Agency Copy Edited By Sangeeta Das
Bharat Narrative, the nation’s growth story in spheres of economic, social governance and foreign policy under leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have garnered praises from China’s State-run and prominent media outlet Global Times.
In the article penned by Zhang Jiadong, he highlights Bharat’s remarkable achievements in recent four to five years.
Jiadong is the director at Shanghai-based Fudan University’s Center for South Asian Studies.
The article recognises Bharat’s robust economic expansion, improvements in urban governance, and a shift in attitude towards global relations, particularly with China.
Citing example of discussion on the trade imbalance between Bharat and China, Zhang noted Indian representatives previously “used to primarily focus on China’s measures to mitigate the trade imbalance” but “now they are placing more focus on Bharat’s export potential”.
Bharat has become more strategically confident and more proactive in creating and developing a “Bharat narrative” with its rapid economic and social development, wrote Jiadong in the article published on January 2.
He aptly noted that in the political and cultural arenas, Bharat has shifted from “emphasising its democratic consensus with the West to accentuating the Indian feature of democratic politics. There is even more assertion on the Indian origins of democratic politics currently”.
This move, the author insisted, mirrors Bharat’s ambition to move away from its historical colonial shadow and act as a “world mentor”, both politically and culturally.
The write up, furthermore, appreciated Bharat’s foreign policy strategy under PM Modi, illuminating upon the nation’s multi-alignment approach and bolstering relationships with pivotal global powers like Japan, Russia and US while demonstrating a nuanced point of view in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“Bharat has always regarded itself a world power. However, it has only been less than 10 years since Bharat moved from multi-balancing to multi-alignment, and it is rapidly transforming toward a strategy of becoming a pole in the multi-polar world currently. The speed of such changes is rarely witnessed in the history of international relations,” said Jiadong.
The author concluded that apparently “a transformed, stronger, and more assertive Bharat has become a new geopolitical factor that various nations need to consider”.
