Seminar Abstract

In its 71-year existence as an independent state, India has achieved much in fulfilling the dreams of Nehru and his successors in obtaining global status, but the quest is still unfinished. Why India and its leadership have believed that the country has a destiny to rise as a global power? What are the hard and soft power markers that encourage them to think this way? Despite their stated and unstated ambitions, why haven’t the larger bureaucratic and political elite work hard enough to achieve this goal? What are the external and internal constraints in this pursuit and the opportunities that India may have both obtained and missed? Finally, what does the future hold for India’s status elevation?

About the Speaker

T.V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at McGill University, Montreal and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He was President of International Studies Association (ISA) during 2016-17. Paul is the author or editor of 18 books and over 70 scholarly articles/book chapters in the fields of International Relations, International Security, and South Asia. He is the author of the books: The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World (Oxford, 2013); Globalization and the National Security State (with N. Ripsman, Oxford, 2010); The Tradition of Non-use of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford, 2009); India in the World Order: Searching for Major Power Status (with B.R. Nayar Cambridge, 2002); Power versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons (McGill-Queen’s, 2000); and Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers (Cambridge, 1994). Paul currently serves as the editor of the Georgetown University Press book series: South Asia in World Affairs. For more, see: www.tvpaul.com