India's Relations with Iran and Myanmar: "Rogue State" Or Responsible Democratic Stakeholder?
by Daniel Twining

Indian foreign policy today is characterized by tensions and ambiguities stemming from India's ongoing evolution from a non-aligned, developing nation into one of the world's most powerful democracies. As India undergoes its continuing geopolitical transformation, there are few harder tests for Indian foreign policy than its bilateral relations with Iran and Myanmar - "rogue states" to the West, but valued neighbors with a long history of civilizational ties to India. This article argues that New Delhi, for its own reasons rather than as a result of Western pressure, may be redefining its interests in Iran and Myanmar in ways that could move it closer to consensus with the other great powers on these states of concern and facilitate India's ascendance as an influential democratic stakeholder in the international system.

 

The Quiet Rivalry - India and China Vying for Influence in Burma: A New Assessment
by Renaud Egreteau

Based upon a personal doctoral research, this article discusses the rise of a strategic rivalry between China and India through a military-controlled Burma since the early 1990s. It delineates the various dimensions of the competition the two emerging giants have been embarked on, in and around Burma, from the strategic fields of the Indian Ocean and India's insurgency-torn Northeast to the Burmese energy resources and commercial sectors. Yet, it argues that each expression of this Sino-Indian rivalry on the Burmese field has developed its own limits, thus curbing the exponential rise of the contest between India and China through Burma. Moreover, many obstacles endogenous to China, India and Burma itself can offer strong resistances to the exacerbation of this strategic competition, limiting it to merely a "quiet rivalry" in an authoritarian state that keeps on cultivating strong isolationist tendencies tinged with xenophobia.

Review Essay: Hindu Nationalism Five Years After Godhra
by Jason A. Kirk

While India celebrated 60 years of independence in 2007, the year also marked a half-decade since the horrifying pogroms against Muslims in Gujarat, following the episode at the Godhra railway station in which 58 Hindu train passengers burned to death after a communal confrontation. New monographs by Martha Nussbaum and Ornit Shani, and a new primary text reader edited by Christophe Jaffrelot, remind readers what a potent force Hindu nationalism has become in India's democratic politics, even if the BJP's electoral losses in 2004 have deepened a rift in the movement separating pragmatist politicians from hardline ideologues. Nussbaum's ambitious work succeeds as a "loudspeaker" relaying earlier studies to a non-specialist Western audience, but it also exhibits significant flaws resulting from some dubious stylistic, methodological, and even ethical choices. Shani's book deepens the scholarly literature on Hindu nationalism by linking the movement's consolidation in Gujarat to inter-caste tensions resulting from state reservation policies in the 1980s. Jaffrelot's volume culls key texts from the movement's founders up to contemporary leaders, and complements his extensive scholarship on the subject.