On 25 May 2006, India’s Foreign Secretary, Mr Shyam Saran, delivered a Special Address at the IISS. He spoke on ‘India and the Emerging World Order’.
Placing India as one of the major powers in the emerging international landscape, Mr Saran said that prospects for major confrontation or conflict among them was unlikely due to globalisation and economic integration. India as a mature and stable democracy, and as an increasingly important economic powerhouse, would have the capabilities to contribute to a more harmonised and multipolar world, and to a global order which relied increasingly on broad-based consensus to tackle transnational challenges. The rapidly expanding economy of Asia and the world offered enough space for both China and India to grow.
Within this strategic environment, India’s objectives were to expand its strategic space, increase the autonomy of its decision-making, and contribute to the emergence of an international order which was conducive to the pursuit of Indian interests. Whereas the Non-aligned Movement may have become weakened and diffused, non-alignment as a policy continued to have relevance for India. He added that in South Asia, India was trying to leverage its economic dynamism to give its neighbours a stake in its own prosperity. India, therefore, saw its emergence as a major and positive development in international relations.
