to the developed countries? Moreover, the damage caused by the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the psyche of the black races deserves sensitive appraisal. Race has already emerged as a transnational reality and category of analysis. George Padmore in his famous work titled Pan Africanism or Communism? discussed racism prevalent in the international communist movement and strongly pleaded for privileging Pan Africanism over communism (Padmore, 1956). Like race, gender studies ought to have their share in building the corpus of knowledge in international relations to avoid the danger of carrying knowledge building exercises under the influence of masculinity and patriarchy. For instance, whenever wars of any scale are fought, women and children in that part suffer a great deal. How can feminist perspectives or those of subaltern groups be absorbed in the mainstream body of knowledge in international relations? Briefly, the syllabuses of IRS and AS need to be revisited.

In the light of intertwined links between IRS and AS and critical appraisal of the explanatory power of theories in IRS under globalisation, let me proceed to take a look at special features of a few areas. Admittedly, I am only stating a few realities that have struck me the most. This exercise is only intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive to stimulate more debate and fine tune on how many more ways are possible to study and understand diverse areas to enhance knowledge for everyone including the policy makers. It also needs to be noted that no area can be studied in isolation and inter-area/areas relations can seldom be overlooked.

Latin America

Expertise in India on Latin America has yet to develop fully. Geographical distance between India and countries of Latin America, on one hand, and the lack of proficiency in required languages for the specialisation such as Spanish and Portuguese have largely contributed towards this dearth of expertise. Nevertheless, fascinating reality of the dominance of Caudillos in Latin American countries might surely arrest the attention of students of comparative and AS. The Caudillos often have charismatic appeal, revolutionary ideas and capacity to rally networks of social groups around client patron linkages. Several left-wing populist leaders such as Fidel Castro (Cuba), Che Guevara (guerrilla fighter in Bolivia and Cuba), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) and Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) were archetypical Caudillos (Kaiser, 2017). For a long time, such leaders earned their fame and credentials because they were fighting the dominance of the USA in Latin America. Further, neo-Marxist scholars like Andre Gunder Frank, Celso Furtado and several others came out with increasingly sophisticated models of dependency ties between the advanced industrialised countries of the USA/west and developing countries of the then Third World in the context of the political economy of Latin America.

With the advent of neo-liberalism, several Latina American countries have chosen to liberalise their economies. What is more, Latin American countries also have experimented with democracy since the 1980s, and yet such experiments still appear nascent because democratic institutions in the region are weak. The danger of threat to democracy goes beyond Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela in Latin America (The Economist, 2019, pp. 10–11). One of the important developments in contemporary Latin America has been the rise of Brazil as a major regional power that has started playing an important role in global politics. Brazil is an important member in global forums like G20 and transcontinental organisations such as India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) (Burges, 2017). Viewing and making sense of the above-stated developments from India is a challenge before the scholars in India.

Sub-Saharan Africa

As the resources are getting scarce everywhere, Sub-Saharan Africa owing to its precious untapped mineral resources is gradually moving towards the centre stage of world politics where diverse world powers have renewed the game of scramble for Africa. Amongst them, China’s presence is most ubiquitous. Even India has been making inroads into Africa consistently through projects of long-term development cooperation in several African countries. The India-Africa Forum Summit meetings that are being regularly held since the New Delhi Summit of 2008 have substantially contributed in cementing bonds between India and African countries in the politico-economic and politico-strategic spheres. However, such ties need not be only instrumental. Scholars in India need to understand Africa as a region. For instance, member states of the African Union (AU), a continent wide organisation, have already drawn 50-year plan ahead for the AU in 2013. State and nation building, promoting national integration as well as regional economic communities, stabilising democratic governance and economies and finding respectable identity for Africans continue to be major concerns of the AU.

In a sense, the AU project is a part of Black and Arab races in Africa to cement continental identity. Inter-racial ties represent power relationships and through such power relationships, the ‘white’ and the ‘black’ have been socially constructed for centuries. It implies that after the trans-Atlantic slave trade the white superiority was imposed systematically within the social, economic, political and cultural domains over the blacks who always were at the receiving end. That is why, the négritude movement of the inter-war period led by Leopold Sédar Sénghor and Aime Cesaire tried to assert the black identity through the slogan ‘Black is Beautiful’. The white world seldom chose to understand Africans and how they felt when they lived in the white dominated countries. Indeed, the scholars in India too have been fed with writings primarily from Euro-Atlantic perspectives on Africa. In this context, the following lines from Sénghor ‘No mother’s breast, but nylon legs, legs and breasts that have no sweat nor smell’ that stemmed from his reaction to New York appear evocative (Sénghor, 1970, pp. 56, 57). His powerful imagery and expressions such as ‘metallic smile’ or ‘frosty eyes’ on human encounters tell a great deal about the lack of human warmth in major cities of the west.

Apart from building respectable racial identity, while tackling developmental problems notions of ‘African Socialism’ and Ujamma (family hood) were also tried in countries such as Tanzania. The Ujamma programmes, in spite of their apparent failures, tried to exploit and share the earnings from the resources of Tanzania on communitarian basis. In fact, teacher leaders in Africa such as Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Kkwame Nkurmah (Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya) and Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) tried to carry their people along by building mass anti-colonial movements (Chakrabarty, 2009). They also had ideas about the nation building. For instance, Nkrumah was trying to synthesise Islam, Christianity, Marxism and indigenous African communitarian culture while building new Ghana. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela ventured to carry out an unusual experiment of Truth and Reconciliation Commission where perpetrators and victims of racism endeavoured to come together by forgetting their bitter past and began to build a rainbow coalition in non-racial South Africa. It may not have met with required success but a complex society in India too has been witnessing fights among the social groups that have roots in the past and perhaps India has much to learn from South Africa. Unsurprisingly, several political and social leaders from Africa such as Albert Lithuli, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela (South Africa) and Anwar Ali Sadat (Egypt) have earned Nobel Peace Prize. Briefly, if scholarship on Africa is to be pursued in India, several hitherto neglected aspects of culture and civilisations in Africa need careful attention to build more well-rounded understanding of Africa. This can ultimately help to promote Indo-African ties even better. Moreover, in the complex web of ties, different areas are also interacting constantly with each other.

Inter-Area Interactions

Arguably, inter-area ties before and after the current phase of globalisation in international relations is a vast area involving migrations and diasporas and conflicts related to religions in different parts of the world. However, to underline the nature of interconnectedness between the areas, I am primarily confining my observations to a few instances in the interactions between the Euro-Atlantic regions and Afro-Asia. At the formal level, inter-area interactions have often been stimulated by the colonial past of the countries of the global south. The associations of African states and Madagascar with the European Economic Community (EEC) that came into being in 1957 through Yaoundé conventions of 1963 and 1969 are a case in point. Similarly, Lomé convention that came into force in April 1976 was designed to evolve a framework of cooperation between the EEC and 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. At a very crude level, it signified the pure and simple international division of labour between the countries that produced primary commodities, on the one hand, and those that produced finished goods, on the other. Likewise, the USA too has played the dominant role in all the inter-American groupings such as the Organisation of American States that came into being in 1948 to promote regional solidarity. Moreover, as a transcontinental movement, the Non-Aligned Movement, established in 1961, has tied up 120 states from different areas in the global south.

Irrespective of such formal arrangements, the USA and several major powers of contemporary Europe such as Britain, France and Germany are currently witnessing the rise of ethnic chauvinism owing to the rapid demographic changes in those countries. Such chauvinism primarily is a response to migrations from developing countries in the entire industrialised world. The Trump administration since 2017 is following an active anti-immigration policy. The erstwhile metropolitan powers such as Britain and France are facing an acute challenge of managing their multicultural societies comprising inhabitants of Asian and African origins. A sizeable number of people of Afro-Asian origins have settled in Britain and France for generations. Besides, due to its membership of the EU, so many citizens of other European nationalities were employed in Britain. Hostility towards migrants who tend to snatch jobs of the local British populations eventually led to Brexit as Britain withdrew from the EU in 2016. Such withdrawal was intended to give fair chance to the British citizens in their own country. The Brexit certainly shattered the dream of building a United Europe although Britain has yet to work out proper institutional arrangements towards the course of exit from EU. In France, the anti-immigrant far right National Party has built its social base by consistently opposing the existence of immigrants from Arab and black Africa. To add fuel to fire, recurrent terrorist attacks or threats of such attacks in France at the end of François Hollende’s presidency (2015–2017) only aggravated hatred for Islam. Owing to the growing Islamophobia in France, neither the white Catholic French citizens nor the French citizens of Arab and African origin are able to stay in peace with each other. Admittedly, Immanuel Macron had a comfortable victory in presidential elections with 66.1 per cent votes in the second round in 2017. However, the far right National Party led by Marine Le Pen incontestably also made impressive gains by capturing 33.9 per cent of the votes. What is more, as the most powerful EU nation, Germany under Angela Merkel chose to welcome immigrants who sought refuge after fleeing from civil war ridden Syria as well as due to ISIS’s atrocities. However, Alternative for Germany, a far right German party, has been stoutly opposing the entry of immigrants within Germany.

Furthermore, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers have made the USA as well as the Atlantic world weary of radicalised Islam. Consequently, the phenomenon of intolerance regarding the race and religion has only grown in the Atlantic world. Moreover, the people of Islamic origin residing in these countries and in other parts are also overzealous to protect their identity. The publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad on 30 September 2005 in Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, is a case in point. The cartoon was intended to discuss the role of Islam critically in a democratic country. However, its publication merely led to demonstrations and riots not only in Denmark but also in several Muslim countries as well as India. Briefly, the aggressive assertion of the Islamic identity by Muslim citizens and their refusal to adapt to western modes of life has led to the brewing of tensions between the white/Christians and citizens of Islamic origins. What is more, in West Asia, political Islam has already emerged as a powerful force. Ironically, as a Euro-Asian country, Turkey under the Erdogan regime has been consistently dismantling Ataturk’s secular Republican model by emphasising the role of political Islam. The above examples also demonstrate inter-linkages between areas as well as powerful impact of political trends that cut across the boundaries of the areas. That is why, the definition of areas is dependent on time and space and scholarly imagination. Irrespective of the changing definition of any area, it is worth searching whether a key can be found to unlock and understand complexities of any area.

Can We Find a Key to Understand an Area?

Since the areas are interconnected, every area has an essential key, albeit in simplistic terms, that unlocks major developments within its radius and allows us to grasp its importance. At the outset, I would like to admit that I am doing this rudimentary exercise at the cost of sounding essentialist by even overlooking the possibilities of plurality of views regarding any area just to perceive whether one can get at the crux of any area. In this context, while lecturing on ‘Europe’s soul’, Waldner had summed up Paul Valéry’s insights on Europe. In fact, Judeo-Christen cultural basis of Europe was modernised by enlightenment (Waldner, 2006, p. 3). In essence, Paul Veléry held that Europe was born of three sources: Athens, Rome and Jerusalem. Athens in ancient Greece was the centre of knowledge and philosophical thoughts. Its contribution to epistemology has travelled across the disciplines all over the world for centuries. Rome is known for the international law and jurisprudence. After all, politics, societies and international relations had to have a legal basis. Jerusalem has been a spiritual centre. Europe represents ‘the triad of spirituality, democracy and individual freedom based on law’ (ibid.). This example is illustrative of the fact that different areas have drawn from each other through knowledge, spirituality and also individual freedom. Europe if it has to be understood, as it were, indeed has been a cradle of modern civilisation.

Like Europe, we must consider the spatial expanse and a wide variety of diversities; India too has been an old civilisation. Keeping its vast territorial space, peninsular location, social, linguistic and religious complexities and inter-area connections, India itself needs to be studied as a separate area. Let me proceed to briefly discuss India in the context of Asia.

India as a Sub-region in Asia

If we think of India/south Asia from the colonial times, the British administration controlled geographical areas that constitute India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma (Myanmar) among the contemporary South Asian states. India has always enjoyed the dominant presence in South Asia. It has been linked to South Asian states geographically, culturally, politically, linguistically, commercially and economically. Smooth functioning of any regional organisation such as South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is inconceivable without active participation of India.

India as an ancient civilisation has survived for thousands of years because it has a stable social order and transient political order (Kothari, 1970). Society has always been stronger in India than the state. How was the notion of India defined? Irfan Habib had argued that Indians defined themselves, more often, only after each foreign invasion (Habib, 2007). With the invasion and conquest of India by Britain, political leaders/public intellectuals chose to define the idea of India. It would be important to elaborate their ideas in contemporary times when the world is witness to clash of ideas and discourses that are championing varying notions of India. After all, area specialists have to often define areas in terms of concepts and ideas before embarking on their studies. Let me proceed to put different ideas of India through the prisms of prominent public figures.

M. K. Gandhi defined India through his praxis (Gandhi, 1927). He was born in the coastal city of Porbandar where he learnt to negotiate with religious diversities as several sects of Islamic faith, Hindus, Jains and Christians stayed in that port city. Although Gandhi was a devout Hindu, he respected all other faiths and firmly believed in sustaining religious diversities that constituted socially plural nature of society in India (Chatterjee, 2005). Jawaharlal Nehru, in contrast, through his passionately written book The Discovery of India ventured to construct the notion of India on a geographical space of the subcontinent. He conceived it as a place where enormous range of religious, cultural, linguistic and social diversities co-existed together for centuries in harmony. He underscored diversities as India’s strength and not weakness because India to him was microcosm of the world (Nehru, 2004). Besides, Nehru was deeply sensitive to India’s historical links with other parts of Asia and he championed the cause of Pan-Asianism while opposing imperio-racist powers. He was a nationalist and cosmopolitan internationalist at the same time.

V. D. Savarkar, as he developed a notion of India, was more inspired by the notion of west European territorial state that emerged after the treaty of Westphalia of 1648. Vast and complex in its scope, his notion of Hindutva tried to give India ethnic, political and cultural identity (Savarkar, 2019). He staunchly pleaded for loyalty to India’s territorial space. Further, he believed that anyone whose fatherland and sacred land is in India is a Hindu and India basically belongs to Hindus. The notion of Aasetu Himachal or from Sindhu River to the Seas constituted geographical space of India. He obviously was sceptical of people of religious faiths such as Islam and Christianity who entertain extraterritorial loyalties. He was keen on building Hindu Rashtra (nation) in undivided India. B. R. Ambedkar’s idea of India had a social depth. In his view, without total annihilation of the ugly and hierarchical caste system, it would be difficult to develop an appropriate notion of India (Ambedkar, 2019). For any nation has to be conceived on the basis of egalitarian society that cares for social justice. Rabindranath Tagore’s notion of India needs a mention because as a humanist he was unafraid of criticising aggressive nationalism in the west that was gaining ground in the midst of the First World War and later. He was critical of man’s capacity to stay in compounds of either nation or religion by losing the sight of humanity. To him, humanity was greater than nation (Tagore, 2017, pp. 584–601). Obviously, all the above-mentioned notions have survived and are experiencing creative tensions and clashes through the public discourses in India. Especially, the notion of secular nationalism has met its powerful and alternative vision in Hindutva.

Another striking feature of India after independence has been that it is a union of states or quasi federal state. Till recently, decisions regarding the foreign policy were taken by the central government in New Delhi. However, things are changing to a point where leaders from the bordering states have started taking active interest in making India’s foreign policy. This development can be explained by the advent and gradual consolidation of regional parties in India. States including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have started playing a role while shaping India’s policy towards its immediate neighbourhood (Harshé, 2019, pp. 84–86). Let me illustrate the point with two examples. First, any agreement over the river water sharing between India and Bangladesh, or drawing boundaries between the two neighbours is not feasible without the participation of the state of West Bengal in the decision making process. When Manmohan Singh regime in India and Sheikh Hasina regime in Bangladesh tried to arrive at an agreement in 2011 over the sharing of Teesta water between the two countries, owing to the lack of cooperation from the Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) led regime of the state of West Bengal, the agreement could not materialise. The TMC was supporting the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led coalition with its 19 members in the parliament. Subsequently, Prime Minister Modi had to visit Bangladesh with Mamta Banerjee in June 2015 to resolve long-standing boundary dispute between the two countries. Second, the two dominant regional parties in state of Tamil Nadu such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna DMK have always competed with each other in showing their concern for the rights of ethnic minority of Tamilians in Sri Lanka and those of Tamil refugees that fled Sri Lanka to take refuge in Tamil Nadu. The Rajapaksa regime (2005–2015) brutally cracked down the secessionist movement such as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by 2009. However, in 2013, the issue of violation of human rights was raised in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) as well as within India’s parliament. By taking the issue to the streets, the DMK brought the issue to the parliament. Eventually, in March 2013, the UPA-led regime voted in favour of the USA-backed UNHRC resolution that condemned violation of human rights in Sri Lanka. By voting for the resolution, India had compromised its stand on non-interference in the internal matters of any country (ibid.).

India while dealing with South Asia has to reconcile to the rise of China and its presence in the region (Wagner, 2016). With $72 billion annual trade, China is the largest trading partner of India. In spite of harmonious trade ties, India is apprehensive of China’s control over Aksai Chin and China considers Arunachal Pradesh as south Tibet. China has built ports in Chittagong (Bangladesh), Hambantota (Sri Lanka), Sittwe (Myanmar), Gwadar (Pakistan) and likely to develop potential military base at Marao Atoll in Maldives. The trade between China and India’s South Asian neighbours is thrice more than the trade between India and South Asian states (ibid.). Unlike India, China does not have a past baggage of relationship with South Asian states. However, unresolved border disputes, including Kashmir dispute, as well as problems related to ethno-nationalism have affected India’s relations with Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

In spite of the challenges from China, India also has been expanding its inter-area ties in Asia. It has invested over $2 billion in Afghanistan in development cooperation. Afghanistan indeed is a gateway to the West and Central Asia as far as India is concerned. Besides, India has built Chabahar port in Iran which is operative by now. Through Iran, India wants to reach out to Afghanistan as well as markets of resource rich countries of Central Asia. India also is a member of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) since 2017 and has gained a foothold in Central Asia. In order to enhance its energy security, India needs to build ties with the Central Asian countries. Indeed, countries located in energy heartland such as Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have been India’s major oil suppliers. In order to reduce dependence exclusively on the energy heartland in West Asia, India is developing closer ties with oil rich countries such as Sudan, Angola and Nigeria in Africa.

Being a peninsula, India has been gradually developing maritime perspective as well. India is a significant power in the Indian Ocean Region. Through the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectorial Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), India already is building ties of security and development cooperation with BIMSTEC states such as Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand. Such cooperation is acting as a bridge between the SAARC and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In fact, in the 1990s, India embarked on its Look East Policy that has been transformed into the Act East Policy. Since the islands states of Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have enjoyed unprecedented economic growth since the 1970s, they warrant India’s attention. India is also conscious of the potential market of 600 million people that constitute a trading group such as ASEAN comprising 10 member states. India is a member of ASEAN regional forum and has earned observer status in ASEAN. So far, Singapore is the biggest trading partner of India, and Malaysia has participated in India’s projects related to development of infrastructure. The development of Pune–Mumbai Express highway is a case in point. In its turn, efforts are under way to build rail and road links via its north-eastern states to connect India to Yangon (Myanmar) and Bangkok (Thailand). The ASEAN counties have always supported the economic reforms in India, and economic and commercial ties between India and East Asian states have been mutually beneficial.

Apart from evolving trade ties, India along with the USA, Japan and Australia is involved in Quadrilateral Security Dialogue better known as the Quad. India, the USA and Japan also continue to hold joint naval exercises through Malabar Exercises. Indeed, this is surely one way of countering rising power of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Concluding Remarks

The IRS and the AS are interconnected and interdependent. Globalisation as a phase in the current context of international relations is somewhere compelling scholars to understand both these fields in a new manner. However, theories that sprang up in the context of the Cold War appear inadequate to grasp the existential challenges posed to the nation-states in the current context. Besides, theories from the Euro-Atlantic world that enjoy disproportionate dominance in the academia under no circumstances need uncritical acceptance. Without sounding narrow nativists, scholars in India can evolve innovative concepts and theories by doing inter-disciplinary research. This in itself is going to be a long-drawn out process. Moreover, each area has its realities governed by specific circumstances. However, inter-area relations are equally significant and no area can ever be studied in isolation. Considering the vastness, complexities, diversities and inter-area connections of India, an innovative effort needs to be made to study it as an area in itself in the Asian context. In view of the wide ranging ideas and concepts discussed above, I hope that academics in India would evolve their own ways of looking at the IRS and AS by getting engaged in knowledge building exercises as well as doing policy-oriented studies.