S.K. Singh, Ex-scientist of DRDO and Social Entrepreneur
India is now not only a regional power, but it is also a global power balancing nation in the geopolitics. The way USA is exhibiting its supremacy over its neighbours like Mexico and Canada and Russia threatening the existence of Ukraine and other small nations of eastern Europe, India has all the reasons to correct the nasty behaviour of its neighbours like Pakistan and Bangladesh without caring the so called progressive left liberals.
India is today in the midst of a major geopolitical repositioning, as it discards its old non-aligned movement rhetoric, pursues a hardheaded national interests-based policy and builds stronger strategic ties with a wide range of countries including the United States and its allies in the region, especially Japan while balancing its relationship with Russia. India is a country which is 7th largest in area, 1st in population and fifth in economy. It is emerging as a big economy, and it is anticipated it will be the 3rd largest economy by 2030 and 2nd by 2047. Nonetheless India has emerged as a country in the front row which is defining geopolitics today. Change is permanent and all other things are temporary, and this seems true in Indian political context where a clear approach for the mainstream politics has emerged.
As individuals most of us have been blinded by greed, pride and delusion and the same is true in context of behaviour of nations exhibiting their postures in Geopolitics. United States of America under the leadership of President Trump is advocating the policy of “America First” and it may make them “America Alone and isolated” in due course as world order has changed and USA is now not in a position where it can dictate the geopolitics, thanks to emerging order of India and China. The people of Ukraine are now at the mercy of ridiculous leadership of world order today.
Europe is at the crossroad and the European union is posturing support to Ukraine simply to make a respectful negotiation between Russia and Ukraine. The sustainability and growth of European countries are at stake, and they cannot afford continuing support to Ukraine without USA support in long term. One thing emerged out clearly that NATO is now irrelevant to the extent it should be. Countries of European union are raising their voice to enhance the defence spending from current 1.9% to 3.0% of its GDP. The hidden agenda is to sell defence equipment to countries like India and others for their survival and economic growth. USA and Europe which was primarily working as a guardian of the world has got desperate as no more they can play this role.
USA is trying hard primarily to checkmate the Chinese economy which is challenging America First and its testimony was exhibited recently when Trump implicitly took side with Russia in negotiations with Zelensky in the oval office. The Geopolitics is culminated to new world order where unilateral decisions cannot be taken without a consensus of USA, European Union, India, China and Russia. This is an opportunity for India leapfrog the competition by enhancing its focus on “Make in India” and by developing cutting-edge technologies in “Defence and Space”. Indian Defence spending as a percentage of GDP fell below the crucial two per cent threshold—a long-standing demand of defence experts and industry—in 2023-24, registering at 1.97 per cent, and further declined to 1.91 per cent in 2024-25. For India It is time to enhance defence spending up to 3% of GDP by cutting the expenditure on social appeasement to mobile funds available for cutting-edge Defence Technology and creation of skilled jobs.
While states implement most social sector programmes, the Union government has been responsible for providing key social and public goods and ensuring a minimum standard of investment across states. The term ‘social sector’ in this context refers to areas such as education, health, water & sanitation, nutrition, social security, food security, and rural development. It also covers skill development, sports and culture, tribal and minority affairs, and urban poverty alleviation. These activities truly needed to be supported by the budgetary allocation of the government. What is not needed is the huge freebees on the name of communities to mobilise voters for vested interest.
Determining the exact “budgetary allocation spent on appeasement” is difficult as the term is subjective and not explicitly categorized in government budgets; however, criticisms often point to large allocations towards specific minority welfare schemes as potential examples of “appeasement” politics, particularly in areas like education funding for religious minorities or community-specific development projects, which can be identified by examining relevant ministry budgets and scrutinizing specific schemes within them. New world order is defined time to time and the new world order and geopolitics cannot be defined without India. It is time for India refrain working for incremental change in its influence in the geopolitics and proactively plan and act for quantum change.
