Ep31. Is India a neopopulist Disorderer or a potential Orderer?

India is arguably the world’s only rising great power. As the world’s largest democracy and soon to be third largest economy it is the globe’s most serious aspirant for becoming the 6th permanent member of the UN Security Council. Despite this economic and foreign policy heft, since independence in 1947, India has stridently resisted being aligned with any one particular geopolitical “camp”. It has always wanted to retain its “strategic autonomy” and to avoid being treated as a junior partner to any major superpower. Recently, India has hedged between Ukraine and Russia, btw the BRICS and America, and btw Israel and the Arab World. As a result, India has successfully maintained cordial ties with many of the world’s top powers, but has it done so as an Orderer or as a Disorderer?

To discuss, Alex Hall Hall is joined by Indrani Bagchi – one of India’s most respected foreign policy journalists, a former Associate Editor for the Times of India, and currently Chief Executive Officer of the Ananta Centre. The duo discuss India’s approach to Russia, China, the UK, and the Israel-Gaza conflict. At the interview’s conclusion, while trying to Order the Disorder, an incensed Jason butts in with his strong personal hunch that India has much latent ordering potential but that Modi has deliberately squandered it in pursuit of his divisive and disordering neopopulist policies.

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Producer: George McDonagh

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Show Notes Links

Find out more about India’s wealth income inequality from TIME here

Read about Kejriwal’s arrest here

For more on India’s election here

Learn about how Modi’s Neo-Populist consolidation here

More on the arrest of opposition politicians here

And about the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada here

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