President Putin’s address at the 31st Annual Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi was historic and reflective of the “spirit of the age,” Dr. Anirban Ganguly, a member of the BJP National Executive, told Sputnik India.
The Western countries should listen to President Vladimir Putin’s advice and immediately abandon their “one-size-fits-all approach” to promote global peace and harmony, said Dr. Ganguly, who is also the Chairman of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation .
“President Putin’s statesman-like outreach to the West, his philosophical understanding of its challenges, problems and mindset, his leader-like formulation of the new global order and the need to understand its needs and some of the hard truths he conveyed, must attract the attention of thinking minds across the world. Especially those engaged with the new (global) order that is seeking to take shape,” said Dr. Ganguly.
Dr. Ganguly especially appreciated Putin’s understanding of “eastern philosophies”, which, he emphasised, promoted an “everyone wins model” as compared to the zero-sum approach of the West.
“Among the many striking and thought-provoking remarks and arguments that President Putin made, was one that was particularly striking. Speaking of the Eastern philosophies, he argued that these always encouraged a ‘searching for the harmony of interests’ as opposed to a conflict of interests,” he stated.
Dr. Ganguly said that there was a need to “recognise that there could be many models, many views, many frameworks with each having a legitimate right to be heard and to be given a chance”.
“Putin said that there was a need to articulate Russia’s stand on the new global architecture and that development took place on the basis of sovereign equality for all countries, and that artificial political barriers had to be removed for development. President Putin was essentially indicating that the age of the model-framework-order-monopoly was irreversibly on its way out,” the BJP functionary noted.
Ganguly described the Russian President as a “global leader” for reiterating that Moscow didn’t consider the West as an “enemy”. He noted that Putin once again called for “collective addressing” of common challenges facing humanity such as social inequality, demography, food insecurity and climate change among others.
Dr. Ganguly went on to criticise the West for its insistence on “trying to shape the world through aggressive unipolar politics”.
“As stated by Putin, the challenge with the West is that it wishes to impose its models and it wants to usurp the right to speak for others and is in the habit of dictating the national interests of other countries. Putin is right when he states that one of the dominant mindsets which has often led to disaster is the West’s belief in its own exceptionalism,” Dr. Ganguly stressed.
Further, the think-tanker contrasted the positions of Putin with those of western leaders.
“While the West spoke of the ‘end of history’, President Putin argued, not only did history not end, but it entered a new phase. This new phase [questions] the global minority that wants to preserve its dominance,” Dr. Ganguly quoted Putin as saying.
For Putin, the global architecture that is emerging is one in which this dominance will be at stake and in which the dominance of one model will end, the expert highlighted.
“In the new global architecture no one should feel like a loser. It will be based on a foundation or framework of inclusive cooperation, will have no artificial barrier, will not be driven by military or ideological blocs and will recognise the essential truth that the international community is an organic entity with each nation defined by or possessed with a civilisational identity. These are perspectives that the West will have to eventually agree to engage with,” the BJP political noted.
The transition towards a “polycentric” world was irreversible, Dr. Ganguly backed Putin’s assertion, adding that “It will be a multi-centered world in which previously sidelined nations will play a bigger role.”
Significantly, Dr. Ganguly drew similarities between Putin’s appeal for a multipolar world and widespread affirmation for a multipolar global order in Indian strategic and government circles.
Quoting one of India’s leading public intellectuals S Gurumurthy, Dr. Ganguly said that the “one-size-fits-all model thus was an agenda to destroy traditional societies and turn them into market societies.
“Gurumurthy pointed out the irony in the ‘One-Size-Fits-All Model’, an advisory issued by the West-led UN in 1951. The advisory titled, ‘Measures for the Development of the Underdeveloped Societies’, issued by the UN Department for Social and Economic Affairs, had argued that rapid economic progress is impossible without painful adjustments. Ancient philosophies have to be scrapped; old social institutions have to disintegrate… The UN was clear that unless underdeveloped societies gave up their culture and way of life they could not hope to develop and would be condemned to have their expectations of a comfortable life frustrated,” the pundit quoted from Gurumurthy’s publications.
Dr. Ganguly noted that after decades of dragging its feet on imposing the ‘one-size-fits-all approach’, the UN was forced to finally abandon the idea in 2013 amid criticism of UN-led developmental programmes for failing to take into account the cultural settings of different countries.
“I saw an echo of this when President Putin emphasised the truth that the world is ‘inherently heterogenous’ and one ‘has to learn to see this diversity.’ For the new global architecture President Putin is advocating exactly this. His call is for abandoning the one model-size-will-fit-all mindset. Is the West listening? These West led institutions had also come to this conclusion years back. Why not accept it now for the new global architecture?” he questioned.
“President Putin candidly observed that the world does not tolerate a deafness towards the uniqueness of others. That uniqueness has to be recognised and given space, otherwise, the exercise will be a futile one, it will only be a dialogue of the deaf. The world today cannot afford a hollow, aimless, artificial dialogue of the deaf,” Dr. Ganguly noted.
Further, he emphasised that all civilisations and nations were unique and had their own trajectories and aspirations.
“They have an equal right and freedom to develop themselves. The new global architecture aims to reflect and give space to that aspiration. It will be based on it,” the expert said.
The BJP politician concluded by stating that the next two decades leading to 2045, the founding centenary of the UN, could prove “crucial for envisioning and shaping this new global civilisational architecture”.
