India, by way of economic growth and diplomatic political success is close to the summit of being a super power, noted former foreign secretary Mr Lalit Mansingh here today. Delivering the Nalco Foundation Day Lecture, Mr Mansingh chartered the history of India's foreign policy and its success saying today the country is no longer regarded as a regional power but a global power. Heads of states have accepted India as a super power and are frequenting the country, he observed.

The US which, in the fifties had thought India to be strategically irrelevant has changed and by the year 2000 it had made a U-turn. The end of the cold war, high economic growth, technological success of success of Indians abroad has changed the perception. The 1998 Pokharan blast was a bold statement to the entire world that India should be considered as a global player and the big powers changed their outlook and policies to suit our policies, he said.

Emphasising on building strategic partnerships with the US, he said the US is important because it controls 45 percent of the high technology and 50 percent of investable resources of the world. India needs both hi-tech and investment and the only country which can give both is the US, he said.

Making his opening remarks on the topic " Emergence of India in Global Perspective', Mr Mansingh said it needs to be amended as 're-emergence of India'. In fact till the end of the 17th century India was contributing 20 per cent of worlds global output, he said while noting that it was only during the colonial rule that India was absent from the world stage for 200 years. Till the colonial rule, India had always been a globally important country able to influence the world in many ways.

On the economic side India is growing ever since the reforms were initiated, he said before dwelling into foreign affairs and diplomacy. He divided the trends to three phases from 1947 to 67 as one of idealism led by the amazing success of Pandit Nehru till the downslide in 1962 due to the Chinese war which proved that idealism was not enough and that none of the NAM friends stood by India during the war.This prompted Ms Indira Gandhi to adopt realism and build on domestic strength, big industries like Nalco were planned, science and technology were given due importance and in 1974 the Pokharan tests were conducted and in July 1980 we sent our first satellite to space, he said.

The Bangladesh war was a brilliant stroke which established India as a dominant power in the region, he said.The phase with Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao were important in the sense that Rajiv Gandhi established relationship with the US and he went to China in 1988 in a landmark visit. The bilateral trade opened up after 26 years with China. Rao took three significant steps he initiated economic reforms, adopted a look east policy and established diplomatic relations with Israel.

The last 10 years have been the most exciting period in Indian foreign policy as till 1997 we were still regarded as a regional power. It was the second test at Pokharan in 1998 that changed the perception. India was regarded by the big powers as a great disciplined democracy. Coupled to this was the high economic growth, the success in hi-tech areas and those in Indians abroad all of which made the world leaders change their perceptions about India.It is clear that India will remain an economic super power but then one has to see whether we are ready to play the role of also being a political super power able to influence the world, he noted. CMD Nalco Mr C R Pradhan welcomed Mr Mansingh while Mr Joy Verghese thanked the guest for his lecture.

Courtesy: The Statesman, January 08, 2008