The West’s perception managers can’t deny India’s contribution to irreversibly changing the world order, hence why they’re now forced to begrudgingly acknowledge it, though not without throwing shade at Delhi at the same time.

India’s principled neutrality towards the Ukrainian Conflict last year already reaped the grand strategic dividend of turning it into a globally significant Great Power. It’s now aspiring to build upon the third pole of influence that it’s creating with Russia and Iran to lead the entire Global South amidst the global systemic transition to multiplexity that’s rapidly eroding the Sino-American bi-multipolar order. Months after these observations became self-evident, the New York Times (NYT) finally acknowledged them.

Paris bureau chief Roger Cohen just published a piece about India’s newfound global role after spending almost two weeks in the country and even meeting with External Affairs Minister (EAM) Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the mastermind of this Great Power’s accelerated ascent over the past year. Titled “Russia’s War Could Make It India’s World”, his article should be applauded for drawing attention to this subject that the NYT’s peers in the Mainstream Media (MSM) have ignored with few exceptions.

EAM Jaishankar is quoted as reiterating India’s commitment to its objective national interests and pledging to do its utmost in pursuit of a more democratic, equal, and just world order via constantly recalibrated multi-alignments between major players. The limits of American pressure on its fellow Quad member to distance itself from Russia are also candidly discussed, which powerfully broke one of the MSM’s top taboos with respect to hitherto downplaying the US’ failure to isolate Moscow.

Nevertheless, Cohen also devoted considerable time to throwing shade on India’s global rise. This weaponized skepticism was first explicitly incorporated into the text when he wrote that “India may have the power to tilt the balance toward an order dominated by democratic pluralism or by repressive leaders” but “Which way Mr. Modi’s form of nationalism will lean remains to be seen.” He then proceeded to manufacture the implied narrative that India is on the brink of widespread unrest.

In the mind of the NYT’s Paris bureau chief, tensions between India’s Hindu majority and its nearly 200-million-strong Muslim minority are quickly approaching the breaking point as a result of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s socio-religious policies. Coupled with political developments that he characterizes as supposedly being anti-democratic, Cohen guides his readers into sharing his concerns about the sustainability of India’s global rise since they’re led to expect that it might soon come crashing down.

For all of India’s issues, which aren’t unique to it since all countries have their fair share thereof, it’s always succeeded despite others’ doom-and-gloom predictions about its supposedly inevitable demise. This speaks to its historically robust “Democracy Security” capabilities, which refer to its counter-Hybrid Warfare tactics and strategies aimed at preserving domestic cohesion in the face of centrifugal divide-and-rule threats, both those that are organically occurring and externally exacerbated.

Considering this, there’s no reason to extend credence to Cohen’s innuendo fearmongering about the consequences and sustainability of India’s global rise, which in hindsight is revealed to be nothing but a carefully crafted information warfare narrative concocted out of jealousy. This petty motive is ascribed to him since the US-led West’s Golden Billion that he represents by virtue of his profession as one of its top perception managers stands to lose as Indian-driven multipolarity erodes its global dominance.

That de facto New Cold War bloc’s unipolar hegemony has long been in decline but this process was unprecedentedly accelerated as a result of last year’s chaotic events, which were further sped up by India’s masterful practice of principled neutrality. That pragmatic policy’s stunning success on the world stage emboldened dozens of other countries to emulate it, which in turn made the multipolar processes unleashed by NATO’s proxy war on Russia truly irreversible in the systemic sense.

Cohen and his ilk can no longer deny India’s historic role in International Relations, yet self-interested ideological reasons prevent them from endorsing it. Instead of clinging to the failed policy of publicly criticizing India for doubling down on its strategic partnership with Russia and thus risking its continued ire, the Golden Billion’s perception managers realized that it’s better to craft more sophisticated infowar products such as Cohen’s, in which he simultaneously compliments and criticizes India.

Keeping in mind the NYT’s status as one of the West’s top media outlets, the prediction can therefore be made that his piece is intended to shape his colleagues’ subsequent work about that country. They’re expected to discard the prior editorial approach of criticizing its ties with Russia in favour of adopting a more subtle one that informs their readers about its new global role as a result of last year’s events in parallel with fearmongering about its consequences and viability due to India’s domestic issues.

On balance, this emerging trend is a net positive. People are finally being made aware of several “politically incorrect” facts connected to the Golden Billion’s declining unipolar hegemon, India’s rise, and the global systemic transition to multiplexity, all of which were previously suppressed. The infowar narratives weaved into these so-called “public awareness reports” were to be expected, however, since the MSM will never pass up an opportunity to spin the facts in order to deceive their audience.

That being the case, it can be concluded that India’s astronomical rise of the past year didn’t just change International Relations, but also how this subject is reported by the MSM. The West’s perception managers can’t deny that country’s contribution to irreversibly changing the world order, hence why they’re now forced to begrudgingly acknowledge it, though not without throwing shade at Delhi at the same time. Even so, their words won’t change reality since it’s indeed quickly becoming “India’s World”.

Courtesy Andrew Korybko

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