"Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World" by Alyssa Ayres

I love the world of international policy and foreign affairs, and I'm fascinated by the developing world.  Those two subjects were brilliantly explored in this book.

Rather than an introspective look at India, this book focused on India's external relations with the world at large, with an emphasis on that country's struggle to take it's "rightful" place among the leading nations of the world.

For decades India has been denied such designation.  It seems that even with well over a billion people, it's reputation as a poor country has limited its ascendancy on the world stage.

The numbers are fascinating.  In total GDP (nominal) India is currently (2018) ranked as the sixth largest economy in the world, just behind the UK, but ahead of France and Italy.  But when you look at this same calculation on a per capita basis, India drops to 139th.

Many of the conventional organizations of global affairs (UN, IMF, World Bank, etc.) exclude India from a leadership role based on outdated precedence, much of it established based on post-WWII conditions.  India doesn't have a seat on the UN Security Council, for example, which seems silly.  In the present context, why should France and Russia occupy seats instead of India?

India famously resisted the temptation to formally align with either Soviet or American interests post-WWII, instead asserting its independence.  Although it did adopt a socialist economic model for decades, that was abandoned in the 1990s, almost 15 years after China did the same.  Both countries have benefited greatly from the switch to a market-based economy, but with India's economic ascendancy trending the same 15 years behind China.

I was really interested with the many "soft power" methods in which India asserts its global imprint.  Bollywood and India's dominance of world cricket competition are only two examples.  Another less apparent soft-power influence is its significant ability to train developing nations on how to conduct free elections.  India maintains a significant facility that hosts overseas delegations year-round, training them on the intricacies of holding elections within a developing nation.  India is quick to point out that the U.S. simply doesn't have the expertise, as voting conditions are completely unique in the developing world.

India's role as the world's largest democracy - a status that I had rarely thought about - fascinates me.  Yes, America plays a large role as the first sustained republic based on democratic principles.  But India does it with more than three times as many people, with a significantly more complicated society, in dramatically more challenging conditions, in a much more troubled part of the world, with a radically more complicated history.  Way to go, India.

Anyhow, I'm resolved to follow more foreign affairs, as the subject really does interest me.  Step one is following several global institutions on Facebook.  Step two is reading more books along the lines of this most-interesting read.