India’s Role as a Peace Mediator in these Critical Times

The Schiller Institute has organized on July 8 and 9 an international conference titled “On the Verge of a New World War – European Nations Must Cooperate” in Strasbourg, France.

Several politicians and scholars from a wide range of countries participated, and UWI will present a number of selected speeches from the conference.

Today we present the speech held by Mrutyuanjai Mishra. Mr. Mishra is is an author and journalist, India.

India’s Role as a Peace Mediator in these Critical Times

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for inviting me. Thanks especially to the Schiller Institute. And as the day proceeds, the height of the speaker keeps increasing. So I don’t know who’s next. I also want to thank, especially Tom Gillisberg, with whom I have now my third session on participating for peace. Tom is from Denmark, and the first two times, you know, it was extreme weather conditions when we both had to give the speech. The first time it was a snowstorm and then we had a rain with intensity which looked as if it was a tropical rain with only one extra condition—it was really cold water. And the second time it was a storm, and we were hiding behind a ship while we were giving our speech. So when he said that Mishra will have to talk once again on peace, I was really scared. This is the next extreme weather condition. It’s hot, but it’s bearable for an Indian, so.

Well, it was funny; when I started writing my speech, I thought, I need to include the word Global South. And the theme of the conference actually became the role of the Global South. And I have put the title, ‘Can India Play a Constructive Role in Creating Peace and Reducing the Gap Between the Global North and the Global South?’ And, you know, it’s kind of fascinating that India very recently took the position as being the most populous country in the world. So I’m kind of the elephant in the room. You know, the only Indian probably, but we are one- seventh of the world population. So don’t underestimate us.

I’m so thankful that the word Global South appeared as the conference theme. We’ve learned that the term “first world countries,” which was actually derived from French anthropological thinking based on division of society in three predominant layers, namely the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie. India, my country of origin, has long been referred to as a Third World country, because it was unaligned with the capitalist NATO countries during the Cold War and was not directly aligned to the communist Soviet bloc either. But we’ve always been very good friends with the former Soviet Union and today’s Russia. The countries in the Soviet bloc at that time were referred to as the Second World countries. Strangely, India has successfully cooperated with both blocs and has retained an independent approach towards its foreign policy.

It is reflected in this particular month that we had before. Narendra Modi, India’s President, was actually invited by Joe Biden for three days (and three days may not be long enough for a vacation in France, but visiting Joe Biden for three days is a lot). And, you know, Denmark’s Prime Minister, after more than a year, got an invitation, and that was for two hours. So that speaks, you know, to why this dinner and extra dinner and extra jokes between these two gentlemen took place. But as soon as Narendra Modi arrived in India, he called Russia’s President and said, Hello, we are still friends. Don’t worry about that. So, the thing is that India is in this unique role, kind of a girl in a college that everyone wants to date, and she is unable to make the decision, but kind of says, “Hey, can’t we all be friends?”

As critical thinking became crucial in the 21st Century, the term “Third World” became obsolete, because it was considered neo-colonialistic, and, you know, calling and expecting every other to join the club. So it was expected that these third world countries were so-called backward countries and they needed to modernize and liberalize and become like the First World countries, which are represented today, more or less, by the 31 members of NATO with Finland in, and soon 32 if Sweden joins in a week or so. So we have got used to the term, but now we have to get used to the term the Global South, because we are moving away from the First World/Third World thing.

That’s why the theme of the conference is quite relevant. What is this Global South? And this Global South actually represents the two most-populous countries of the world, India and China. India and China do not necessarily lie in the Southern Hemisphere, but most of the poor world and middle-income countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa lie in the Southern Hemisphere. There is an extra responsibility in these days, where we are plagued with war in Europe, on India’s and China’s shoulder. I think we need to create a conditions of peace and not get involved probably in another war. The purchasing power of the Global South, as was mentioned by earlier, is on the rise. And today the so-called BRICS countries constitute a substantial part of the global economy, and the so-called First World share of the global economy is gradually decreasing. A new world order is in the making. There are forces in the world that do not want to see a peaceful rise of the global South, and want to constantly impose a state of war on the planet. That forces the poor South to mobilize more of its resources into the defense sector and often has to experience a destabilized neighborhood. Yugoslavia has been mentioned before.

Just before I had to give my speech, I met somebody here who mentioned that India and Yugoslavia actually had a fantastic relationship when Tito was the President. And I remember in my school days in India—I grew up in India, and we knew everything about Yugoslavia. And when there was a football match, India never has had a good football team. So we used to, you know, in Danish we say “hey,” and we used to always praise the Yugoslavian team. So we knew all the players who played in the Yugoslavia team. Such was the contact between Yugoslavia [and India], and as Yugoslavia got divided into five countries, this was a scenario that India really feared, because, can you imagine a country with 780 languages being spoken, and they are not French and German that we have borrowed, or, for that matter, English? These are the languages that arose from India, the word mother and father, it comes from the language, Sanskrit. So imagine, this is the diversity of India. It could it would be very easy to split these countries along these lines. But managing diversity is a big aspect. But as I said, the more the agenda of war is pushed and war alliances are created, it pushes the Global South— Africa, Asia—also into this thing called more money for defense. And now we have two countries which are in financial difficulties, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, who lie in the neighborhood of India.

But we gradually have seen, and will see, the Global South will try to exert its influence. And if they are organized—I mean here China, India, primarily, have a big responsibility. If they’re clever, they will be able to set an agenda of political stability, and I think China and India agree on this, that we need to manage political stability. We cannot afford to have chaos, even of the scale that you had in France recently. So, we need to maintain political stability in the Global South and development of all its citizens. That is the new agenda.

So let’s take a recent example. Despite constant pressure from the Western countries, two-thirds of the world population still live in countries that are neutral. Or are directly supporting Russia in the war in Ukraine. They are more worried. What are their worries? They’re more worried about issues of poverty and food security and want to improve the living standard of millions of [their] citizens. The U.S.- and European Union-led bloc, including, on the other hand, NATO countries, represent only around 36% of the global population, and they’re primarily, of course, united and consistent in their military support for Ukraine and have actually also approved of economic sanctions against India.

But on the other hand, meanwhile, nearly one-third of the world’s population lives in a country that has remained neutral so far, led by India. Here, India is the leader. These non-aligned states include Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the UAE. And they will do their utmost to avoid picking sides. They don’t want to pick sides. And I gave you the example earlier that Modi went to the United States, came back, and immediately called the Russian President. They want to avoid sides while seeking to prevent political and economic instability.

By 2030, it is projected that three of the four largest economies will be in the Global South. China will be the largest, India probably the second. The United States will be the third and Indonesia the fourth. Already, the GDP in terms of purchasing power of the Global South dominates BRICs nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and south of South Africa, and their income surpasses that of Global North’s group, G7 club. Dr. Jaishankar, the Foreign Minister of India (in India we call him the External Affairs Minister) just recently, on a trip to Europe, said these famous words: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that its problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problem.” They don’t recognize that the world’s problems are also Europe’s problems. The strong comment by Jaishankar came amid persistent effort by the European countries to convince India to take a tough position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Let’s face some facts. The Global South has some issues to deal with. There are still people living in poverty. One-third of women in India are still illiterate. Even though millions of Indians and Chinese have come out of poverty, much can be done to improve the living standard for millions others in both India and China and the rest of the Global South. Hence, there is a need of a new vision of a world without wars and a world where cooperation becomes a key pillar of social interaction instead of competition. Who knows, if the constant expansion and encircling of Russia had not occurred? If that had not occurred, we would probably also have had peace in Europe now. Instead of increasing the number of countries in privileged military alliance, we could create an alliance for economic stability and peaceful growth. Therefore, in the end, I would like to say, it is this agenda that needs global attention now. And India has been involved, and now we are the second-largest group of immigrants in the U.S. And there is an agreement, even in the U.S. now, that people-to-people cooperation is one of the best things we can do. And I think cultural exchanges and any form of exchange—like me meeting Tom in Denmark brought me to Strasbourg. And I guess this kind of interaction, us meeting, like the way we have met here today, we should not consider that we are just few. I may be the only one here from India, but there is a huge population in India who forces its politicians to choose peace. They want to stay friends with Russia, and actually many Indians have said, when we needed help, Russia helped us. How can we not help them? So India will always, I mean, in the minimum, stay neutral. But on the other hand, the friendship with India and Russia will stay strong. This is my opinion. But on the other hand, there is a great opportunity for the Western world and European Union to also increase its involvement in India. Thank you very much.