Before I put forth my proposition, let me begin with an assumption. This assumption is based on the present reality that the world is more or less divided into two thought processes, which we can term as Eastern and Western. These are two poles of the world, geographically, indeed, but also ideological poles, where one represents the peak of materialistic tendencies, with conquest, power, and authority at its helm. In contrast, the other pole, wherein lie India and China, represents the more abstract and intangible qualities of inclusiveness, harmony, and the dissolution of the self into something larger than individual will, which may seem hyperbolic. Still, if we observe the actions of these two poles, I am certain these two qualities will bear out.
I would like to take it a step further and compare these two halves of the world, and the properties each represents, to the two halves of the human nervous system, often termed the left brain and right brain in the modern system, and Ida and Pingala in the yogic system. But I think that would require too much of a stretch of the imagination, so I won't burden your minds that far. However, having already brought you this far, let me offer a more imaginative thought: just as the human body needs balance between these two parts of its system to function properly, the two halves of the world need a similar balance, one that has for far too long tilted in one direction, resulting in the constant tussles and tug of war that define our world.
The conquest-driven attitude of European settlers has dominated the world for far too long and has tilted its balance in favour of widespread wars. That dominance outlasted the influence of Russia with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and since then, the Chinese dragon has been steadily rising to challenge Western hegemony. Yet this challenge will not fundamentally alter the balance, for China carries much the same hegemonistic tendency. The evidence is already visible: China's Belt and Road Initiative is not philosophically different from the colonial infrastructure projects of European powers; it is debt as leverage, roads as reach. The form has changed, the impulse has not. In terms of the two poles of the world, I would therefore place China and the West, namely, the United States, at the same pole, because an ideologically ascendant China, once it gains substantial power, will not be very different from the West. It will either prove to be a paper tiger or settle into the same position the United States occupies today. Against this backdrop, India enters the picture.
India, in all its actions until now, has demonstrated an inclusive and accepting approach. It has been tolerant to the point where even smaller countries sometimes look India in the eye, which, in my view, is not a sign of weakness. I would call it being accommodating. When an elephant walks, it must be careful; an ant may crawl whichever way it pleases, but an elephant's steps, if placed unconsciously, can cause immense harm. That has been India's approach in international relations. India has been exceedingly cautious, sometimes to its own detriment, in projecting a particular image of itself: one that would, hopefully, serve as the counterbalance, the left brain, the Ida of global consciousness.
But India does not yet possess the economic might to tilt that balance. That might will eventually come, but when India reaches a thirty to forty trillion dollar economy, the question I wish to raise is this — will Indians be ready to raise their voice, or will we still be seeking validation from the global West? Seventy-five years is too long a time to lay the blame for our mindset on colonial history. The process must begin, the process of cleansing our mentality, of owning both our failures and our successes, of ceasing to look westward for acknowledgement.
But how will it happen? How will India find its own voice when we are 1.4 billion people of spellbinding diversity, when every hundred kilometres the language changes, how will we speak in one voice on the global stage? The obvious answer lies in institutions. India must make its institutions, especially its educational institutions, truly autonomous. Not merely in terms of conferring degrees, because, truth be told, the present system permits those to be dispensed rather cheaply, and if that is the case, we cannot produce even a murmur, let alone a voice. Autonomous not just in their operation, but in their fundamental mindset, in the curriculum, the research, and the education imparted, independent of outside influences and free from rote learning.
It is worth pausing here to understand why this matters beyond the obvious. The world stage is not won or lost in the moment a nation steps onto it; it is won or lost in the decades prior, in the quality of minds a civilisation quietly produces while no one is watching. A nation that outsources its intellectual framework to foreign universities, foreign journals, and foreign standards of excellence will always speak in a borrowed accent, regardless of the economic weight it carries. India's voice, when it comes, must emerge from within, shaped by its own questions, its own methods of inquiry, its own relationship with knowledge.
Education, in the truest sense of the word, is what shapes the voice of a society. If India wants its voice to match its might in the coming years, it is imperative that it work towards making its institutions corruption-free, spaces where people may discover and express themselves. I believe this will become more achievable as the economy grows; hopefully, the survival instinct will recede somewhat, and people will begin to attend to the finer details of life. And as we all know, corruption, dishonesty, and a lack of integrity lurk precisely in those finer details — wink, wink!