As a Rhodes scholar travelling from Sydney to Oxford, way back in 1981, I didn’t feel that I could fly over nearly a billion Indians without stopping to learn, and to pay my respects. Even then, in the three months I spent back-packing here, it was obvious to me that democratic, free India was going to be one of the world’s leading countries.
Today, with the world’s third largest economy — at least in purchasing power terms — with a vibrant free market, a booming tech sector, a population that’s eager to learn and to innovate, a gloriously rumbustious press, and an honest judiciary; with a government that’s rapidly closing the infrastructure deficit; and with an openness to the wider world, symbolised by a vast diaspora including 7,00,000 Indian-born Australians, India is no longer the emerging democratic super power that I frequently referenced as Prime Minister.
India has emerged as a democratic superpower, more than capable of providing leadership that the world often needs and that America cannot always give. These ominous times, that would have seemed almost unthinkable just a few years back, when history had supposedly ended, are India’s chance to step up in support of free countries and free people. Because make no mistake, this newly minted “no limits” partnership, this new Beijing-Moscow axis, these dictators on the march; unless deterred, or somehow touched for the better, will end what until recently have been the best times ever.
