Context
New Delhi can play an important role in shaping a new and more democratic world order which today stands divided more than ever.
Relevance
GS-II: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
Dimensions of the Article
- Present Situation: World Order
- Undemocratic Architecture
- Rising Inequalities
- Social Tensions
- Redistribution of Power
- Way Forward
Present Situation: World Order
- Institutions of the world have failed to unite the world.
- Global climate crisis resolution remains on pages and not action.
- Hoarding of vaccines left the poorer countries starving.
- WTO is already in shambles due to the disagreement between rich and poor countries over economic rules.
- Russia-Ukraine War is the final nail in the coffin of the boundary less global economy that emerged after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991.
Undemocratic Architecture
- Victors of the World Wars even today have tremendous control over the international institutions.
- Veto Power is accorded to major powers at the UNSC.
- World Bank, IMF and WTO is largely controlled by huge economic powers.
- UNSC often denies democratic decisions of the UNGA.
- Armed Interventions and sanctions imposed make a mockery of global democracy.
- It can be safely concluded that the world is largely undemocratic in its global order.
- Rapid spread of global finance and trade after the victory of Washington Consensus, 1991 has created instabilities in the developing countries.
- India presently is being heckled by the officials of U.K and U.S to gain traction against Russia.
Rising Inequalities
- The belief that global trade and finance will reduce inequality between and within countries has failed.
- Even in countries like U.S demand for more socialism and less unbound capitalism has increased.
- Free Market Capitalism is not compatible with a genuine democracy.
- Capitalist Institutions are governed by ‘right to property’ whereas genuine democracies are founded on the principle of equal human rights.
Social Tensions
- Capitalism wants to be unfettered by democratic regulations which makes it easier to do business.
- Democratic Institutions want to curb the animalistic competitive instincts.
- The simultaneous imposition of elections and free markets on the countries has increased social tensions and conflicts.
- Elections in such cases often produce populist socialists.
Redistribution of Power
- Power accumulates in the societies by the principle of “cumulative causation”.
- Those who are already in power consolidate their ownership of resources use them to bend the rules of the game in their power and maintain the status quo.
- Redistribution of de facto power must be preceded by the redistribution of wealth and education.
- Violent revolutions and armed rebellions are a way to redistribute the power.
Way Forward
All the violence must stop and India being at the centre of it all helps. It can live up to its aspirations of being a ‘Vishwa Guru’ by guiding the global order in these turbulent times into peace and stability. For this it must use all its diplomatic soft power to create balanced equations with amicable resolutions to major world issues.
Source – The Hindu
