Towards the end of August 2015, New Zealand India Research Institute (NZIRI) at Victoria University of Wellington hosted its third international conference focussing on ‘India as a Global Power in the Twenty-First Century’. Since its establishment in 2012, NZIRI has been propping up India as some magical emerging power that went into a slumber sometime during the eighth century AD. During all these years of NZIRI existence nobody has been able to highlight any connect between the eighth century South Asian peninsula with the post 1947 India that was created as a Raj legacy. That was the biggest territorial gain for a ‘civilization’ in the words of Samuel Huntington.

Since 2012, I have watched NZIRI from a distance. For more than a year now, India’s Modi factor has become so pervasive on the social media that it was hard for me in 2015 to not attend the NZIRI international conference. Professor Ian Hall delivered the keynote on 25 August 2015 speaking on Narendra Modi and the Remaking of India’s Normative Power. Prof Hall was balanced in his approach and removed a bit of Modi veneer towards the end of his keynote address. Remaining part of the morning session that day was like delivery from political party faithfuls. Rhetoric at its best. Sometimes it looked India would dwarf any nation-state on the earth.

Afternoon sessions were a welcome relief, as almost all the speakers focused on various issues highlighting the reality of economy of India, climate change, what it is to be like a real superpower and the facade of symbolism. On the second day of the conference the papers adequately focused on food, health and naval competition aspects but a paper on India’s role in the Middle-East could have relied more on evidence and may be a mention or two of how India could seek assistance from New Zealand (chair of the UN Security Council) to play a leading role in Middle-East.

The concluding session on 26 August was an open forum for brainstorming on how to harness India’s ‘global position’ for the benefit of New Zealand. At the strategic level the initial discussion centered around Australia and India for two reasons. One, due to ongoing joint initiatives of Australia and India. Two, due to huge presence of academics from Australia at the conference. Somebody also mentioned the stalled trade talks between New Zealand and India. Instead of getting into circular discussions, Jim Rolfe as chair steered the discussion towards Indian students and their lack of interest towards New Zealand universities. The reasons were obvious. Students from India with big purses would prefer universities with a better international ranking any day over other universities of the world even if such universities were located in scenic countries such as New Zealand. For those without big purses, New Zealand universities were not attractive due to the near non-existence of what is supposed to be a successful transition from education to work.

The conference raised some really good issues. However, towards the end there were hardly any visible gains for New Zealand. Nor there was any mention of New Zealand as chair of the UN Security Council. A couple of times during the conference it was mentioned that India was ambitious to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

So what is there for 2016 NZIRI conference? I sincerely hope the NZIRI organisers would try to look in their own backyard and pick up a theme that would bring New Zealand into the centre stage.