Conference Program

India has long had a fitful relationship with the global liberal order. Its ambivalence stems in considerable part from its identity as a post-colonial state. In its initial years after Independence, India was an upholder of the nascent global liberal order barring certain exceptions.

In that era, even though much of the West was ostensibly promoting global liberalism, it coddled squalid, dictatorial regimes such as Portugal, owing to the exigencies of the Cold War. India, on the other hand quite appropriately, shunned it. More to the point, the West contorted itself to support the apartheid regime in South Africa. Once again, the bogey of Soviet penetration of the region was used as a justification to support the regime. India, to its credit, did not even have diplomatic ties with the country.

Today, as global liberalism is under assault across much of the world, India has a far more ambivalent approach toward it. This round table will explain the evolution of India’s perspective on the subject.