Institutional and Cultural Roadblocks that Cause Challenges to Indias Power - Essay Example

Indian World Politics al Affiliation) al and Cultural Roadblocks that Cause Challenges to India’s Power Socialrelations in many countries play a major role in economic transactions. It is essential to acknowledge the fact that social interactions have become a determinant factor in the current trends of globalization. Diverse groups of people are interacting more today than they used to in the past leading to many differences in the social behaviors. Many developing nations such as India are having problems to transform to powerhouses due to the strong cultural and institutional roadblocks they have in their systems. The conflict of cultures, languages and habits has continuously been a major cause of the problems these nations face. India is a developing country with its systems based on social forms that affect culture institutions in the region. There setting is constituted by larger social norms and practices. In analyzing India’s power, one cannot ignore these social norms as they bring a huge impact on the country’s economy. India’s social norms have their basis on cultural, political or linguistic grounds. These norms have dictated India’s development process. In a bid to find out how the roadblocks caused by these facts have challenged India’s power it is essential to have a good understanding of the Indian society. It is therefore critical to assess the role of institutions in maintaining and enabling such norms to make sense on their larger political impact. Before going deep into analyzing institutions, it is critical to start by giving their definitions. Institutions are the human-made constraints that dictate human interaction in a society. These institutions are not firms, companies, entities or organizations but the central role social interactions in exchange. These institutions are mostly referred as the context in which the political and social atmospheres such as the human-made constraints come up. The two types of institutions experienced in India are; informal constraints and formal regulations. Formal regulations refer to the contracts and explicit policies that are capable of having legal enforcement while informal constraints are usually any socially influenced behavior that form a section of the large framework of interactions. India’s struggle for empowerment is getting many challenges from the informal constraints as they have taken advantages of the weaker legal and political structures. These informal constraints customize themselves into an embedded network and system that have deep roots in the institutional contexts. Since they are not regulated and enforced these types of institutions, pose many challenges to India’s power struggle. The institutional and cultural roadblocks in India slow legislation process and the formation of other laws. These processes of creating rules that reflect that to sovereign power is prolonged and tedious due to red tape bureaucracy. Some of the cultural and institutional practices in India have adverse effects in India’s struggle for power. The country has a large percentage of illiterate and poor people. These masses drug the economic performance of the country making it rate the same with some of the poorest nations in the region. For a country to be powerful, it is essential for it to have good economic performance. India’s Strategic Rivalries with Pakistan and China Asia faces many roadblocks in its developing motive. Most of the disputes arise due to; territorial and maritime conflicts, increasingly fervent nationalism, harmful historical legacies that ruin interstate relationships, stiff competition for energy, water and other natural resources and the religious growing extremism. The rivalry between Asia’s two giants, India and China are a good example of the disputes in the region. The rivalry between the two big states has caused massive tension and significant implications for the Asian power dynamics and international security. Despite the two countries economic growth drawing more global attention, their strategic rivalry and dissonance attracts little attention. Land and water issues are the major reason of this conflict that has shaped both the policy approaches and the attitudes in the region. Despite the countries having high economic potentials right from their history they have geopolitical rivalry arising from the countries efforts to become powerhouses. They both seek to reclaim the power they enjoyed many years ago before they declined due to the industrial revolution. The modern rivalry between the two nations is because of; Sino- Indian border dispute, The Chinese Indian rivalry in the Indian Ocean and South East Asia, the strategic alliance between Pakistan and China, and India’s motive to look east and make good ties with states that had conflicts or poor relations with China. China increased the rivalry when it acted towards India’s capabilities and power ambitions of India’s defense forces entering into a partnership with the United States of America’s defense forces. India got the rights to produce Nuclear energy. China viewed this relationship between India and the US as a plan to contain its rise that was threatening both the two states. The Chinese defense minister demanded the Indian government to explain why it purchased from the US weapons worth $8.3 billion. The response of both the two nations towards this issue increased the tension that was there between them and because of these, there were increased clashes at the northern border (Cohen, 2001). India and Pakistan had enjoyed a healthy long-term relationship until the strategic alliance between Pakistan and China. The two nations have no history of previous historical disputes existing from any situation be it territorial borders, economic activities or resource allocation conflicts. The rivalry between Pakistan and India started when Pakistan allowed the entrance of approximately 9000 Chinese troops to enter its territory. The troops entered Pakistan to assist in the building of a high-speed railway and road that was to link the naval port of Gwadar with the eastern part of China. The construction of the infrastructure was financed by Chinese banks at very low-interest rates. At this point, the Indians were more than convinced that the Pakistan had pledged their alliance to China and sided with them in the conflict between the two states (Cohen, 2001). India’s Decision to Develop an Operational Nuclear Force India has a nuclear force that does not perform efficiently its function. This is due to the organizational and political reasons that the country experiences. One of the reasons why the nuclear force of India is inadequate is that it started the nuclear program without any intention of producing weapons. It had the sole objective of producing energy that would modernize its economy. The other reason that led to the inadequacy of the nuclear force is the poor relationship that existed between the political leadership of the country and its military unit after colonization. This led to a lot of delay in the decision-making processes that concerned international security such as the developing of nuclear weapons. The exclusion of the military from the decision-making processes in these matters led to the creation of a weak nuclear system. For a nuclear system in a country to function properly, there needs to be an efficient relationship between the two parties. The national leadership should control the nuclear system while the military manage it. India has decided to develop its nuclear force to international reason due to the inadequacy these systems have had through the years. This decision was brought by the increased rivalry that the nation had with other states such as China and Pakistan. The country had the decision to develop the nuclear weapons to produce nuclear weapons. The decision to develop the nuclear force was catalyzed by the Chinese test in 1964 where they strengthened their nuclear device system. Pakistan’s unexpected progress in nuclear development also increased the pressure to develop this system. Political factors, domestic confidence and international prestige have always been the factors that drive India’s decision to develop their nuclear system. India’s constant resistance to the stop of nuclear production has portrayed the country as true great power with a unique political achievement. This privilege excludes it from the tier that many of its neighbors such as Pakistan and Israel find themselves. This concept has made the country’s line of thinking to be tilted more towards the developing of the nuclear force due to its great capability that is achieved through its great power status. India was the first developing country to create nuclear energy and although it had, the sole for technological advancement in its mind when doing this, it is viewed as a means of enhancing national security. India has made a decision to develop its nuclear force to produce nuclear weapons that could protect the country from invasions from either Pakistan or China. This is because of India getting a tip of information that Pakistan has operational nuclear-enhanced missiles that are capable of destroying a large section of India’s territory. Pakistan is also heavily relying on nuclear forces currently than it was before. China is posing a major threat to India, and since aircraft projection cannot function in China as it does in Pakistan, nuclear weapons remain the only reliable way to equip India with protection. Reference Cohen, S. (2001). India: Emerging Power. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Shooting for a Century: The India-Pakistan Conundrum. (pp. 1-117). Read More