INDIA'S REAL CHALLENGES ARE AT HOME

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

MANMOHAN SINGH, INDIAN PRIME MINISTER

India Today, Section: India Tomorrow: Perception vs Reality

Pluralism, secularism, multi-culturalism and a commitment to the
principles of equity, social justice and the rule of law are the core
values of our civilisation and the foundation of our republic. Many in
India and abroad who have admired this legacy of our freedom struggle were
deeply concerned by the emergence in recent years of communalism and
majoritarianism in our body politic. If these insidious trends had not
been checked, India would not have been the India that our freedom
fighters had sought to create.

Liberal democracy is the natural order of social and political
organisation in today's world. All alternative systems, authoritarian and
majoritarian in varying degrees, are an aberration. It is precisely this
understanding that shaped our response to recent developments in Nepal.
All democratic societies face internal challenges of one kind or another.
Our maturity lies in the manner of our response to such challenges. While
it is the duty of all governments to protect the life and property of
every citizen, our experience has shown that democracy and democratic
methods yield the most enduring solutions to even the most intractable
problems. Authoritarian responses cannot solve the real problems of the
people or make life worth living.

If our commitment to remain an open society is one leg on which our nation
stands, the other is our commitment to remain an open economy. An economy
that guarantees freedom of enterprise, respects individual creativity and
at the same time mobilises public investment for social infrastructure and
the development of human capabilities. I believe India's policies towards
the world have been shaped by this commitment to the core values of our
nationhood. We should be proud to identify with those who defend the
values of liberal democracy and secularism, be it in Nepal or in Iraq, and
help them in their struggle of nation building.

Over the past decade and more, the debate in this country on the nature of
our interaction with the world, with our wider Asian neighbourhood and
with the major powers has also been shaped by the sweeping changes in our
economic policy. The initiatives we took in the early 1990s towards
economic liberalisation have not only altered the nature of our
interaction with the world, but have also shaped global perceptions of
India. Indeed, they have shaped more than mere perceptions. They have
altered the manner in which other nations, big and small, wish to relate
to us. There is, today, a greater willingness internationally to work with
India and build relationships of mutual benefit and mutual
interdependence. This augurs well for our development and security. The
steps that successive governments have taken since 1991 have helped to
finally remove what development planners used to refer to in the 1960s and
1970s as the "external constraint" on growth. Indian industry and our
professionals have demonstrated to the world their ability to step out
with confidence from a highly protected environment into a mercilessly
competitive one.

The global environment has never been more conducive to India's economic
development than it is today. The world wants India to do well. Our real
challenges are at home. Having ensured that there is today no external
constraint on growth, we must now ensure that there remain no internal
constraints to development. To say, however, that the external constraint
on growth is no longer binding is not to suggest that we are making full
use of the new opportunities. There is much more we can do to draw on
global savings and to tap global markets. India is wholly committed to
multilateralism in trade. But we will seek the reform and democratisation
of multilateral institutions. At the same time, India will strengthen
South-South cooperation and help all developing countries regain their
rightful place in the comity of nations.

It is also interesting to note that the response of other countries to our
national security concerns is being shaped by their perceptions of
business and economic opportunities. Countries that imposed sanctions on
us when we declared ourselves a nuclear weapons power have come to live
with the reality of our nuclear capability because they wish to build
bridges of mutual economic benefit.

South Asia has been slow to recognise the win-win aspect of economic
cooperation. While India has a set of bilateral relationships with its
neighbours that vary in both political and economic intensity, the mere
lowering of tariffs and pruning of negative lists does not add up to
creating relations of mutual benefit. Greater connectivity, in transport,
road, rail and waterway links, communication, transit routes through each
other's territory transforming each sub-region of the subcontinent into an
interconnected web of economic and commercial links can create mutual
dependencies for mutual benefit. So far this potentially benign process
has been hobbled by narrow political calculations. We sincerely want to
promote a sense of partnership in South Asia to realise the region's
latent potential.

Our foreign policy is shaped by our civilisational values and our
commitment to peace and freedom. But it is equally shaped by our
commitment to our economic development and to the development of all
developing economies within the framework of an open society and an open
economy. It is shaped by our yearning to recover our lost space in the
global economy and our economic status in the comity of nations. It is
shaped by our desire to build bridges with our neighbours and our economic
partners. It is shaped by our firm and sincere commitment to a future of
shared peace, freedom and development in our neighbourhood. Such are the
principles on which we should engage the world and our partners. India is
destined to recover its due status in the world, but this process will be
speeded up if we do what we must at home and build bridges of mutual
interdependence with the world.