Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the BRICS Summit of Brazil. Russia India, China and South Africa in Astana, Kazakhstan, followed by a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Council whose founders are China and Russia. Between the two lie a stretch of Central Asian states. The Shanghai Cooperation Council admitted to full membership Iran, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, best described as constituting Asia’s Rimland. Apart from these groupings, there is also a sub-group attached to BRICS consisting Russia, China and India.
They form across continents an imposing architecture of security and cooperation, despite some loss of shine in the economic and political woes of Brazil and South Africa. Hopefully, these will pass in due course.
The emergence and consolidation of these groupings reflect the turbulence in global order, the quickening erosion of the unilateral international system that has long revolved round the pre-eminent economic and military power of the United States of America. Having squandered its wealth on foreign wars, the world’s once foremost creditor is now its largest debtor and rising. So when Mr Modi arrives in Washington for talks with President Trump they are likely to concentrate on trade and investment issues and eschew the high octane rhetoric that was the hallmark of President Obama.
Mr Modi is canny enough to recognize the mood swings of the Trump Administration. The President was critical of Qatar for its funding of jihadi terror, yet has now signed an arms deal worth $12 billion with its ruler. He has put the US back on a confrontationist track with Cuba and Iran and has had a serious spat with Germany and Austria. US ties with Russia, meanwhile, are descending into the abyss. Bombing weak countries passes for policy. Bombing stronger ones, even tiny North Korea, is high risk, hence best avoided.
Truth is that the ills that affect the US are deeper than many of the English-language Indian newspapers care to understand. Dependent on the crutches of syndicated columns from the New York Times and the London Times this is scarcely surprising. Wiser mainstream Americans, however, have no such myopia to contend with, hence are brutally frank. Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council for Foreign Relations warned of the disappearance of heavy industry from his country for more comfortable havens abroad; he was scathing of the quality of state schooling, where ‘students trail their peers in other industrialized countries in math and science…Generations of Americans , shockingly, read at a grade school level and know almost no history, not to mention geography.’
Robert Pape, political science professor at the University of Chicago, writes; ‘The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq war, growing government debt…have cost the United States real power in today’s world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back at the Bush administration as the death knell of American hegemony.’ He continues: America’s relative decline since 2000 of some 30 per cent represents a far greater loss of relative power in a shorter time than any power shift among European great powers from roughly the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War II.
’Such truths have to be factored into Indian foreign policy, which is never a zero sum game. Amiable twittering on shared democratic values and much else in similar vein have never meant much on the ground. The Nixon-Kissinger were active in support of the Pakistan military dictator Yahya Khan in his war with India in December 1971. The duo teamed up with Maoist China to contain India. They were ardent allies of Saudi Arabia and the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia. President Trump is cut from the same cloth. Of this, there should be no illusions.
Swiss support India’s NSG membership
The new Chairman of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Switzerland, has made it known that it supports India’s NSG membership, but has also left the door open for Pakistan to join as well. ‘We are of the view that it would contribute to strengthening global non-proliferation efforts if all countries having relevant nuclear technology and being suppliers of that technology were to become NSG members,’ said Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Pierre-Alain Eltschinger. He said Switzerland would take up the issue as Chairman. The former NSG Chairman Rafael Grossi had mandated a consensus among all 48 members of the NSG, many of which resisted India’s membership bid at the Seoul plenary session in 2016, unless India signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treatry.’ Which India refuses to do on the ground that it is discriminatory.
‘We support India’s application for participation in the NSG and acknowledge India’s support to global non-proliferation efforts. Switzerland would take the views of all NSG memers on how best to integrate non-NPT states. Switzerland would handle the issue in a ‘neutral, transparent and inclusive manner.’
Another senior diplomat said: ‘India has yet to contact us with its plans ahead of the session, so we don’t know what New Delhi wants at present. Referring to the strained Sino-Indian relationship over Beijing’s One Belt, One Road project the official said China’s refusal to endorse the UN Security Council resolution classifying the Pakistani jihadi and mastermind of the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008 meant that Beijing would block India’s NSG membership.
‘There is a rigidity in China’s posture, and it isn’t helped by the fact that instead of improving, India-China ties seem to have gone in the opposite direction.’ So they have. China is playing a long game. India understands that. What China has yet to appreciate fully is India’s unwillingness to kowtow to Chinese diktat. This is, after all, the 21st century and not the 18th. Besides India was never a Chinese tributary and is unlikely to become one in the near or distant future.
Generating wealth: India’s new entrepreneurs
Creating a modern economy is work in progress; it has been since 1991 when the licence and permit raj crumbled under external pressures; and it will take a good while longer for transformation to run its course. But change moves on regardless. India is in the midst of an unprecedented zone of wealth creation, propelled by equity dilutions, stake sales and real estate activity, all this driven by private equity. These, according to Credit Suisse, have enabled India’s wealth to rise by Rs 147.15 trillion from 2000-2015. The dynamics of family businesses, plus the importance of internet economy are churning the waters. As family businesses grow from generation to generation, it is essential that due importance is given to setting up family charters and councils to reduce and resolve conflicts around succession planning, professionalizing management and diversifying the sources of wealth. A recent conference in New Delhi of such entrepreneurs discussed these issues and suggested solutions.
‘The family Council is coming into India. I know of the large families who have already put a charter in place and and on western lines and I think it is important to have a constitution,’ explained Amit Patni, Founder RAAY Global and Chairman Nirvana Ventures Advisors. ‘As families are growing bigger, they are separating ownership and management and creating family offices. So this is one of the key things which Indian families should adopt, because it will help them in succession planning and avoid conflicts as the businesses grow bigger.’
In building a council or drafting a family charter, families should ensure that there is a shared vision and everyone is aligned to that vision. This can ease succession issues in a family, said experts of the subject. ‘There has to be an alignment of the family towards a vision with guiding principles, values and clarity of roles. And responsibilities, which are broadly what the family council or charter comprises of; then we will from one generation to the next,’ said Murtaza Khoraiwala, Managing Director, Wockhardt Ltd.
‘If you understand the relationships, understand the family values, spending time with your family and wanting a close family is more important and you prioritize that., and you have a strong vision and values, then the business does really well,’ said Aditya Birla Founder,Swatantra Microfinance. ‘What we’ve noticed in our realignment, the four families are now individually bigger than one family at the time. Our family charter is what actually led to an amicable realignment of the family,’ said Abhimanyu Munjal, Joint Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Hero Finance Corp.’
As the family cedes space to professionals in running the business, it is important to hire the right executives who promote the spirit of the family charter and its vision.
