Raisina Dialogue: Waging Peace in Wartime?

Opinion

Batting for peace in times of war in a multi-polar world was never going to be easy, but there is simply no other choice

Raisina Dialogue 2025: Waging peace in a world at war: Can diplomacy still  prevail? Pic – Firstpost

By Jan Arden

Indian PM Modi, when commenting on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, famously said something along these lines: “These are not times for war… Development, growth and prosperity should be our priority… Issues should be resolved through diplomacy, discussions and negotiations.”

This has been the centerpiece of India’s foreign policy, consistently maintained by its able Minister of External Affairs, Dr Jaishankar, at all international fora. He has navigated the turbulent times, the intense pressures and has firmly resisted calls to take sides from European Union capitals and the Biden administration over the three years of a jarring conflict that US President Donald Trump now seeks to end. A war that has killed thousands, maimed thousands more, consumed countless billions of US dollars and left the Global South exposed to soaring prices for oil, food and commodities.

Trump the disruptor, has embroiled all of the Western world in a traumatising trade and tariff war, with European capitals discovering that the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) world despises them as « free-loaders living under the US security umbrella », but his special relationship with like-minded Putin has the potential to reshape traditional politics.

Whether we believe that Russia was the initial belligerent with expansion proclivities over much of Eastern Europe, or that NATO’s policy of encirclement of Russia with nuclearised military bases, red lines had been crossed. One could add, despite repeated warnings that if Ukraine were to ditch its non-alignment and join forces with EU and NATO, then Russia would have no alternative than to defend its strategic national interests.

This was not another costly tribal war between Europeans, Slavic peoples and the Russian bear that have marked previous centuries, when world history, geography and values were being written in the Western-dominated media and academia. Something Dr Jaishankar summed up aptly with “somehow Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s concern…” when queried why India was not taking sides for the Western narrative.

Even Shashi Tharoor, previously at various high posts during Congress-ruled Indian diplomacy, broke ranks with fellow Congressmen and Rahul Gandhi, to publicly recognise the remarkable feat of Modi-MEA diplomacy. In essence, the world is now multi-polar, the Global South cannot be merely purveyors of raw materials, their development trajectory must take global environmental concerns into account but cannot be hampered or circumscribed by them, and Asia’s billions of people, along with its powerful financial clout, deserve fairer treatment both in international circles and at the UN Security Council.

It is in this context that the Raisina Dialogue brings together high-level panelists and participants on essential themes around geopolitics, regional security to geo-economic opportunities. In its 10th edition, held in March 2025, India’s premier conference remains a vital platform to better grasp the strategic undercurrents in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean region. On the second day of the 2025 Raisina Dialogue, global leaders and experts debated the future of peace-building in an increasingly fractured multi-polar world, with conflicts and wars raging from Ukraine to Mali and from the Middle-East to South Asia (Myanmar).

With our millions of square km of Indian oceanic economic zone, subject to criss-crossing of naval, military and commercial lines, with high-sea piracy and cyclones or tsunamis a potential concern, with a high dependence on friendly allies – France, India and the UK – to survey or patrol those large areas, with the fate of Chagos and Diego Garcia still awaiting final conclusion, it stands to reason that we should have a watching brief, if not observer status.

For India, which is on an incredible development path which has taken it to the 4th or 3rd largest world economy, it is unfortunate to share frontiers with a number of autocratic states and has to contend with internal viruses of fundamentalism, this is no doubt a flagship event. Nevertheless, the international community needs such exchange platforms where lessons from past peace efforts and the evolving role of international diplomacy in resolving or preventing regional conflicts can be shared.

Batting for peace in times of war in a multi-polar world was never going to be easy, but there is simply no other choice as Earth and its limited resources is the only planet we share.

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The Reckoning Begins
Dacoits and tonton macoutes have no place in a civilised society, still less from within a Police Force

On the local front, having commented on the slow pace of inquiries into the dozens of issues the new government inherited, we cannot but rejoice that matters now seem to be proceeding at a commendable speed. Even though we discover each week, with dismay, disgust, or anger, new scandalously hidden skeletons that jam-packed the cupboards and closets of the MSM-led régime, we also wonder how a ransacked economy, under the stern gaze of Moody’s and the IMF, can creep out of its dire predicament.

Of the sleep-walking institutions that clogged our arteries over ten years, none is more emblematic than the « Independent » Police Complaints Commission, whose former members found virtue in their stodgy non-existence, has sprung into action on 19th March asking the Passport and Immigration Office to issue notice of ‘Arrest on Departure’ against all members of the former notorious SST gang and Superintendent of Police Jagai.

Set up by the former government and notorious “La Kwizin” under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking, that unit in popular mind became rogue, specialised in various forms of « drug-planting » against lawyers, political opponents, and muscular arrests of journalists, social media activists who dared unruffle the preened feathers of their mighty masters.

Dacoits and tonton macoutes have no place in a civilised society, still less from within a Police Force, where every day cops have to earn the respect of their uniform and the population. Wheels may turn slowly, but no one should be surprised that they do turn one day.

Meantime, the money-laundering enquiry in the case of the mystery suitcase packed with Rs 113 million worth of cash, personal papers and luxury watches (Cartier and Rolex) believed to belong to Pravind Jugnauth and family and for which he was arrested, seems to be heading to a conclusion as DNA fingerprints, luxury watch details and the special suitcase tracker begin lifting the veil over the sombre affair.

Several other ministers, senior advisors, and cronies, alleged or suspected to have committed crimes and financial scams, are waiting their turn to head for the Reduit triangle. Closure on the main cases would allow the country’s elites to begin reimagining a very different future for the nation.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 4 April 2025