BEIJING

01 September 2019 21:26 IST

PM Modi is Putin’s special invitee to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special invite to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok that begins on Wednesday is a step to fulfill his vision of establishing a multipolar world with India and China as Moscow’s core partner, says a leading Russian thinker.

In an interview with The Hindu in Beijing — Alexander Dugin, also known a President Putin’s “brain” as well as the architect of the Fourth Political Theory — stressed that President Putin’s invitation to Mr. Modi as the chief guest at this year’s EEF is “first of all “a recognition of modern India to the Eurasian continent and the world in general”.

He added: “It also reflects as well the strategic vision of (Mr.) Putin towards shaping the future world order. This order, according to the Russian President, should be multipolar, based on the absolute sovereignty of powerful civilisations instead of liberal western hegemony.”

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Among global leaders, President Putin is at the forefront as he recognises that the “multipolar moment” has already arrived, and the unipolar world order, led by the U.S., which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, is being eclipsed by new rising powers, such as India, which have a deep civilisational past.

“Putin understands well the lesson of the former Soviet Union in the Cold War. Russia alone cannot bear the burden to oppose the liberal capitalist hegemony. So Moscow has to share the task of multipolarity with other major emergent players — first of all China and India. Hence, the role of India as one of the main pillars of multipolar world order,” Mr. Dugin observed.

The Russian scholar noted that Mr. Modi comes from a non-western ideological background, and his mind has been shaped by a deep Indian civilizational tradition — ideal for his emergence as a leader of the multipolar world. “Mr. Modi is exactly the kind of leader the multipolar world needs. He represents Indian identity as civilization.

He is symbol of modernisation without westernisation, representing a kind of conservative revolution of Indian politics based on deep cultural and spiritual identity.”

Mr. Dugin nailed the pioneering legacy Indian freedom fighter, Bal Gangadhar Tilak “who tried to combine anti-colonialism by return to the roots of tradition” as the philosophic template that India could pursue. “I think this third line of Indian traditionalism, which was not inspired by western modern nationalism, nor liberalism but was rooted in classic Indian traditionalism can be the way forward.”

“We need deep decolonisation and we need to restore our identity with our terms based on or tradition, our spiritual values and our historical experiences. This is deep decolonisation of the mind,” Mr. Dugin observed.

After joining the eight nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) pillared by Russia and China, India should take “the next decisive step” of becoming an active player of the multipolar world, Mr. Dugin observed.

“With the growing importance of China and its growing opposition to the U.S. led world politics and deepening relations with Russia—other key opponent to Western hegemony— we are already inside the era of multipolarity. So India logically is invited to join the club – the sooner the better, because the norms of emerging multipolar world order are establishing now.”

Asked to identify modern western scholars who anticipated the rise of the multipolar world, Mr. Dugin singled out American scholar Samuel Huntington, the author of, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”.

“Huntington could foresee that instead of ideology, modernisation, westernisation, technological assertion, there is some core of self-consciousness or identity that is more stable and stronger. I think he could see that we are coming to this moment, this deep truth of fundamental spiritual identity of civilizations, as they appear on the historical scene after the collapse of liberalism—the last utopic modern political theory.”

“Liberalism is obsolete as Putin has said recently, and instead of it, civilizations reappear, and now the problem is what will be the multipolar order? What are the borders, and that is very important and significant. What are the numbers of civilizations that are ready or not yet? What will be the juridical aspect of civilizational? All that has to be decided now. We live in the moment that nothing is as yet decided, but everything is put under question,” Mr. Dugin observed