‘The Claims of Asia and the Far East’: India and the FAO in the Age of Ambivalent Internationalism

If any nation were poised to actualize the developmental promises that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) extended to the international community, it was India. India's independence came in the wake of devastating famine in Bengal and the fears of its recurrence, and the nationalists who had midwifed India's freedom staked their legitimacy to the promise of food for all. Yet from independence, the FAO played only a marginal role in India's agricultural development, its projects reflecting a winnowing scale of ambition. From early investigations into the improved cultivation of basic food grains, the FAO's projects grew increasingly modest by the time of the Green Revolution, revolving around modest improvements to capitalist agriculture, from wool shearing to timber and fishery development. Instead, India drew more substantively upon resources made available by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the United States Technical Cooperation Mission and occasional Soviet largesse. Meanwhile, the Indian most associated with the FAO, B.R. Sen (Director-General, 1956–1967), struggled to align the Organization's capacities with India's scarcity crises, even as his own understanding of famine drew upon his experience as India's Director of Food during the Bengal Famine.     

Nationalizing Space: Cosmetic Federalism and the Politics of Development in Northeast India

Until recently Arunachal Pradesh on India's Northeast frontier was relatively insulated from the processes associated with development. State institutions were barely present during the colonial era. In 1962, however, India and China fought a border war in this area: this war, along with signs of unrest among indigenous peoples in the neighbourhood, exposed India's vulnerabilities in the region. Since then, nationalizing this frontier space by extending the institutions of the state all the way into the international border region has become the thrust of Indian policy. The region's governmental infrastructure was fundamentally redesigned to put in place what can only be described as a cosmetic federal regional order with a number of small states dependent on the central government's largess and subject to monitoring by India's Home Ministry. The new regional order has put Arunachal firmly on a developmentalist track, which has enabled India to meet its national security goals, but at a significant cost to the region.     

India's Middle Classes and the Environment

The focus of most analyses of environmental struggles and discourses in colonial and postcolonial India is on rural and forest areas, and on subalterns versus elites. Recently, however, there has been increased interest in urban environmental issues, and, to some extent, in India's (variously defined)‘middle classes’. This article reviews a range of literatures — environmental, social‐cultural and political — in order to draw out themes and arguments concerning the relationships between India's middle classes and the complex meanings and materialities of the environment. Three issues are explored in detail: civic indifference and the public sphere; environmental activism; and Hinduism and ecological thinking. The article emphasizes the importance of recognizing diversity and dynamism within the middle classes in relation to the environment. It argues the need to develop situated understandings of what constitutes ‘the environment’ amongst different middle class groups; and underlines the ways in which environmental issues reflect and are often emblematic of wider social and political debates.     

The inconsequential gains and lasting insecurities of India's nuclear weaponization

India's nuclear breakout in 1998, foreshadowed as early as 1974, may have been understandable for reasons of global nuclear politics, a triangular regional equation between China, India and Pakistan, and domestic politics. Yet the utility of India's nuclear weapons remains questionable on many grounds. Nuclear deterrence is dubious in general and especially dubious in the subcontinent. Nuclear weapons are not usable as weapons of compellence or defence. They failed to stop the Pakistani incursion in Kargil in 1999 or the terrorist attack on Mumbai in 2008. They will not help India to shape the military calculations of likely enemies. And India's global status and profile will be determined far more crucially by its economic performance than nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, they do impose direct and opportunity costs economically, risk corrosion of democratic accountability, add to global concerns about nuclear terrorism, and have not helped the cause of global nuclear non‐proliferation and disarmament. Because the consequences of a limited regional war involving India could be catastrophic for the world, others have both the right and a responsibility to engage with the issue. For all these reasons, a denuclearized world that includes the destruction of India's nuclear stockpile would favourably affect the balance of India's security and other interests, national and international interests, and material interests and value goals.     

The Rise and Fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–2): A Study in Transoceanic Political Culture

The rise and fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–82), India's first printed newspaper, is a narrative of prime importance to the history of Indian newspapers, and such is the context within which it has invariably been written. Previous works have approached Hicky's Gazette in a somewhat teleological and insular manner. These accounts have ignored the significance of foreign news among its content and fail to acknowledge Hicky's appropriation of political rhetoric from other parts of the British Empire. Through the contents of Hicky's Gazette we find Calcutta residents engaged in a transoceanic political discourse, criticising ‘nabobs’ with all the ferocity of the metropolitan British press; claiming the freedoms of Englishmen in common cause with the discontented, not only in Britain, but also in Ireland and America; and participating in discussions to regulate the governance of the East India Company through petitions of grievances. In the circulation of Hicky's paper throughout the presidencies and in the contributions of pseudonymous writers we find a platform for the politically discontented among the European community of Bengal whose voice is otherwise muted amidst the Francis-Hastings disputes and the steady stream of ‘official’ information between Calcutta and London.     

India’s Part in the Politics of Fiji’s Decolonization: From ‘Outworn Slogans’ to ‘Pragmatism and Realism’

United Nations (UN) demands for the unconditional ending of colonial rule troubled British officials confronted by local political difficulties impeding their efforts to establish self-government for Fiji, alarmed Indigenous Fijian leaders who initially resisted that reform, and encouraged the polarizing demand by Indo-Fijian leaders for a common franchise. India was initially at the forefront in maintaining UN pressure on Britain to move Fiji rapidly to independence with this franchise. Yet in the last two years of British rule, as ethnic tension in Fiji rose dangerously, India assumed the lead in urging moderation at the UN. India’s volte-face from antagonist to ally of the British helped open the way to the political accord on which Fiji’s independence constitution was based. The article highlights the major part played by the pre-eminent Indigenous leader Ratu Kamisese Mara in winning India’s support for a cautious approach to reform.     

Women,Nation and Decolonisation in Papua New Guinea

This paper explores the question of women, decolonisation and nation-building. It argues that the inclusion of women within the nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was problematic partly because women had rarely experienced mainstream colonial rule — an experience that elsewhere provided a basis for participation in the post-colonial state. The paper also investigates how women were perceived and represented by male writers at independence. While the Pangu Pati attempted to include women in state-building, these efforts were not adequately supported. PNG's achievement of independence coincided with the globalisation of second-wave feminism, and this was to prove critical for PNG's female citizens in their efforts to be included in the new state, for PNG's membership in the United Nations provided an external push to raise women's participation in the nation. Nevertheless, the government's dependence on international organisations to push the women's agenda also hampered the development of an autonomous women's movement in the country. The paper argues that, for PNG's female citizens, colonisation, independence and decolonisation occurred simultaneously after 1975.     

A ‘New’ Commonwealth for Britain? Negotiating Ghana's Pan-African and Asian Connections at the End of Empire (1951–8)

This article examines to what extent Nkrumah's Pan-African ambitions and Asian connections altered the meaning of the ‘new’ Commonwealth for British policy-makers. It discusses India's influence on British political options in the Gold Coast during the negotiations for independence and Commonwealth membership and assesses the impact of Ghana's Pan-Africanism on two major facets of Commonwealth politics: Britain's ability to balance its relations with the Commonwealth and France, the other main European actor in Africa; and Britain's capacity to maintain the idea of a common heritage, which Pan-African projects like the Ghana–Guinea Union threatened to disrupt.     

‘We Wanted to be Free as a Nation,and We Wanted to be Free as Women’: Decolonisation,Nationalism and Women's Liberation in Zimbabwe, 1979–851

This article examines one of the most intractable problems that a newly independent nation encounters; the dissonance between the rhetoric of a revolutionary movement and its subsequent treatment of women in nationalist and supposedly decolonial projects. In drawing on interviews and archival research carried out in periodicals, newspapers and Hansard, the article examines the optimism, disillusionment and betrayal of Zimbabwe's women in the first decade of independence. Exploring women's variegated roles during the country's war of independence, this article argues that many women believed that their participation in national liberation would be a precursor to a broader programme of cultural and societal emancipation. Yet, as is shown, governmental thinking placed women as consumers and not producers of new nationalist culture. In particular, the grim reality of the situation was unambiguously shown just three years into independence through ‘Operation Clean-Up’, whereby thousands of women in Zimbabwe's main cities of Harare and Bulawayo were indiscriminately detained with state machinery arguing that the women were prostitutes, vagrants and beggars. A blatant effort to curtail women's autonomy in urban spaces, the machinations of ‘Operation Clean-up’ demonstrated an uneasy coherence between colonial and post-colonial thinking regarding the ‘appropriate’ place for women in the new nation.     

India's rise in Africa

India's rise in Africa has been largely overlooked, despite the important implications of the growing presence of Indian corporations and a rise in New Delhi's political ties with the continent. Not only are Indian actors providing much‐needed investment and capital, but Indo‐African connections represent a further important diversification of Africa's international relations, something which reflects a major development for the continent. Indian activity in Africa may be said to constitute a middle ground between China's profit‐maximizing and largely statist approach and the much‐resented intrusive conditionalities associated with western policies. It is evident that India's growing activity in Africa has the potential to help African companies become more efficient by exposing them to competition, new advances in technology and modern labour skills. African governments could potentially use the opportunity of an increased Indian corporate presence in Africa as sources of appropriate technology, skills and advice for economic development. However, if not handled correctly, any goodwill that India possesses in Africa will quickly be squandered and/or India will become just another actor in Africa. It is up to Africans to negotiate with Indian actors to ensure that the benefits accrued from Indo‐African ties are evenly shared and that Indian interest in the continent, alongside that of others, may help to serve as a catalyst for economic revitalization. The key issue is how African leaders can seek to leverage newfound Indian investment and interest in Africa so that Africa's place in global trade networks becomes more proactive and beneficial to the continent's citizens.     

Australia and the rise of India

Australia is at risk of being left behind by the pace of India's emergence as a regional and global power and its lack of engagement with India during this emergence. The Rudd Labor government is developing a framework which may make Australia a significant partner with India. There is the potential for a thoroughgoing engagement of interests and ideals in proposals Australia has put forward in three areas. Australia's vision of an Asia Pacific Community, with cooperation as its habitual operating principle, and with a membership that includes India and the USA as well as China and Japan, fills a multilateral gap. Secondly, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament may provide a global framework assisting the development of Australian and Indian initiatives in the controlling and winding back of nuclear proliferation. Thirdly, Australia's national carbon pollution reduction program is intended to demonstrate international leadership and engagement in climate change, and opens the prospect for Australia of a substantial bilateral partnership with India (and others) to advance common interests around climate change. Australia, while emphasising its close relationship with the USA, is preparing to live in a region where the USA will, over time, be less influential as its relative power declines. As other great powers rise, Australia can actively pursue a hedging strategy to diversify its dependencies, and develop a much deeper engagement with that other emerging Asian giant.     

BIMSTEC and emerging patterns of Asian regional and interregional cooperation

The first phase of India's Look East Policy in 1991 was exploratory in nature and tinged with more idealism and optimism to break out of the South Asian region which was stagnating in economic growth. The second phase of India's Look East policy took stock of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 to 1998 and China's growing linkages with the Southeast Asian region. In 1997, mainly through the diligence of Thailand, a new grouping that could act as a bridge between Southeast and South Asia was established called BIMSTEC. The objective of the paper will be to argue that BIMSTEC balances India's engagement with Southeast and South Asia but it also counters China's growing influence among ASEAN members, in particular Myanmar. Thailand is the driving force behind BIMSTEC activities as this would enhance its trade hub status and engagement policy with Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam (CMLV) states.     

Between Principles and Pragmatism: India and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime in the Post-PNE Era, 1974–1980

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that even when India had posited its peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE) of May 1974 as a mark of resistance against a prejudiced nuclear order based upon the NPT, India's policies in the post-PNE period confirmed with many aspects of the emerging non-proliferation consensus. India's response was guided by two major factors. On one hand, were its long-held principles such as the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy (including PNE's) and the right to nuclear technology cooperation for peaceful purposes. On the other hand, were the pragmatic policy choices it had to make as advanced nuclear states worked towards a stricter non-proliferation regime. In this struggle between India's principles and its necessities, India's nuclear behavior was guided much more by pragmatism rather than by its normative preferences. Yet, even when India made major compromises on its nuclear principles in private, in public India stuck to the rhetoric of its principled opposition to the NPT regime. These tensions between India's actual practice and its public policy are evident on three major non-proliferation issues: nuclear safeguards, export controls and the danger of nuclear proliferation in its neighborhood.     

Bicameralism in Small States: The Experience of the Commonwealth Caribbean

Almost half of the bicameral legislatures in the Commonwealth are located in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Why so many bicameral legislatures are located in a relatively small geographic region, which is composed of countries that manifest characteristics more usually associated with unicameralism—small size, a unitary state, and homogeneity—is puzzling. Scholars have offered two possible explanations. The first concerns the presumed wish of the region’s political leaders upon independence to replicate the values and institutions of their colonial mentor, Britain. The second concerns the presumed need to prevent one-party dominance by guaranteeing the representation of opposition parties in the second chamber. This paper challenges both these explanations. By examining the origins of bicameralism in the region with the arrival of the first settlers in the seventeenth century, its demise during the era of crown colony rule in the nineteenth century, its renaissance in the 1950s and 1960s, and its survival in the post-independence era this paper will offer a more multi-layered explanation This entails taking account of the complex relationship between these former colonies and their imperial past, the wide range of views expressed both locally and within the Colonial Office about the suitability of bicameralism in the debates that accompanied the transition from colonial rule to independence, and, finally, the very distinctive nature of Caribbean bicameralism.     

Can Asia lead? Power ambitions and global governance in the twenty‐first century

Is the much hyped ‘rise of Asia’ translating into global public good? The leading Asian powers, China, India and Japan, demand a greater share of the decision‐making and leadership of global institutions. Yet, they seem to have been more preoccupied with enhancing their national power and status than contributing to global governance, including the management of global challenges. This is partly explained by a realpolitik outlook and ideology, and the legacies of India's and China's historical identification with the ‘Third World’ bloc. Another key factor is the continuing regional legitimacy deficit of the Asian powers. This article suggests that the Asian powers should increase their participation in and contribution to regional cooperation as a stepping stone to a more meaningful contribution to global governance.     

Building Cross‐Sector Careers in India's New Service Economy? Tracking Former Call Centre Agents in the National Capital Region

This article presents findings from a labour mobility survey of 250 former call centre agents in India's National Capital Region (September 2008) exploring individuals’ employment before, during and immediately after leaving India's high‐profile call centre ‘industry’. These data are combined with forty‐two in‐depth interviews conducted in India's NCR (July 2006 to August 2008) with call centre agents, managers, ex‐call centre agents, labour organizers and economic development officials, as well as representatives from different labour market intermediaries. The study gives a cautiously optimistic account about the call centre work and employment opportunities on offer in India's ‘IT Enabled Services – Business Processing Outsourcing’ (or ITES‐BPO) industry, and their implications for young urban middle class graduates based on: (i) the movement of around one fifth of the ex‐call centre agent sample into further study, facilitated by relatively high call centre salaries; (ii) the movement of ex‐call centre agents into higher paying job roles in a wide range of sectors including banking, IT, insurance, marketing, real estate and telecommunications; and (iii) the development of transferable skills in Indian call centres that are recognized by ex‐call centre agents and their subsequent employers as conferring a labour market advantage in other sectors of India's new service economy relative to colleagues without prior call centre work experience.     

Foremothers: Neera Desai (b. 1925)

Neera Desai (b. 1925), best known as the founder of India's first Women's Studies Research Unit, also wrote the first analytical history of Indian women. In Woman in Modern India, published in 1957, the central concern is women's lack of opportunity and progress from the Vedic period to the 1950s. A college student at the time of the Quit India movement in 1942, Neera belongs to a generation of women who entered the professions in newly independent India and continue to ask the hard questions about gender and power.     

Collective Trauma and the Evolution of Nehru's Worldview: Uncovering the Roots of Nehruvian Non-Alignment

ABSTRACT

Scholarship on Nehruvian non-alignment often assumes an artificial continuity between Jawaharlal Nehru's pre-independence thinking and post-independence decision, as India's prime minister, to pursue a policy of rejecting any international blocs or military alliances. This article demonstrates that, in fact, the ideas that constituted Nehruvian non-alignment were largely absent from Nehru's pre-independence thought – during the decades before India's independence Nehru articulated a strong willingness to cede India's sovereignty to international groupings for idealistic aims. To explain Nehru's shift from idealistic internationalist to professed internationalist but de facto isolationist with regard to alliances and blocs, I advocate a first-image, constructivist approach which considers the impact of collective trauma on Nehru's worldview. Drawing upon a novel, synthesized approach to theorizing collective trauma's impact on national identity, this article argues that the collective trauma Nehru witnessed and experienced during the decades before Indian independence profoundly impacted his trust in international institutions and views on representational diplomacy. In turn, this trauma affected his interpretation of various ideational and strategic considerations, contributing to the formulation of Nehruvian non-alignment.     

‘What has Ghana Got That We Haven't?’ Party Politics and Anti-Colonialism in Botswana, 1960–66

This article offers a re-examination of the period leading up to independence in Botswana, formerly known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, between 1960 and 1966. With the use of original archival material from Botswana and the United Kingdom, it aims to explain why the Bechuanaland Democratic Party overwhelmingly defeated the Bechuanaland People's Party in the March 1965 elections for self-government. Botswana's post-colonial transition was unusual for being without a mass, social movement for national self-determination. The Democratic Party, led by Seretse Khama, favoured close cooperation with the British colonial authority and a gradualist transition to independence, while the People's Party closely adhered to the ideology of anti-colonialism and demanded immediate independence. This article will argue that the Democratic Party won independence due to its sacrifice of anti-colonial credentials, in the short term, in favour of a political platform that addressed the long-term challenges of Bechuanaland's quest for viable statehood. The research helps to explain why Botswana was slow to develop closer relations with fellow independent African states. As a provincialised history of decolonisation, this article shows the potential for variance within the wider anti-colonial movement, which incorporated diverse actors, agendas and geopolitical conditions.     

In the Shadow of Great Power Politics: Why Nehru Supported PRC's Admission to the Security Council

In early 1950s, India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru turned down suggestions that India become a Security Council Permanent Member. As per suggestions, India would either take China's seat occupied by Republic of China (RoC) or become the sixth member alongside RoC. Nehru turned down these overtures arguing that People's Republic of China (PRC) should occupy China's seat at the Security Council. This study ascertains why India turned down apparently good offers and instead championed PRC's cause at a time when there existed marked political differences between them. While some have analyzed India's stand strictly in bilateral terms, this study casts the net wider. By closely examining Nehru's writings and correspondences, it argues that Nehru's support was based on his understanding of PRC and its position as a great power in international relations. Early twentieth-century developments had taught him that great powers that were ostracized became a source of instability. In an era that saw the unveiling of nuclear bombs, the cost of a dissatisfied PRC would be tragic. To stabilize the system, it was necessary to accommodate PRC within the Security Council and provide it with the veto. This would assuage PRC and check its revisionist tendencies.