On Friday, CNN host and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria visited the Watson School of International and Public Affairs to discuss the political and economic factors that he argues give India the potential to become one of the most prominent world powers. Citing the growth of India’s role in the technology industry, Zakaria said he believes that the nation’s economic influence will only rise in the coming years.
Zakaria’s lecture — hosted by the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia as part of the OP Jindal Distinguished Lecture series — began with discussing how modern society is shifting and where India fits into this change. According to Zakaria, the emergence of new markets can provide more opportunities for nations like India to grow.
“About 30 years ago, the so-called emerging markets in the world made up about 5% of the world economy,” Zakaria said in the lecture. “Today, they make up about 50% of the world economy.”
He also stated that today’s high tariff rates make the United States the most protectionist industrialized nation in the world despite originally having some of the lowest rates, suggesting that the nation is participating in a “voluntary abdication of its role as the leading power in the world.”
Zakaria also noted India’s growing role in the world’s technology sector, as they went from zero cell phone production to now producing a significant portion of Apple’s smartphones.
“India is one of the most important countries in the world,” Zakaria said. It is “achieving a level of economic and technological sophistication that is new.”
“This is India essentially replacing China as the principal manufacturer of smartphones for the United States within four years,” Zakaria said. “It is the kind of thing you used to believe that only China could do, which is a kind of high precision manufacturing at scale.”
He also said India has unique economic potential because it includes developing areas, where companies can source low-cost labor, as well as large, developed cities where engineers can supply more technical expertise. As a consumer-led economy that functions similarly to the United States, India has kept a tension-free relationship with the “Western world,” especially when compared to the country’s relationship with global powers such as China, Zakaria explained.
Zakaria said that his hope for India comes from the nation’s reality as a “very big, complicated place.”
“I think a country with so many different political regions, linguistic regions, caste differences, religious differences, is going to be very hard to run as a single, monolithic country by one centralized regime,” Zakaria said.
His prediction is that this pluralism will ensure the state of India’s democracy.
Zakaria, who grew up in Bombay, said that he saw “enormous cultural tolerance, pluralism and synergy.”
When Zakariai came to America, he found that “people tolerated each other’s religions.”
The United States is “an amazingly tolerant country,” he added. “It’s one of the reasons why immigrants from all over the world want to come here, because Americans are naturally incredibly warm (and) welcoming.”
This practice of tolerance was a “big difference” from India where instead “people celebrated each other’s religions.”
But he acknowledged that the “lived reality for Muslims in India has become one that is very, very difficult” under the current administration.
After years of globalization, Zakaria said, the “pendulum” is swinging against diversity not only in India, but also in the United States, Europe and Asia. But in spite of this, “at the end of the day, the world is moving forward,” he said toward the end of the lecture. “You cannot imagine a global economy that doesn’t stay connected, globalized in some way or the other.”
Ahona Palchoudhuri, a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology, said she enjoyed the lecture. Palchoudhuri, who teaches SAST 0755: “Introduction to Modern South Asia,” said that when she attends Jindal lectures, she hopes to hear someone speak to the new perspectives of the region in a way that she can incorporate in her teaching.
While Palchoudhuri thought the lecture was a “wonderful opportunity” to interact with figures seen in the media, she said that she “pushed back” on how Zakaria was “kind of conceptualizing religion in India as an almost romantic syncretic condition that had basis in Indian scriptures.”
“Fundamentally, I personally don’t think that’s the case,” she continued.
In his interview with The Herald, Zakaria described India not only as a potential world leader but also as a nation that has the potential to spread democratic ideology.
“It has the opportunity to play an incredibly constructive role in helping to create a world that isn’t just defined by spheres of influence and balances of power,” Zakaria said, “but can also be a world that is imbued with certain values that India could best champion.”
Zakaria cited his background as a motivator for him to provide insights on India’s future.
“I have a very deep sense and understanding of South Asia because I grew up there, and I grew up there with two very passionate and committed parents who care deeply about the fate of India,” Zakaria said.
But he noted that South Asian politics and economics is not his specific area of expertise.
“I approached South Asia with a certain degree of modesty, because my field of expertise is international relations,” Zakaria said. “I come at it much more personally, in a way, I have a very deep sense and understanding of South Asia.”
Marat Basaria is a senior staff writer covering activism.
