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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: economy

The Greatest Empire of Them All

19 Tue May 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Opinion and Response

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Abbasid, Achaemenid, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Chalukya, Chola, culture, economy, empire, Gupta, Khmer, Kush, literature, Maurya, military, philosophy, Rome, Satavahana, science, Sumeria, technology, territory, Venice

Who was the greatest empire of them all? Ask a dozen people that question and you will get a baker’s dozen answers! Of course, everyone has their favourites and it is hard to accept that there were any shortcomings in our precious darlings but how does one go about bringing even a semblance of objectivity to the discussion? What are the criteria by which one might evaluate empires?

Almost every discussion on this topic starts with a comparison of military might. “Rome dominated the world,” someone would say. “Surely, the irresistible onslaught of the Mongol horde is something to be feared,” someone else would counter. “Agincourt!” blurts out the incorrigible Anglophile. “Waterloo,” they grin further as the Italo-Gallics imperceptibly roll their eyes at those “northerners” who did not even learn to take a bath daily until well into the 19th century. “But what about Alexander the Great?” squeaks the lonely classicist.

Two things immediately stand out in this conversation: first, this is still a largely Western conversation without any serious inclusions of Eastern empires. One wonders if the Mongols would have made the list had they not invaded Poland and threatened Central Europe. Second, what exactly is an empire? Is it defined merely by size or does it consider the nature of the political, social, and economic relationship between the conquerors and the conquered? Before I kill all the fun in this exercise, I will just state that the way the ancients understood empire was through political fealty and allegiance: weaker kings and chiefs would swear oaths of loyalty to an emperor and send annual tributes in exchange for their continued local rule. This worked well for the emperor too in an era where difficulty in communications and travel meant that authority and distance from the imperial capital were inversely related.

Does the size of an empire contribute to its greatness? If so, the British were the greatest empire ever. This same yardstick would also knock Rome out of the Top 25 and cede greater importance to Brazil than to the Achaemenid, Mauryan, or Mughal empires. Clearly, territory is important but not all-important; after all, one hardly refers to Israel as an empire for its dominion over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. By the same token, population, economic wealth, and raw military power are complicated indicators because later empires will always have an advantage with regard to these features. Even comparing contemporarily, there was hardly any technological difference between the Romans and the Greeks at Asculum or between the French and the Austrians at Austerlitz. While these indicators do matter in a broad sense, they are of little use when differentiating among an already elite group of empires.

Related to size is duration. How great is an empire, really, if it collapses even before the ashes of its creator have cooled? Alexander the Great comes to mind here, for he shaped an empire in 13 years that did not last as many months after he was gone. However, in that short yet intense period, Alexander did as much to spread Greek influence around the known world as the many great kings and philosophers before him. How can an empire leave its mark on history if it lasts but for a fleeting moment? If duration is the primary criterion, Rome would undoubtedly reign as the primus inter pares of empires – even though considered an empire only after the fall of the republic in 27 BCE, Rome was among the mightiest powers around the Mediterranean since the 3rd century BCE. From this early date, it lived on in some form or another, until the collapse of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 – almost 1,700 years. Yet survivability is also an imperfect measure – who remembers the Kush in eastern Africa that lasted for nearly 1,400 years? Or how seriously are the Venetian and Holy Roman Empires taken, both of which lasted about a thousand years?

Surely culture must have a role to play in how empires are remembered and evaluated? After conceding the approximate criteria of size and duration, does culture offer a better yardstick by which to measure empires? This is a complicated question, for it immediately raises the question of who does the remembering. There is no doubt that the more popular Romans and Abbasids built great empires but in what cultural way do the Cholas or the Guptas fail to measure up to them? Memory depends on where one stands; for Europe, Greece was the cradle of civilisation but to people further east in Sumeria, Iran, and India, Homer and Aristotle were relatively late to the game. Should we judge an empire by how much cultural influence it wielded in its own time or should the measure be how much of it trickled down to the present? Do Rome and Greece not have an unfair advantage in that their influence was carried forth since the 1500s by the bayonets of those who wished to claim their lineage than by the merits of their own empires? In other words, had India colonised Europe in the 1500s, would the referent empires not have been the Harappans, Guptas, and Cholas? How much sense does it make to tear these cultures out of their historical context and evaluate them clinically for their contributions to humanity?

There is also the problem of making sense of the contributions each civilisation made to human knowledge. If utility is considered, we run into problems with Indian science which offered remarkable explanations of the natural world but did not always translate into technology. The same could be said of the metaphysics of Aristotle by a modern atheist. Another consideration, veracity, is of little help either. Modern states and empires will always have an advantage over older ones because the nature of discovery and invention is such that it builds on earlier work. A millennium down the road, our descendants might consider our lifetimes a total waste because so many of our theories might have been disproved by then. Influence is perhaps a better measurement, however imprecise: Parmenides and Aristotle laid down the framework in the West of how science and philosophy ought to be done. Many of their theories were not challenged until the 1500s, some even as late as the 1800s. The Greek plays are still used as metaphor to capture complex human emotions and characteristics in an easily understandable way. Similarly, the power of Sanskrit and its literature over Indian writing was enormous until the Raj systematically dismantled native systems in favour of creating brown Englishmen.

Given a threshold military capability and size, an empire, then, is made great by its science, philosophy, and culture. Monuments are usually good indications of an empire’s achievements for they at once represent wealth, administrative acumen, and technical and aesthetic brilliance. Neither Abu Simbel nor Ellora nor Angkor Wat could have been built by, to use a modern term, failed states. This also supports the idea that as a thinking species, humans find greater value in the higher pursuits than in crude physical strength. The greatest empire, then, is one that is closest to – forgive the borrowing of the atrocious phrase – “having it all.” With these criteria, who do you think is the greatest empire of them all?


This post first appeared on Swarajya on May 28, 2015.

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Measuring Up The Neighbours

21 Sun Sep 2014

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Measuring Up The Neighbours

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China, economy, India, infrastructure, Japan, Line of Actual Control, LoAC, Narendra Modi, United States, Xi Jinping

Chinese premier Xi Jinping’s visit to India was preceded by a great buzz. It followed Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Japan and Shinzo Abe’s promise of $34 billion in investments in India over the next five years. Beijing’s consul-general in Bombay, Liu Youfa, spread the optimism by suggesting the potential for $100 billion in Chinese investments over Modi’s tenure as prime minister. Modi’s commendable experience with China when he was the chief minister of Gujarat also heightened expectations of major agreements on infrastructure. In addition, Modi’s upcoming visit to the United States, primus inter pares in an alleged triumvirate set to curb China’s aggressive and expansionist nationalism, gave more salience to Xi’s trip.

“Eleven” Jinping’s visit was flat on arrival. First, the Chinese delegation was larger than expected, with a 1,000 of its members camped out in Ladakh at Chumar and a few more at Depsang. Second, Xi left after promising an investment of $20 billion over five years; while not disappointing in itself, the commitment was a pale shadow of Beijing’s boast of investing thrice the amount of the Japanese in India and underscored the tepid state of affairs between Asia’s two largest countries.

However, few in India held their breath over the Chinese visit; they were more interested in observing how the leaders of the two countries interact with each other and how China will appraise an India that promises to be firm on border security but welcoming to trade. The summit promised little and in that it delivered abundantly.

Contrary to the verbiage about peace and harmony from Beijing, China is not keen on seeing its southwestern neighbour rise. While China’s banks are eager to uncover new investment opportunities, India’s development may prove to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Delhi’s rise, though not inevitable, is a safe bet and it would be foolish to miss out on profiting from the humongous investments India needs to make to feed, clothe, house, educate, and employ its 1.25 billion people. On the other hand, however, an economically stable and more prosperous India will become a rival to Chinese power in Asia and on the world stage. Ideally, Beijing would have India develop but at a slow rate so that it remains a source of revenue but the disparity between the two countries is large enough that India never becomes a concern.

Trade between the two countries has come down recently, but this would not worry China much as the imbalance is skewed heavily in their favour. China buys raw materials from India and exports manufactured good back much like the English of yore. Furthermore, Indian companies have to struggle to access Chinese markets whereas Chinese firms have been denied entry only in a few critical sectors like telecom. Xi has promised to rectify this equation but it remains to be seen what will actually be done.

The carrots China offered during the summit were interesting – an invitation to join the Maritime Silk Route, to push forward with the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar trade corridor, and full Indian membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation if India would work to integrate China into the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The first carrot was to invite India into a new world order shaped by China; the second carrot would benefit China far more than India due to the poor state of Indian manufacturing and infrastructure in the region to exploit the additional connectivity to its eastern neighbours. The third carrot, the SCO, was another attempt to tie India into a Sinocentric hemisphere: the Central Asian -stans do not share a border with India and Russia is currently tilting towards China due to its fracas with the West in Ukraine. In exchange for a place in the Chinese order, India would have to extend the benefits of SAARC to Beijing. It is telling that China has blocked India’s path into any forum that cannot be bullied by China, for example the Nuclear Suppliers Group and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

The litmus test on India-China relations comes down to two things: China’s support of Pakistan and the border dispute. There were expectations is some quarters that China might be more pliable on these matters in light of the bonhomie between Japan, India, and the United States. These hopes were dashed as Xi’s trip turned sour upon news of Chinese incursions into Indian territory. While it has been suggested that Modi told Xi in no unclear terms to recall his troops, from Delhi’s perspective, Beijing reiterated its duplicity by invading Indian territory under the cover of a diplomatic delegation. China’s brazenness comes from its successful challenges to the global status quo in the past and confidence in its own position in the shifting world order. Having developed Pakistan into a perennial thorn in India’s side, Beijing now only needs to be nice enough to Delhi not to push it into an overt zero-sum alliance with Japan and the United States. The promise of investments and the threat of trouble along the border maintains that balance quite well for Beijing.

Historically, two powerful states have not risen peacefully side by side. Be it Rome and Carthage, the Byzantines and the Ottomans, or France and the Prussians, competition and conflict was unavoidable. It is unrealistic to expect India’s relations with the Middle Kingdom to ever be harmonious unless one of the two has been unquestionably subdued. The Chinese premier’s visit underscored the disparity in power between the two countries – India is weak and in need while China is powerful and wealthy. If there is a lesson for Delhi here, it is that the time for ambivalence and moralpolitik in foreign policy is over; no good news can come from across the Himalayas and India must be able to repel the worst.


This post first appeared on Swarajya on September 22, 2014.

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Great Expectations

20 Sat Sep 2014

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia, United States

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Afghanistan, Barack Obama, China, Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, CLNDA, economy, India, Indo-US nuclear deal, intellectual property rights, Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, Narendra Modi, nuclear, Pakistan, Richard Verma, taxation, United States

Narendra Modi’s meeting with Barack Obama at the end of this month after addressing a session of the United Nations General Assembly will close a most eventful month in Indian foreign policy. The beginning of September found the Indian prime minister in Japan, where he secured $34 billion in investments from Shinzo Abe; Chinese premier Xi Jinping’s recent visit secured another $20 billion in MoUs though the Chinese pointedly boasted about making deals worth five times that amount; Modi’s visit to the United States will end a flurry of diplomatic activity that has involved the three most significant countries to India.

Before the general elections, there was much speculation that Modi would shun the United States in favour of closer ties with his own neighbourhood. It was rumoured that this was partially due to a personal grudge over the US denial of a visa to him in 2005. However, the Indian prime minister has received overtures from the United States with unexpected warmth without ignoring India’s relations with its own region. Now, over five days, Prime Minister Modi will address the UNGA, meet with several members of the US Senate and House of Representatives, and end his trip with two days of discussions with President Obama.

Recent hiccoughs in the India-US romance have caused many to question the commitment of the other side; the Obama administration is seen by many Indians as relegating relations with the world’s most chaotic democracy to the doldrums after its heyday during the George W Bush White House, while Washington feels insufficiently acknowledged for bringing India in from the nuclear cold and opening its defence market to the country. It is hoped that Modi’s meeting with Obama will be able to smoothe ruffled feathers of bureaucrats and politicians at home as well as abroad.

If previous behaviour is any indication, the Indian premier will focus primarily on economics; Modi will raise the issue of work permits for Indians (H1 visa), seek US investment in India’s infrastructure, and invite assistance in improving his country’s manufacturing potential. Admittedly, there are quite a few disagreements between the two estranged democracies as the WTO deal proved last month. The challenge will be for both countries to take stock of the other’s position ideologically and politically as well as recognise the different stages of development, prosperity, and demographics the two find themselves in.

The United States has recently expressed willingness to begin joint defence production with India and doing so would allow Delhi to join the lucrative global armaments supply chain. The technology transfer and manufacturing experience would boost its own production as well as introduce India’s services in upgrades and maintenance to the world’s armed forces. With Modi Sarkar contemplating an entry into the arms trade, defence manufacturing would be a strategic investment.

For the United States, who has been eager to see India take up a greater role in Afghanistan, the sale of Indian weapons to Kabul is much desired. It will balance the influence of Beijing and Moscow on Kabul as well as help keep the Taliban at bay. Washington must have by now accepted the idea of Indian boots on the ground as unrealistic and providing material, training, and intelligence support to Afghanistan will have to suffice. There is a silver lining to this arrangement – Foggy Bottom’s naughty little friends in Islamabad will have less to be paranoid about than if they saw Indian troops on two fronts.

There are more economic disagreements between India and the United States than is sexy for the press to cover. India’s tax system, intellectual property, US labour laws, pharmaceutical testing, immigration, the WTO, and protectionist trade barriers are just a few of the concerns businessmen in both countries have. The recent nomination of Richard Verma as the US ambassador to India is a welcome move and if confirmed, Verma will have his hands full with economics rather than his specialties, non-proliferation and national security. Interestingly, defence cooperation, which was only a couple of years ago seen as the benchmark of good relations, will be important but less meaningful than the economic agenda.

Another item of interest to India is LNG exports from the United States. With increasing troubles in the Middle East and several of India’s assets in Syria, Iraq, and Sudan overrun by strife, Delhi is looking to diversify its purchases. Iran is not yet a viable option and pipelines from Central Asia would have to either connect to Chabahar via India’s much vaunted but as yet incomplete International North-South Trade Corridor or pass through the hostile territories of China or Pakistan. Until Chabahar and the INSTC is operationalised, the United States is the best medium-term option for energy. Presently, US gas is available only to countries with which the United States had a Free Trade Agreement. The Gas Authority of India (GAIL) received a special dispensation three years ago but Indian business is hoping Modi can persuade the US to issue a complete waiver.

Perhaps the single greatest issue for the United States during these talks will be the operationalisation of the nuclear deal. Unlike boring trade talk on solar panels, textiles, farm quotas, subsidies, or insurance sector reforms, India’s nuclear industry is not just a big-ticket item and public symbol but also an enormous business opportunity. Talks with Delhi have so far been lifeless on six Westinghouse reactors for Chhaya Mithi Virdhi and another six reactors from General Electric for Kovvada due to India’s unconventional nuclear liability law that holds reactor suppliers as liable as operators.

An agreement on nuclear energy will have tremendous multiplier effect – not only will it spur industrial growth and domestic personal consumption but the chances of a nuclear agreement seeing some aspects of the manufacturing supply chain move to India are high. The deal will also put pressure on Japan for a quick agreement on nuclear cooperation with India as both Westinghouse and GE are partnered with Toshiba and Hitachi.

The disappointed editorials in newspapers and blogs in India and the United States betray a palpable impatience for relations between India and the United States to improve rapidly. For the United States, a close ally in India renews the global order of Western-style liberal democracy; for India, the US economy is the quickest path to development and prosperity. After decades of Nehruvian economics, a young and aspirational India no longer has the patience to wait for state-planned growth.

However, Delhi has no intention of becoming another USS England; India has its own interests, which do not always align with those of the United States, processes by which it will do things, and a domestic audience which it has to keep placated. At best, Washington can expect India to be another France – difficult and exasperating, but an ally nonetheless. Similarly, India will have difficulty in convincing Foggy Bottom of setting Pakistan adrift; this will affect not just Kashmir and the South Asian nuclear balance of terror but also Afghanistan.

Both countries will occasionally be perturbed by the other’s positions on global events. Yet these disagreements need not derail relations every time if handled maturely and some notion of sphere of influence is respected. The most important thing the two nations can do to bring themselves closer is boost contact through trade, education, tourism, governmental official exchange programmes, or even regular joint military exercises. Indians and Americans must get to know each other beyond the occasional and sensational headline in the newspapers and on the television. Modi’s focus in his foreign policy dealings so far has been just that – trade as the foundation of cooperation and friendship. If that can be achieved, it may just be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.


This post first appeared on Niti Central on September 23, 2014.

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