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NEWS ANALYSIS

Why India still reluctant to lead Asia
AFP, New Delhi
A US challenge to
India to take a
more assertive role on the global stage runs counter to a decades-old foreign policy that has nearly always valued diplomatic caution over strategic ambition.
Since independence in 1947, India has sporadically flexed its diplomatic, economic and military muscles, but such instances have been largely restricted to its immediate neighbours.
During her visit here last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was time for India to wield its growing economic and political clout further outside its borders and help "shape the future" of the Asia region and beyond.
"This is not a time when any of us can afford to look inward at the expense of looking outward," Clinton said. "This is a time to lead."
While there is suspicion of what is widely seen as a US strategic imperative for India to become a
counter-weight to China, many experts agree the time has come for the world's largest democracy to make its voice heard more forcefully.
This is especially true, they argue, if India wants to prove its credentials for securing a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
In a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, C Raja Mohan, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, argued that while India was keen to "increase its weight in global governance" it would only do so on its own terms and at its own pace.
"India is prepared to engage on these issues and participate more fully in global decisionmaking bodies on the basis of its own selfinterest, but is not prepared to take tests from anyone," he added.
Senior Indian civil servants remain fiercely protective of India's long-held policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries, insisting that it is a better guarantor of influence in the long term.
"A passive approach is not necessarily a weak approach," said one senior official.
But the "self-interest" cited by Mohan is inevitably pushing India towards a more proactive stance, driven by the need to source raw materials for its energy-hungry economy and tap new consumers for its manufactured goods.
In both areas, it increasingly finds itself in competition with regional heavyweight China — already a permanent UN Security Council member and an intimidating military and economic power.
China is mineral-rich Africa's top trading partner, with bilateral trade totalling $126.9 billion last year, and has extended its influence into India's immediate neighbourhood, notably in Sri Lanka and Nepal.
As for Clinton's appeal, which was for a more general leadership on issues like human rights and the environment, Chaulia voiced frustration with India's traditional wait-and-watch mindset.
"We need to contest the orthodoxy that says, 'do as little as possible'".