Equally significant is the attention paid to themes that blur the boundary between the international and the domestic. Issues of citizenship, migration, inequality, gender, and information are no longer confined within national borders. Books on law, human security, media, and social movements reveal how global processes are refracted through local institutions and everyday lives.
Questions of social justice that coalesce around caste, gender, class and marginalization are another thematic focus. Counting Caste, Elusive Democracy, Democracy and Impunity, A Woman’s Job, “New” Women, Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us and Boats in a Storm explore how power operates through social hierarchies and everyday governance. Finally, several essays further blur the boundary between disciplines, high politics, and daily life.
In conclusion, we should engage with the world, but smartly. Instead, we have seen a closing of the Indian mind and a lack of engagement over the last decade: We have abstained or stayed mum on every important international issue recently (the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the slaughter in Gaza, the bombing of Iran, the raid on Venezuela, etc.); we walked away from regional integration in South Asia (SAARC) and Southeast Asia (RCEP);
This pattern extends across security, diplomacy, and energy policy. Gloger and Mascolo demonstrate how military cooperation formats and confidence-building measures with Russia persisted long after Moscow’s authoritarian consolidation and rearmament were evident. Even more consequential was Germany’s deepening energy dependency. The expansion of Nord Stream and the systematic dismissal of Eastern European concerns revealed a strategic culture that equated economic interdependence with political moderation.
He suggests that with the decline of the West, other non-Western nations will be more important in the future world order, and that it will be marked by cultural and political diversity. His preferred description of the coming world order is that it will be akin to a multiplex, with multiple shows on offer, giving the audience a choice of plots, actors, directors and so on.
India built Afghanistan’s Parliament building. The author recalls Hamid Karzai calling him to a meeting to his Presidential office and telling him that his Cabinet colleagues and he felt that it would be only appropriate for India, the world’s largest democracy, to build Afghanistan’s Parliament House. India built the Zaranj-Dilaram Highway and brought electricity from across the Hindu Kush mountains to Kabul through power transmission lines.