IN PARIS, MODI AND MACRON SHOWCASE THE EMERGING WORLD ORDER

A New World requires New Thought. This is the implicit message behind the policy stance of the New India that is emerging within the ongoing transformation of the globe into a world where democracy and freedom prevail over tyranny and domination.

- MADHAV NALAPAT

The world has changed since the close of the 1990s. It would be premature to call the present state of the ongoing transformation a "new world order", as order can only be found after an equilibrium is reached, and that has yet to be established. Indeed, the nature of that equilibrium is precisely the contest between the two blocs involved. Within the world order that is emerging out of the present flux, India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing a keystone role. Which explains why in the space of a few weeks, the Prime Minister concluded a state visit to Washington and followed it up with a similar high-stakes visit to Paris. In both capitals, he was welcomed with warmth and fanfare by Presidents Biden and Macron, much to the grief of elements seeking to distance India and the Atlantic Alliance from each other. There is symbolic logic in PM Modi being the Guest of Honour on France's most important date, Bastille Day. The storming of the Bastille was accompanied by calls for Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. In the 20th century, it was India that was the initiator of the chain reaction that finally brought a close to colonialism in Asia and Africa. For a 21st century mind, it is both just and logical that the freedoms for which the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille are or should be the patrimony not just of a few but of all the nations in the world.

DE GAULLE OPPOSED OVERLORDSHIP