EVEN as he addressed the 11th edition of the Raisina Dialogue as chief guest, Finland President Mr. Alexander Stubb urged India to invite global leaders to its national capital for a wider discourse on how to shape the new world order. Call it ‘New Delhi Moment’, he said, indicating that India has attained such a stature in the international arena over the past decade or so. Mr. Stubb also made a three-point proposal to elicit greater cooperation from multiple poles and multiple interests in the global arena and forge a better world.

 

Mr. Stubb’s use of the Raisina Dialogue, India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-economics, to make this appeal also has immense importance from multiple angles. Even though the world is threatened with a terrible escalation of the West Asia conflict -- in addition to the Russia-Ukraine conflict stretching for over four years-- India has done a smart and credible attempt to propose the Raisina Dialogue theme of “Samskara -- Assertion, Accommodation, Advancement”. It speaks of India’s steadfast belief in dialogue as the best way to sort out issues before the global community -- beyond the usage of military brandishment. Mr. Stubb, too, used the occasion to highlight the need -- that he feels as a global leader -- to promote what he calls “value-based realism” and “dignified foreign policy” to navigate changing international policy landscape. These are the very points he has underlined in his latest book “The Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order” which analyses the global shift from a US-dominated world to a multipolar system driven by Global West, East and South (the triangle). Mr. Stubb used the occasion of the Raisina Dialogue to push his ideology and insisted that India has a major role to play as the leader of the global South -- by inviting global leader to gather in the Indian capital for the “New Delhi Moment”.

 

“New Delhi Moment” should not be taken just as a poetic metaphor. Apart from the poeticism of expression, it also has a critical message for the world -- that it was time for starting serious effort to redefine a new world order. In that effort, Mr. Alexander Stubb expects India to take the lead -- not just as a leader of the global South but also as an important global player in its own right. As Mr. Stubb made this point in his address and later during a discussion on his book with Dr. S. Jaishankar and, Minister of External Affairs, and Dr. Samir Saran, President of the Raisina Dialogue, the elite international audience clapped in Mr. Narendra Modi’s honour. The triangle Mr. Alexander Stubb suggests is of the global West, global East, and the global South. Yet, he goes on to describe the global West as a collection of highly individualised interests, global East as yet a loosely defined domain, and therefore expects the global South to become an action point since it is better organised and focused. This is a significant analysis that highlights the role India can and must play in the changing global landscape. When the world is threatened to be torn apart due to senseless military conflict, there are many countries that view India as a possible leader of the international resilience beyond military responses. India is also living up to that expectation by pushing dialogue as a tool rather than violence. For its own part, India’s military preparedness is also of a high order, but the ideological belief is in favour of dialogue -- which Mr. Alexander Stubb also has backed.