1) India and the New World Order(NWO)

In this section we will be exploring in detail India's emerging place and role in the NWO, the main dimension of its role and spheres of its activism.

1.1) The NWO--Some Fundamental Points

Before coming to the specific discussion of India's emerging role in the global order, some general but fundamental points by way of a footnote about the NWO itself may be useful and also relevant to the subsequent discussion.

1.1.1) What is and is Not New About NWO

Underlying the present political order is the materialistic civilizational order that got initiated with the colonial mission of the European nations some centuries back. As such this civilizational order, which is global in span now, is called Western civilization or in short the West. The ideological basis of this civilization is absolute materialism; its method, in essence, loot and plunder; its over-riding concern, security-- security to overcome its insecurity--- real as well as perceived, and more perceived than real; and its ultimate objective absolute power and dominance.

As regards its basis, method, concerns and ultimate objective there is not a grain of newness in the

so-called NWO. 'There are no fundamental changes and no new paradigms are needed to make sense of what is happening.'1 However the way this civilizational order is administered and ordered at the political level has been changing and will continue to change. The political set-up, the main players in the order, power-relations between them etc. etc.--- these things always keep changing and the changes are done basically to ensure the survival of the order. In this century alone we have seen three apparently different political orders: one after the first World War, the other after the second and the third proclaimed by George Bush after the war on Iraq which was termed by him as the NWO.

1.1.2) Why the Political Orders Keep Changing

This is almost a natural process. However, in case of materialistic orders, one has to understand that a materialistic civilization can only generate endless greed which will engage the individual participants in a wild rivalry and an ever-increasing zeal to displace and defeat each other. Thus power remains changing from one participant to another; for example, it shifted from Britain to U.S in the post-45 world order. Also those in the back seat, having grown ambitious over a period of time and having fully internalised the art of plunder also rise up, not in revolt against the basis and the method of the existing order but for their 'rightful' place in it. In the present World-order back-seaters are often the ruling elites of the so-called third world countries who while in agreement with the ideological basis , methods, security concerns of those in the driving seat, rise up with the slogan: All is well and good but where do we stand? Why are we being ignored? It is, therefore, no wonder that the earliest calls for a new world order that preceded Bush's proclamation of NWO came jointly from such enthusiastic back seat actors as India, Malaysia, Tanzania, Brazil etc. etc. grouped together in what was called the South Commission. The Commission while declaring that "North also needs South" called for 'partnership' between the South and the rich North.2 Note that 'partnership' was a key notion later in subsequent expositions of the NWO by U.S. (cf. 1.2.3)

1.1.3) What World-Orders are Ultimately About

World-orders in general are not ultimately about wealth and material resources. They are about absolute dominance and control over the bodies and the minds of the people. This is an accepted fact that 'in international politics wealth is not the primary goal: states continue to be willing to pay a high price to maintain their security, autonomy, and to spread their values'3 NWO seeks to impose 'values' of the western civilization which basically means a package---- the western consumerist lifestyle, and ideology which means democracy.4

1.1.4) The Component of Real Change

In the change of political orders not all the aspects of the change may be worth of keen attention. In fact, it may turn out that in the deafening noise of change there is a little amount of what can reasonably be called the real change. But, nevertheless, this little amount has got to be identified.

Every emerging political order takes a fresh look of the strategic and security environment and forms definite perceptions about short and long term strategic and security threats. These perceived threats are of two types. One--- The Global, threatening the order itself; the other--- Particular, threatening the predominant power(s) within the order. The source of the former threat is perceived to be outside the order, whereas that of the latter lies within the order itself, that is, the threat comes from relatively weaker power(s) within the order. In response to these threat-perceptions a full range of security institutions are created and a network of security relationships gradually emerge over a period of time. These security

relationships, alliances, institutions, bring about a change in the strategic scenario, which must be carefully understood. This change may, in fact, form the component of real change that comes with a new political order. As regards security alliances and threat perceptions, a few important points have to be noted:

1.1.4.1) Prominence of Pacific Alliance

The alliance linking US with Asia-Pacific region is becoming and will continue to become more and more important than the present Atlantic alliance (linking US with Europe). This is because of:

• growing economic and, therefore, political and security importance of Asia-Pacific region, and
• decreasing dependence of Europe on U.S after the break-up of Soviet-Union.

1.1.4.2) Emergence of G-7

With the replacement of post-45 world-order by NWO the political, economic and security institutions of the old Order namely the United Nations (UN) family of institutions and Bretton Woods institutions namely IMF and World Bank are already in decline as far as their governing role in their respective areas is concerned.5 Instead, G-7 (the grouping of seven industrialised nations, namely, U.S, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Italy (on behalf of European Union (EU)) or to be precise G71/2 ( 1/2 referring to Russia's partial participation)6, is increasingly assuming the role of a 'central forum for the overall political management of the post-cold war era'.7 This is, because 'neither the UN Security Council, NATO, nor the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) can offer similar scope in terms of including the key players, though they and other organizations will continue to play important roles in certain issues.'8

1.1.4.3) Perception of Security Issues and Threats

The NWO has a very 'complex' perception of security issues and threats. We cannot fully venture into this domain here for the obvious reason that NWO by itself is not our topic of inquiry. However, some points of general interest and relevance to our subsequent discussion deserve to be mentioned.9

The NWO and the leading players in it like US have an imposing military, political and economic power, and highly developed systems in these fields. But the point of interest here is that the overwhelming sophistication of these systems often hides their extreme fragility which is inherent in them. Take for example the economic system and the case of international business which forms the bulk of world economic activity. Now, as Dr Peter Ackerman a London based leading financial analyst informs us, international businesses 'are more vulnerable than ever to threats of organized violence', and are, therefore, 'fragile enterprises... even implied threats can destroy the market for a product in many countries simultaneously'. Dr Ackerman goes on talking about 'new kinds of security threats' like for example, an induced computer virus, or such other sabotage techniques against microchip based systems.'10 This is again an instance of fragility that U.S administration recently called for something equivalent of the Manhattan Project to thwart 'terrorist' and 'foreign' attacks with catastrophic potential against U.S.A's computer networks.11

What emerges from all this, is that NWO finds the security threats to itself rapidly changing, and newer and newer threats coming up. Islam, or fundamentalism as it is called by the secular world is also projected as a new threat having replaced communism. This is not wholly true. Islam is not a new threat. It has been the only threat of global nature and the most serious one to the secular western civilization right from the latter's inception and given the fact that Islam continues to be an active aspirant for political power and also is totally incompatible with the secular civilization it remains the only rival (the one refusing to die inspite of being 'repeatedly killed') to the present world order and, therefore, a long term threat to it. More specifically it is considered to be the only obstacle to NWO's project of 'spreading the Empire of democracy'.12 However, there is really some 'newness' in the threat of Islam which mainly has to be found in the form and nature of this threat and which makes it a threat to NWO in the short-term as well. This 'new ' threat does not come from an Islamic block of states or a militarily powerful state in the organized form of a war, it comes from the movement of Islamic awakening and activism that has been rapidly developing throughout the Muslim Ummah for some time now, particularly after the Islamic revolution of Iran. This movement is in a diffuse form and, therefore, takes different forms at different places according to the political context. For example, it can be a movement against non-Muslim occupation of Muslim lands (Kashmir, Chechenia) or the one against West's proxy regimes (Egypt). But whatever the form, the threat that comes from this movement is 'internal' to states and this is the most important thing to note. It is on the basis of this nature of new Islamic threat that the strategists of NWO are treating Islam as a threat to the 'stability' of the key states i.e the states that have to be major players in NWO like India and Russia, for example. So the states that have to shoulder the responsibility of international order are considered to be threatened not from outside by an organised armed attack by a state i.e interstate war, but from the very inside by the Islamic movement. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which gives a representative view of the West's strategic community, in its 1995 year book notes: 'the main source of the threat in the world today are not conflicts between states but within them.'13 We will be reverting to this theme again when we discuss the specific case of India and its perception of this new Islamic threat at (1.4.4.1).

Here at the end we have to note that the emergence of 'new' security threats and issues has been one of the main factors that gave G-7 the leading role in global security governance 'with a flexibility to respond in a timely way to new and emerging security challenges' 14.