The Clash of Orders with Pratap Bhanu Mehta on India

Many Europeans see the war in Ukraine as an attack on the ‘rules-based order’. But to many people in other parts of the world, there is no consensus on a set of rules to govern global affairs – and no sense of order. In this mini-series, Mark Leonard will go on an intellectual tour of the world, talking to key thinkers about how order is being defined by different powers. He explores how the clash between these different notions plays into the big shocks facing the world – from climate change and future pandemics to geopolitical struggles and technological disasters – and what this means for national and global politics.

In this third episode, Leonard is joined by Pratap Bhanu Mehta – Laurance S Rockefeller visiting professor at Princeton University and former president of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank – to discuss the Indian perspective on order. What is the link between civilisational power and Hindu nationalism? Why is the concept of development so important for a just international order? And finally, how does the deep memory of independence and partition shape contemporary Indian politics?

Bookshelf

• “The Burden of Democracy” by Pratap Bhanu Mehta
• “Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design” by Devesh Kapur & Pratap Bhanu Mehta
• “Non-Alignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the 21st Century” by Sunil Khilnani et al.
• PM Modi’s speech at foundation stone laying ceremony of development projects at Ayodhya temple
• “The Mirror & The Light” by Hilary Mantel