Strategic vision for Indian Ocean community
Poet Tagore burst into song when he visited Jakarta referring to 'golden threads of friendship between India and Indonesia'. Biju Patnaik, father of Naveen Patnaik was the one who suggested the name of Meghawati to the daughter of President Soekarno. Soekarno named her Meghawati Soekarna putri.
I recall with fondness the brilliant monograph titled Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes (1919). This became the voice of a genius to shape the financial system of the world for almost a century thereafter. Now, we need a person of the stature of Keynes to take the world financial system out of the recessionary mess resulting from a chaotic order of puts and options, fiscal irresponsibility, and bogus instruments like credit swaps and participatory notes.
I wish people take seriously the proposed townhall meeting of Secy Clinton in Chennai on June 20 and covert it into a historic opportunity to reshape the world economic order to create a win-win situation for both the developed world and the IOC with the potential for a 6 trillion dollar GDP growing at over 10 percent per annum for the next century. Hindu economic thought governed by dharma-dhamma provides a solution to the present mess and we have to actively promote this solution. During the meeting between Secy Clinton and CM Jayalalithaa, a suggestion can be mooted for forming a Task Force of intellectuals and economists to study the modalities for forming an Indian Ocean Community, taking the cue from the formation of European Community. The study is timely considering the changes to the Law of the Sea being contemplated in the United Nations to extend territorial waters from 20 to 200 nautical miles, thus providing new opportunities for creating marine economic zones in the Indian Ocean Rim States.
The Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), initially known as the Indian Ocean Rim Initiative, is an international organization with 18 member states. It was first established in Mauritiuson March 1995 and formally launched on 6–7 March 1997. The time has come to institutionalise this regional cooperation by setting up a federal framework for the Indian Ocean Community, the way the European Community was an evolution from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) formed in the 1950's as a six-nationinternational organisation serving to unify Western Europe during the Cold War. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Steel_Community
Indian Ocean Community can help avoid a global financial meltdown
http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/https://sites.google.com/site/kalyan97/indus-script-cipher https://sites.google.com/site/indianoceancommunity1/
The financial crisis faced by the developed world requires firm, decisive action to get out of the recession worse than the 1929 depression. When the world had to reckon with the cost of financing the Second World War, PM Winston Churchill turned to John Maynard Keynes for an economic framework to prosecute the war. Keynes came up with a brilliant document titled: 'How to Pay for the War (1940)'. This landmark document suggested an economic policy for compulsory saving (essentially wage-earners loaning money to the government), rather than deficit spending, in order to avoid inflation. This measure predicated a substantial increase in the national product, to be effected by a net increase in employment, a longer working day, and a livelier tempo of labor. A solution analogous to this can be found to overcome the present recessionary market place in the developed world.
The formation of an Indian Ocean Community will provide a multiplier effect for providing for increase in employment among the 2 billion (1/3rd of the world population) people of the IOC region, while providing an unprecedented opportunity for the developed world led by USA to get involved in investing in large projects in the region: Trans-Asian Highway and Trans-Asian Railway from Bangkok to Vladivostok and extending the terrotorial waters of the Indian Ocean Rim states to 200 nautical miles under the amended Law of the Sea (which has the effect of a marked increased increase, lebensraum, for expanding economic opportunities to harness the riches of the ocean).
The rationale for a supra-nation of European Community was initially premised on a Coal and Steel Community but got expanded to full-fledged economic cooperation with Euro as a Common currency and a European Central Bank. This happened as an economic imperative despite the two world wars fought among the European nations. Similarly, Indian Ocean Community (IOC) can be initiated as a Free Trade Zone, to start with and later to provide for a Common Currency (Mudra) to provide for free movement of goods and services among the 59 states of the Indian Ocean Rim stretching from South Africa to Tasmania along the 63,000 long Indian Ocean Rim.
IOC has a millennium of socio-cultural interaction and bonds which existed among the present-day states of the Indian Ocean Rim. This is exemplified by the statement of the late French epigraphist George Coedes (who wrote about the largest vishnu temple of the world in Angkor Wat, Cambodia and other Hindu temples of the Farther Orient) who called the region: Hinduised States of the Farther Orient. The title of his work is: Histoire ancienne des États hindouisés d'Extrême-Orient, 1944; translated into English by Hawaii University Press as Indianised States of Southeast Asia). The 'etats hindouises' is essentially a dharma-dhamma continuum evidenced by thousands of Hindu-Bauddha temples in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma and other states and historical presence of Hindu kings in the region for over one millennium.
The arts, literature and statecraft are substantial replicas of the Indian civilization tradition. Tathagata, Gautama the Buddha called it esha dhammo sanantano (this sanatana dharma, this universal eternal ethic). When Tagore visited Java, he sang about the golden threads of friendship between India and Indonesia. The Republi Day of 26 Jan. 2011 was graced by the presence of President Susilo Yodhoyono of Indonesia. The opportunities for carrying the cultural bonds into socio-economic spheres of cooperation are immense and have to be seized by India looking east and by USA and other western leaders supporting the emergence of an economic federation among the Indian Ocean Rim states. The earlier experiences of ASEAN and Asea Pacific Cooperation have to be formalised in an institutional set up as a counterpoise to the European Community.
The IOC will be a six trillion dollar powerhouse which can provide for new opportunities for expanded creation of national wealth in the region by providing employment opportunities and integrating the region's finances into the global economic order. A beginning can be made by expanding the Free Trade Agreements of the type just signed (July 2011) between India and Malaysia to all states of the IOC and by promoting Buddha tourism to India's Buddhist pilgrimate centres. The archaeological monuments of the region need to be restored and the priests of the states trained in the performance of traditional festivities and prayers in the Hindu-Bauddha temples of the region. Cultural exchanges in the fields of higher technical education, use of satellite and IT technologies, exchanges among oceanographers will go a long way in strengthening cooperation among the states of IOC.
A beginning has been made by the setting up of Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation as an annual exchange forum among diplomats of the states of the region. This IOCRARC has to be given economic content through Free Trade agreements and MOUs for bilateral, multi-lateral cooperation in project such as the development of the Mekong River delta, Irrawady River delta which are economic infrastructure projects related to Himalayan rivers. This need not be seen as a competition between India and China for presence in the region. India and China, together with USA and other developed countries can participate in a common enterprise of promoting economic development in the region which is struggling to wriggle out of the slow pace of post-colonial economic development initiatives. A region which accounted for about 80% of the world GDP (pace Angus Maddison) just three centuries ago can find its rightful place in the comity of nations.
The historic event of Secretary Clinton's visit to Tamil Nadu should become an opportunity for recollecting the memories of the cordial relations which had existed between Chola kings and the region of Kedaram (Malaysia) between the 10th and 12th centuries and the presence of hundreds of temples such as Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Prambanan (Brahma vana).
In fact, the largest Vishnu temple of the world is NOT in India, but in Angkor Wat, Cambodia. People of the region venerate the Buddha and traditions represented by the Hindu-Bauddha temples. In Bali, Indonesia, the prayer position is namaste, as in India. And so goes the cultural metaphors in other parts of the IOC region who call themselves followers of dharma-dhamma. Now, it is time to provide economic content to this spiritual journey of millennia of a third of the world's population (about 2 billion people of the region).
Strategic vision for Indian Ocean community B.S.RAGHAVAN
Caught in the stranglehold of concepts and models emanating from the West, the opinion leaders, strategic thinkers and policy makers of Asian countries have long shied away from examining boldly and with a fresh mind the new and exciting vistas of social, cultural and economic partnership that exists right at their doorstep.
For instance, I have hardly found any discussion or even awareness among scholars of the Asian region of the invincible dynamics of one such compelling vision that has immense potential for the betterment of all humankind. The thought occurred to me as I was talking to Dr.S.Kalyanaraman who had held leadership positions in the Asian Development Bank, and been engaging himself in giving a new thrust, suited to the genius of Asian region, to new paradigms of collaboration and synergy which would put them on the fast track, if not ahead of so-called advanced countries.
By a process of ratiocination, he is convinced that the combined strengths of 59 countries of the Indian Ocean Rim which together constitute a six trillion dollar powerhouse are capable of setting in motion hitherto undreamt of enterprises for making the most of their abundant human and natural resources in order to achieve unprecedented economic growth and full employment, thereby make prosperity for all a reality.
Phenomenal role
Dr.Kalyanaraman has elaborated the strategic calculus in his book bearing the unusual title Rastram which is not amenable to any precise translation. Its attributes transcend those of a state ((which is mainly composed of institutions of governance) or a nation (which is a conglomerate of people with self-identity living in harmony). In his view, if only the countries of the Indian Ocean Rim constitute themselves into a collective entity, the tremendous financial and economic leverage that it will exercise will make it play a phenomenal role which will redress the balance of the present, largely skewed, world economic order. The idea has great appeal as well as relevance. The Indian Ocean Community (IOC), as expounded in Dr.Kalyanaraman's book, is predicated on the same rationale as the supra-national European Community which was initially conceived as a mechanism for joint policy making with reference to production and marketing of coal and steel but got expanded to full-fledged and integrated economic organisation with Euro as a common currency and a European Central Bank as a provider of banking services based on homogenous norms and criteria to all the members. This happened as an economic imperative despite the two world wars fought among the European nations.
Doable proposition
Similarly, the IOC too can transform itself into a Free Trade Zone, to start with, to provide for free movement of goods and services which, at some later stage, can even work towards adopting a common currency. It is true that it will stretch from South Africa to Tasmania along the 63,000 kms of the Indian Ocean Rim, but this need not in itself be regarded as an argument against it. There are actually three predisposing factors that make the IOC a doable proposition: The two proposed projects for the construction of a Trans-Asian Highway and Trans-Asian Railway from Bangkok to Vladivostok and the extension of the territorial waters of the Indian Ocean Rim states to 200 nautical miles under the amended Law of the Sea opens up unlimited economic opportunities for mutual cooperation and harnessing the riches of the ocean. Dr.Kalyanaraman's thesis is leavened by the fact that the IOC has a thousand years of socio-cultural interaction and bonds. This has found authentic expression in the lucid and impressive account of the late French epigraphist George Coedes (who also wrote about the largest Vishnu temple of the world in Angkor Wat, Cambodia and other Hindu temples of the Farther Orient)
First example
The words États hindouisés in the title of his work,Histoire ancienne des États hindouisés d'Extrême Orient, (translated into English by Hawaii University Press as Indianised States of Southeast Asia) essentially signifies a dharma-dhamma continuum evidenced by thousands of Hindu-Buddha temples in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma and other states and the historical presence of Hindu kings in the region for over one millennium. The IOC will be the first example of weaving the cultural bonds into socio-economic spheres of cooperation. It can be further buttressed by exchanges in the fields of higher technical education, use of satellite and IT technologies, oceanography and so on.
A beginning has already been made by the setting up of Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation as a forum for the diplomats of the states of the region to meet annually to exchange views and ideas in the common interest of the IOC. Talks are also under way on the best means of giving economic content through Free Trade agreements and MOUs for bilateral and multi-lateral cooperation in infrastructure projects such as the development of the deltas of the Mekong and Irrawady Rivers.
This need not be seen as a competition or one-upmanship in realpolitik between India and China.. They, together with USA and other developed countries, can participate in a common enterprise of promoting economic development in the region which is struggling hard to catch up with demands for goods and services generated by exploding populations. A region which accounted for about 80 per cent of the world GDP just three centuries ago will thus find its rightful place in the comity of nations. Revolutionary change Since most of the social and cultural influences have had their origins in South India, it should not be surprising if the policy makers at the Centre in New Delhi take only minimal interest in the initiative advocated here.
It will be well worthwhile for the academic community and persons prominent in public and political life in Southern States to go in depth into the significance of the proposition. For instance, if the Chief Minister, Ms.Jayalalithaa, can persuade herself about its feasibility and brings herself to draw the Centre's attention, she would have set India on a course that would bring about a revolutionary change in the complexion of world affairs.
Rastram is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-million:
( hari krishnamurthy K. HARIHARAN)"'' When people hurt you Over and Over
think of them as Sand paper.
They Scratch & hurt you,
but in the end you are polished and they are finished. ''
think of them as Sand paper.
They Scratch & hurt you,
but in the end you are polished and they are finished. ''
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