The Post-American World - Fareed Zakaria [74]
Such a relationship between the United States and India is, on some level, almost inevitable. Whether or not the two states sign new treaties, the two societies are becoming increasingly intertwined. A common language, a familiar worldview, and a growing fascination with each other are bringing together businessmen, nongovernmental activists, and writers. This doesn’t mean that the United States and India will agree on every policy issue. After all, Roosevelt and Churchill disagreed about several issues during their close wartime alliance, most notably India’s independence, and America broke with Britain over the Suez crisis in 1956. Ronald Reagan, a staunch supporter of Israel, condemned its invasion of Lebanon in 1978. Washington and New Delhi are big powers with complex foreign commitments and concerns. They have different interests and thus will inevitably have disputes over policy. Also, unlike Britain and America, they have different outlooks on the world. Indian history, religion, and culture will pull it away from a purely American view of the world.
The Hindu Worldview
Despite a growing sense of competition, India is actually moving closer to China in a certain respect, one that relates to the two countries’ entries onto the global stage. India has moved away from the self-righteousness of the Nehru era as well as the combativeness of Indira Gandhi’s years. It is instead making development its overriding national priority, informing its foreign affairs as well as its domestic policies. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly articulated a goal for Indian foreign policy—peace and stability to allow for development—that sounds similar to the one articulated in Beijing. Indian politicians have become much more aware than ever before of the deep challenges of developing a vast society—especially a democratic one where domestic pressures are felt quickly and deeply—and so are focusing almost entirely on matters internal. External affairs are seen as a way to help with these paramount concerns. This tension—a country that is a world power and at the same time very poor—will tend to limit India’s activism abroad. It will especially mean that India will not want to be seen as actively involved in a balancing strategy against China, which is becoming its chief trading partner.
There is also Indian culture, which has its own fundamental perspective and outlook on the world. Hindus, like Confucians, don’t believe in God. They believe in hundreds of thousands of them. Every sect and subsect of Hinduism worships its own God, Goddess, or holy creature. Every family forges its own distinct version of Hinduism. You can pay your respects to some beliefs and not to others. You can believe in none at all. You can be a vegetarian or eat meat. You can pray or not pray. None of these choices determines whether you are a Hindu. There is no heresy or apostasy, because there is no core set of beliefs, no doctrine, and no commandments. Nothing is required, nothing is forbidden.
Sir Monier Monier-Williams, the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University from 1860 to 1899, was perhaps the first Westerner to study Hinduism comprehensively. Born in Bombay, he founded Oxford’s Indian Institute, which became a training ground for future leaders of the British Raj. His book Hinduism, first published in 1877, drew on ancient Sanskrit texts as well as practical knowledge of contemporary Hinduism. He wrote,
[Hinduism] is all tolerant. . . . It has its spiritual and its material aspect, its esoteric and exoteric, its subjective and objective, its rational and its irrational, its pure and its impure. It may be compared to a huge polygon. . . . It has one side for the practical, another for the severely moral, another for the devotional and imaginative, another for the sensuous and sensual, and another for the philosophical and speculative. Those who rest in ceremonial observances find it all-sufficient; those who deny the efficacy of works, and make faith the one requisite, need not wander