Democracy & Disruption
By Prof (Dr) DK Giri
(Professor of Practice, NIIS Group of Institutions)
The last week has been eventful in global geopolitics in terms of both democracy and disruption playing out as simultaneous processes. Democracy is vindicated in two peaceful elections held in Canada and Australia. And the political culture of disruption demonstrated in the war between India and Pakistan, in addition to bloody wars raging in Gaza and Ukraine for the last three years. In this piece, my attempt is to decipher the dynamics between democracy and disruption while admitting that some disruption is creative and necessary. But here, disruption is meant to be a destabilizing and devastating political process.
Take the case of democracy which is the preferred political system for many countries except the authoritarian autocracies like Russia, China, North Korea and religious monarchies like those in the Middle East and military dictatorships like Myanmar. Even in those countries, if people were allowed to exercise their free will, they would go for democracy.
With all the deficits in democracy, it is the best form as people have freedom of expression, belief and association etc. Economic growth and per capita income could be a greater incentive for people as in China. But the China story is unique, impractical and unworthy of emulation. Democracy and development do go together as evidenced in the countries of the West.
The elections in Canada and Australia are testimony to strengths of democracy that help the smooth transition of power and accommodation of multiple diversities. Canadian politics could be competitive and potentially violent in view of the presence of an ethnic party that supports violent methods in carving out a religious state in India. This element of Canadian politics perils its bilateral relations with India.
But the good news is that democratic politics embraced closely by Canada conduces the change of leadership in a party and parties in government. The new leader in Canada Mark Carney will be different from Justin Trudeau who targeted India for his own political survival. Thus, the advent of new political leaders and parties leads to changes in bilateralism and the geopolitical strategies of a particular country.
Again, talking about the impact of democracy and disruption in the Ukraine war is stark. The long reign of Putin in Russia has followed a pattern of Russian engagement with its neighbours. That is to reclaim the Russian sphere of influence by cowing down the neighbours and even by militarily invading as is the current case in Ukraine. There has been no respite from this aggressive approach in the absence of a genuine democracy in Russian politics that would have allowed a ‘change of guard’ in the Kremlin.
On the other hand, observe the impact of change of leadership in the USA on the war in Ukraine. Joe Biden would have continued to stoke the war. But Donald Trump’s ‘second coming’ to the presidency seems to have a dramatic effect. Although Trump could not end the war in a day or a month as he claimed during his election campaign, he would not actively aid its continuation.
A solid mechanism of democracy is dialogue. In international interaction, it is called diplomacy. India as the largest democracy has been the leading proponent of dialogue and diplomacy. Remember Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging the Russian President Vladmir Putin, “Your Excellency, it is not the time of war”. The whole world acknowledged Modi’s abjurement of war and advocacy of peace. On the other hand, his remark attributed the ongoing war in Ukraine to failure of diplomacy and dialogue embedded in a democracy.
Today, at the time of writing, the Modi government ordered air strikes at nine targets in Pakistan, both in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and in the mainland. Although New Delhi claimed it has focused the bombing on terrorist infrastructures, forcibly entering into Pakistan territory amounts to a declaration of war. Pakistan has vowed to retaliate and has intensified the shelling at the Line of Control (LoC). India’s military operation is called ‘Operation Sindoor’.
The nomenclature of the strikes has emotional and cultural connotations. Sindoor (vermillion) on the forehead of Hindu Indian women signifies their protection by their husbands or brothers although the latter are tied rakhis (a piece of string) by their sisters for a similar purpose. The terrorists at Pahalgam singled out the men and shot them in front of their wives. This is to avenge their murders. Good choice for the code name of the special military operation.
The question is, could this disruption of peace and normalcy be avoided. Did Narendra Modi have to eat the humble pie by going to war against Pakistan in the light of his suggestion to Putin? Observers and experts would argue on both sides. Some would say it was possible to corner and coerce Islamabad through subtle as well as aggressive diplomacy. Others would argue, diplomatic pressure does not move Pakistan to delink terrorism and foreign policy objectives. India had no alternative to military retaliation.
I tend to hew to the second formulation that endorses the military option at present. The diplomatic route would have been viable if New Delhi embarked on it long ago and persisted with it while creating favourable conditions to support the journey. The democratic world including India has made that mistake. The dialogue ship has sailed. The world needs to rethink seriously and arrest the democratic backslide and refocus on its retrieval and expansion.
Democracy will sustain when it is spread across the world. Because a democratic country can hardly negotiate or dialogue with a non-democratic leadership. Also, there are multiple points of contact in a democracy. The democracy fosters dialogue with another democracy. If it is an autocracy, the fate a country hinges on the whims of its leader. The West has made a big mistake by building the Chinese economy. Now Beijing poses a systemic threat to the West, so they say. A big lesson to learn.
It is time to prioritise democracy over even economic growth. Even a stable economy can be badly disrupted by wars. A lot of world resources are wasted on armaments and preventing violent extremism.
India should focus on consolidating its own democracy which inspires the neighbours to emulate it. Also, a democratic South Asia would be more conducive to peace and security than a richer region with authoritarian politics stalking it. Major world powers like the USA did take some initiative to deepen democracies. Biden had called a world democracy conference. But the initiative was not sustained. Americans seem to lurch back to trade nationalism and political isolationism.
‘Operation Sindoor’ is now an unavoidable strategy. But this should be replaced sooner than later by a push for stable democracies in the region. This would open the doors to diplomacy and dialogue for peace, harmony and security in place of death, destruction and disruption. — INFA