The image of the politician has fallen so low in the last 50 years that the general reader cannot imagine that one can read an insightful book on the present world situation written by a politician. It is an insightful book that Congress politician and Member of Parliament Manish Tiwari has written. He declares right at the beginning that the views expressed in the book are not that of his party, nor that of Parliament, nor the Government of India. These declarations of intellectual non-affiliation become important when a politician writes a book.
Tiwari, with his legal background, brings analytical acuity to the subject as sets out to unweave the tangled strands of international situation. He goes beyond the present moment and goes back into the past to explain things as they stand. While he follows the details of the developments – political and economic – he is able to sum up with enviable clarity how things are what they are. For example, on China he quotes Henry Kissinger’s December 18, 1969, observation which is a prelude to the US-China thaw of 1972, and draws a clear inference: “The vast influence the US now wields in global affairs owes much to decades of American and Western investment, trade and technology transfer.” While people are dazzled by the meteoric rise of China from the Maoist ruins, how the West has enabled this rise is overlooked. There will be many who will question, object and refute the view, but Tiwari has opened the issue up for debate.
What stands out in his study and analysis — it is certainly not an academic tract — is his clarity of vision and dispassionate observation that flows from it. He points to the need for an investigation into the outbreak of the coronavirus, and the failure of bureaucratic WHO to respond quickly and effectively, and also how China delayed the UN Security Council meeting on it when it was holding the rotating presidency in March 2020. It was the Dominican Republic which took over the baton that held the first meeting in April. And by then, 74,000 people were dead and 1.3 million were impacted.
The book is organised to give a panoramic view of the hot spots and major trends in world affairs. He considers the evolving scene in Asia and the emergence of China, the challenges India faces in the neighbourhood, the overlooked Afghanistan, the complicated Middle East, the many groupings that are emerging across continents, the changing modes of warfare, the issues of national security in India and elsewhere. And it ends with looking into the future, a quite guarded crystal gazing.
Tiwari falls back on the premise of the overarching importance of national interests, and his analysis rises above party lines. But given India’s situation and the prevailing dominance of China, he seems to favour a West- and US-leaning stance. One may quarrel with it, but the facts seem to point that way.
A World Adrift: A Parliamentarian’s Perspective on Global Power Dynamics
By Manish Tewari
Rupa
pp. 532; Rs 995
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