India in the World: Neither Rich, Powerful, nor Principled

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The end of the Cold War presented India with a stark choice. It could persist in an inward-looking policy that slid it further into international irrelevance. Or it could take a hard look at developing countries that had achieved success through outward-looking policies and gained diplomatic gravitas.

India failed the first test in the Gulf War, one of the defining events for the post-Cold War order. India's confused response -- which included a unilateral peace initiative to Baghdad -- based on a faded image of itself as leader of the nonaligned nations, succeeded in alienating both Baghdad and Washington without winning any friends. Being bracketed with Cuba and Yemen in a U.N. Security Council vote at war's end calling for Iraq's surrender was less than edifying.

Five years later, India repeated the policy mistakes. Last September the U.N. General Assembly approved the text of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which India had campaigned against, by a vote of 158-3. Only Bhutan and Libya joined India in rejecting the treaty. The next month, the General Assembly voted to fill five non-permanent seats on the Security Council. India and Japan keenly contested the Asian vacancy. What was expected to have been a close vote, perhaps requiring several ballots, turned into a rout. Japan romped home, 142-40. The two defeats proved that, 50 years after independence, India is neither rich enough to bribe, powerful enough to bully, nor principled enough to inspire

THE SOCIALIST LEGACY

India's failure to match East Asian growth rates has diminished its international influence over the last three decades. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-64), armed with socialist faith in an interventionist state and an aristocratic disdain for consumerism, tried to transform India into a giant of heavy industry. The achievements were genuine and substantial. India's economy grew three times as fast during the 1950s and 1960s as during British rule. The food security that Nehru worked for contrasts with recurring famine under the raj. In just 40 years, infant mortality was halved, life expectancy nearly doubled, and adult literacy almost tripled...