India's Science Strategy Must Prepare for Multipolar Geopolitics

A rising India in the fast-changing world must grab a comfortable chair at the international high table.

India has experienced an enormous share of geopolitical predicaments in the past three centuries. The colonial tragedies percolated deep across various domains keeping many of them stunted. We have only now begun to learn our true history. However, vast swathes of the Indian population only learn the fabled historical lessons from a few well-known episodes, primarily those revolving around popular names in national and domestic politics. Vijnana Bharati is committed to uncovering the colonial predicaments over Indian science, which have been mainly untouched. This commitment is necessary as we do not yet fully fathom the true geopolitical history of Indian science. And only by fathoming will we be able to use science as a tool to beget India’s strategic ambitions. The time to use science as a strategic tool has arrived.

Historical lessons are essential for entering challenging times, and challenges are galore in the post-COVID-19 world. As the world acclimatises to the pandemic, global geopolitics is experiencing rapid vyavastha parivartan (systemic vicissitudes) along with an Industrial Revolution. The pandemic has tremendously impacted the worldwide economy, supply chains, and trading ease. Inflation is at a 30 to a 40-year record high in the United States, Eurozone, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea. China has been the world’s manufacturer for the past 40 years. It faces rising economic inequality, real estate bubble, excessive debt, and widespread corruption. These factors are likely to erode, if not wholly taken away, the ‘manufacturing hub’ moniker from it. This pandemic-created economic lull now has a title to it, the ‘COVID-19 economic recession’.

Along with the global economic recession, the world is also at the fag-end of the Third Industrial Age. Many science and technology domains are staring at a new, unknown and disruptive innovation cycle. This time the cycle is called the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). The new crop of Industry 4.0 technologies spawning from the disruption, given the COVID-19 economic recession, must effectively percolate in the vulnerable Global South. The inability to percolate may have dire consequences, perhaps even a new round of colonialism emanating from the multipolarity of global geopolitics.

India in Post-Cold War, Post-COVID World

The post-Cold War India, which also happens to be the period when we liberalized our economy, has grown in the era of a unipolar power — the United States. Not exactly peacetime for India, the period since 1991 saw India’s economic and scientific growth happening under the shadow of terrorism and proxy warfare. In these 30 years, India became a beacon for the developing economies of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. India made significant inroads in trade in services, exports of agricultural goods, machinery, automobile, penetration of information communication technologies, and pharmaceuticals. We are on a public infrastructure spree. We have lifted millions out of poverty, and our socio-economic indicators fare well. More recently, the thrust on innovation through national programs like Make in India, Digital India, and Startup India have brought in tremendous economic leverage for the nation. However, as India continues to rise to a higher echelon on the global power pedestal, it will be perceived differently. Nothing alike in the last three hundred years.

Despite the geopolitical complexities, a unipolar world was much simpler than the times upon the planet. The unipolar period saw the formation of a few new countries, most in Africa and Eastern Europe. The COVID-19 recession and the Fourth Industrial Revolution have begun to heat the globally consequential geopolitical hotspots — especially Ukraine and Taiwan. Such are the periods when new nations take birth, and existing ones are forced to make amends to the world’s worldview and way of operations. A new world order is upon this planet. India must now prepare for momentous geopolitical and geoeconomic evolutions that have already begun to occur, starting with the Russian military operations in Ukraine. Given that science and technology are central to the vyavastha parivartan, India must pursue science diplomacy more than ever before.

So, what exactly changes for science diplomacy hereafter? Firstly, we must prepare specialists and generalists to work together in reality. India’s diplomatic corps, pegging at around 1000 personnel, is small and needs quick and massive expansion. This expansion need not come up only by adding numbers to the corps but by creating an extensive span of track-2 diplomats from academia, industry, intelligentsia, and humanities. Those who will be thought leaders voice the issues of their respective domains, yet at the same time, operate with the degree of formality that national diplomacy requires.

India’s Stakes in a Multipolar World

Multipolar global geopolitics will demand us to shape our diplomatic apparatus to interact with various power centers, Europe, the United States, Russia, China, and other emerging powers, South Korea, Israel, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, and others. The existing Indian diplomatic apparatus has operated with U.S. unipolarity in the backdrop. The geopolitical multipolarity must change our diplomatic operations. The most significant change occurring right now is the economic rise of India in the club of the top five nations. This elevation demands India to exercise its aspirations for the world, supply the demanding nations with solutions, and upkeep national interests that now transcend beyond the confines of South Asia. It has to do this while creating a unique geoeconomic and geopolitical proposition — a Bharatiya model.

Partners will be challenging to find and maintain in multipolar times. Multipolarity brings tremendous volatility in the international system, and partners usually ask for a pound of flesh as collateral to bring equilibrium. The flesh can be restrictions, sanctions, prohibitions, trade and technology exchange stoppage, scientific and industrial intellectual property espionage, and others. Multipolarity brings both opportunities and challenges to this pursuit. The opportunities will only come if India uses science diplomacy tactically and strategically. On the challenges front, the contenders for the few chairs multiply. India will have to manoeuvre in regions with a bare presence. We must be in a position to ask for it when the need arises, including those nations that have been at a higher power pedestal than India for a long time. A rising India desires a comfortable chair at the international high table. India’s science diplomacy will have to make equitable inroads in the Global South, access their markets, resources and assist them with tailor-made and cost-effective solutions. Likewise, the science diplomacy for the Global North will have to manoeuvre in the stormy waters of great power rivalries.

India has the foundational philosophies to remain an independent pole in a multipolar world. Our ability to endure the Cold War under the doctrine of strategic autonomy has worked well until now. The liberation of Goa from Portugal (a NATO power), the liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan under the nose of the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, overcoming dependence on the Soviet Union, the construction of indigenous strategic S&T systems in the space, defence, and atomic energy domains despite crippling international sanctions, and the economic growth under the shadow of terrorism disregarded by the West, has given us the confidence to endure in the more testing times that are upon us.

Science Diplomacy With An Eye on Future

India’s science diplomacy must be relevant to the near future and be devised to attain specific goals. Science diplomacy has often deviated into abstract realms and has failed to deliver precise returns in the past. This was due to the lack of comprehension regarding its significance. Back then, India peculiarly used science diplomacy for assistance and co-operation and seeking high-end technologies. However, it seldom quantified such interactions making the entire science diplomatic pursuit sluggish and out-of-focus in delivering national goals. To make science diplomacy work for India, it must be in the realms of realpolitik envisioned by the national leadership, be highly quantified and agile.

Using science for diplomacy should not be restricted to co-operation between direct stakeholders in the global scientific communes. Instead, it must be increasingly used in international security and trade organisations where India is a member and, more importantly, in those multilaterals where India aims to make a mark as a global leader. Such proliferation of science diplomacy in non-scientific diplomatic domains is necessary for India to create distinct models, norms, and standards that will bring strategic gains. For instance, in the post-COVID-world, India’s inspiring performance in tackling the COVID-19 global pandemic is already making its pharmaceuticals, traditional medicine, information technology, health, and civic management attractive to numerous countries. Likewise, India’s classical prowess with cost-effective technology development can continue now that we have initiated the Production Linked Incentive Scheme under the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission. Many countries worldwide are seeking accessible and affordable technologies and technology standards and regulations. It is here that India’s unique proposition may turn out to be a market disruptor.

This blog was published in the February 2022 edition of Science India magazine published by Vijnana Bharati.