>> rose: welcome to the programment we begin this evening with robert kaplan. his book is about geography and the power of geography in geo political relationships. the new book is called asia's cauldron, the south china sea and the end of a stable pacific. >> a hundred years ago people could say south america doesn't matter, africa doesn't matter. now every place matters, every place to be strategic because every place is interlocked with every other place by technology. but it's only by starting with geography that you understand what's going on in every place. i'm arguing for sequence of understanding. it's not geography or technology, it's not geography or human values, it's starting with geography to understand everything else. >> rose: we conclude this

evening with a look at the indian elections. we talked to milan vaishnav, sadanand dhume and jonathan shane issue and arvind panangariya. >> the last thing is seeing governments of the kind which has not done great. >> rose: is it about corruption or incompetence. >> it is both. >> rose: the power of geography and the future of the elections in india

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin today with the politics of the ukraine and the lessons of geography. president obama reaffirm his commitment to ukraine in a

speech today the european union summit in brussels. he warned that continued russian aggression in the country would result in more sanctions and further isolation. >> over the last several days, the united states, europe and our partners around the world have been united in defense of these ideas. and united in support of the ukrainian people. together we've condemned russia's invasion of ukraine and rejected the legitimacy of the crimean referendum. together, we have isolated russia politically, suspending it from the g8 nations and down grading our bilateral sides. together, we are imposing costs through sanctions that have left a mark on russia and those accountable for its actions. and if the russian leadership stays on its current course, together we will ensure that

this isolation deepens. sanctions will expand and the toll on russia's economy as well as expanding in the world will only increase. and meanwhile, the united states and our allies will continue to support the government of ukraine as they chart a democratic force. together we're going to provide a significant package of assistance that can help stabilize the ukrainian economy. and meet the basic needs of the people. >> rose: vladimin putin's annexation geography of the political world. robert kaplan considers it the geo political implications of another volatile region the south china sea. the book is called asia's cauldron, the south china's sea, the end of a stable pick. i'm happy to have robert kaplan at this stable. >> a pleasure to be here.

>> rose: let me start with ukraine. tell me how you see it through the prism of the books you've written about geography. >> first of all there's a difference between analysis and policy. analysis has to be cold blooded but policy has to be inspirational and moral. what we've seen with president obama's speech in europe was moral inspirational leadership. but here's the problem. here's what the story geography tells, which is that ukraine is simply thrust so far forward east and is so spacially enveloped by russia with long plat borders where russia can cut off trade, cut off natural gas deliveries, can infiltrate with secessionists, intelligence services. that ukraine was where russia started 9th century kiev. ukraine simply matters more to any russian leader than it matters to the united states or even to leaders of europe.

now, it's president obama's job therefore to inspire the europeans to say no, it matters to us too because we died for our ideals throughout the 20th century. and we cannot let this stand. so obama knows the difficulties through his realistic analysis but now he has to inspire europe to do more because of geography, europe is enmeshed with the russian economy. just a web work of natural gas and oil pipeline going from russia into central and western europe where countries like bulgaria or germany or the baltic states are heavily dependent on russian hydrocarbons. that's going to make it very difficult for the europeans to enact real sanctions. >> rose: i want to put it in context, this recent conversation i had with henry kissinger. here's what he said. >> i don't thinkf

annex. in fact they have said he doesn't intend to annex crimea. the basic problem, there are a number of fundamental problem here. first problem is that no russian i've ever met finds it easy or even possible to continue ukraine a totally separate country. it was part of russia for 300 years. the history of the ukraine has been for several hundred years before that. so the evolution of ukraine is a matter that moves all russians. even people like -- we're firm on the view that ukraine belongs to russia. but now ukraine -- >> rose: belongs to russia or is within rush's sphere of influence.

>> probably think it should be part of the same country. but as a minimum they want to be in the russian sphere of influence. >> rose: my question is, can ukraine have a place, can they have a relationship with the west and still have a special relationship with russia. >> yes, they can. and that has to be the goal of western policy. to make ukraine a civil society at the same time that russia is assured of a stable and special relationship with ukraine. because first of all crimea is ethnic russian, it's pro russian, it's essential with part of russia, and this annexation essentially formalized what were the facts on the ground. there's no way russia's going to give up crimea when it's the port for its warm water fleet from the black sea into the mediterranean.

as i said where ukraine is positioned on the map and given russian history, ukraine cannot be a normal state without a close relationship to russia. >> rose: here's what you have said in a "time" magazine piece this week. the reaction of many pundits, academics and many obama officials virtual annexation of crimea has been disbelief, border line disorientation which is 19th century behavior in the 21st century. well the 19th century calls it lives on you and always will. forget about the world being flat, forget technology as a great democratizer. territory and the bonds of blood that go with our central makes us human. >> yes. and technology rather than negate geography just made it more precious and claustrophobic. >> rose: what do you mean. >> a hundred years ago people could say africa doesn't matter,

south america doesn't matter, now every place matters. every place can be strategic. because every place is interlocked with every other place by technology but it's only by starting with geography that you understand what's going on in every place. arguing for sequence of understanding. it's not geography or technology, it's not geography or human values, it's starting with geography to understand everything else. it's like my wristwatch. it's small and i can get an even smaller watch, but in order to understand how it works, you have to disaggregate all the gears and mechanisms inside. and in terms of the earth, that means sea lines of communication, etcetera. >> rose: looking at people in the ground, one putin in moscow, two obama in washington now in europe. what does putin want that

obama's prepared to live with? >> well, i think that putin, putin's intelligence services, etcetera, failed him in ukraine. he thought that he could manipulate ukraine's democracy under former president yanukovych who was like a neo tzar. and had a pro russian orientation. well, that didn't work. russia could not control it so he essentially lost ukraine. >> rose: wouldn't that have worked if in fact they would have allowed yanukovych to go through with the early conversation that he had with europe. and europe had been more urgent in making that happen. >> it might have, it might have. but now what putin has to fall back on is getting crimea and then undermining what the west has apparently won. ukraine is now pro western in their interim government and putin will do everything to

undermine the state. the eastern half of ukraine is heavily orthodox christian, heavily pro russian. he will use the east against the west. he will cut off trade. he will start fights with the ukraine on natural gas deliveries. he will use every geographical advantage that he can to make sure that what president obama said about making ukraine prosperous and stable does not work until there's a negotiation between russia and the west. >> rose: that's the way this crises would be solved. >> i think ultimately this crises can only be solved by having a ukraine that is a developing institutionalized civil society. and that make it proeuropean but it also has a special relationship with russia. >> rose: but can you imagine that putin, because of sanctions, because of what other circumstances, because of his other vision for russia as a

great nation will be allowed, will accept that. >> he can accept it if there are face-saving measures. there's always diplomatic advances. they can say they have relationship with russia. at the same time ukraine develops a western parliamentary system. >> rose: crimea certainly underscores the enduring geo politics, it stretches across a huge land mass protecting every criminal leaders from the tsars to the crooks are -- russia has legitimate security interest but this episode is not about them, this recent ukraine drama didn't start with geography with an outside power trying to get into russia as much as putin wants to pretend it did. this started with people inside russia's orbit trying to get out ended by saying this is an exodus story not an invasion

story. >> here's how i will put it. there was a real legitimate ground swell of support inside the kiev to topple the regime and succeeded. because the values of the eu, and what are those values that it's about states, not nations. states are about individuals living in a system of impersonal laws. nations are about protecting it anything solidarity. this was very attractive to the people of the ukraine. the problem is that where they are located on the map and their historical relationship with russia makes it very hard for them to have a total escape. another problem that's gone unmentioned in the media is that we're in about the sixth year of europe's economic crises. this means that the eu has lost significant geo political

bandwidth in central and eastern europe. for years they've been buying infrastructure throughout eastern and central europe. from estonia in the north to bulgaria in the south feel threaten. europe doesn't have the influence it had a half decade ago in this part of the world. >> rose: i made the point that europe says they're prepared to spend $16 billion and he basically looked at me and said really. show me $16 billion that's coming in here. how much do you think they've spent so far. this seem the russians don't believe europe has the will in a sense or the economic resources to do that. >> europe is, excuse me, russia is making a bet that europe is too linked in with russia because of the energy needs. russia is the top dog natural

gas market. ten years from now that won't be the case anymore but it is now. the web work of pipeline going into europe essentially comprises europe and makes it impossible for the individual european countries to enact the sanctions and level of punish that president obama would like to. >> rose: are we looking at the president too because since he's been in the office and because he came in office in part was to get us out of war and conflict and not engage in conflict because he wanted to, one, pivot to asia, and b, wanted to do some nation building at home. >> yes. the pivot to asia is actually about 20 years late, 25 years late. after the berlin wall fell they wanted to pivot to asia. he had to be kicked out of kuwait. then there was 12 years of a no fly zone instituted by the air force and naviment after that

came 911, afghanistan and iraq and finally we're out of iraq getting out of the afghanistan so the bureaucracy wants to pay more attention to asia. the problem is we're in a very geo political world where we have a rivalry not only with china but with russia too and the middle east is very unstable. >> rose: in fact you argue that sort of tribes and geography have become more important because of the arab spring. >> yes, exactly. people thought that the arab spring was about democracy. i disagree. i think it was about the collapse of illegitimate central authority but the fact that central ill what you jet mother central authority -- >> rose: powers from beyond their own borders. >> collapse, doesn't mean there's an institutional and bureaucratic basis in these countries for stable democracy. so what we've seen is syria collapse, libya partially collapse, tunisia is a very

feeble but surviving democracy. i call it a potential arab portugal. because remember it took portugal 13 years of instability before it really started get going. >> rose: i want to argue tunisia because it has an islamic democracy where islam and democracy have come together in tunisia and they have a government that seems to be functioning and democratic islamic. >> yes but it's very weak. >> rose: they won't to tunisia as the best example of what they could have been. >> except tunisia cannot protect the borders since arab spring. it has been a state in one form or another since antiquity. it's an age-old cluster of civilizations. it has a real estate identity. but libya, syria, iraq, yemen are not states, they're vague geographical expressions.

so when they're suffocating dictatorships collapse there was nothing there. so it's not an accident that tunisia has relatively succeeded compared to some of these other arab countries. >> rose: let me turn to asia. this is called asia's cauldron. the stout china sea and the end of a stable pacific a lot of the world's eyes are focused on the pacific and the indian ocean because of the missing airline. you made an interesting point about malaysia in passing which was. >> i said malaysia is a very misunderstood country. i write a long chapter on malaysia in the book. 30 years ago malaysia was poor, down trodden, barely a country. it wasn't even a british colony, it was several federated states controlled by the british. it had ethnic violence between indigenous chinese, indigenous indians, indigenous malay muslims and in the last third of the centuries it's come together, it's institutionalized, it had six or

seven percent economic growth rates every year in and out. it's built a strong stable information edge economy where there's still ethnic and racial tension but they're negotiated. there hasn't been any actual violence there in a very very long time. malaysia is really the most prosperous of the major countries in southeast air. >> rose: including indonesia. >> oh, yes. it's much more bureaucratally stable. things work in malaysia. >> rose: how about singapore. >> singapore is a city state. it's a little city but malaysia i traveled all over malaysia on air condition the buses. the airports are wonderful. it's just it's still not up to the level where it could handle a crises like this. >> rose: so talk about the south china sea. talk about japan versus china and what the implications of that and how that is in fact geography as well. >> china seas, the south and

east china seas as an extension of their continental land mass, they see these adjacent seas the way we, the united states saw the caribbean in the 19th and early 20th century. we became a great nation by dominating the caribbean, thereby dominating the western hemisphere allowing us to effect the balance of power in the earn hemisphere. the chinese seek to dominate vietnam, malaysia, the philippines and south kai know sea and japan and the east china sea thereby unlocking the door for the navy and ma lock awe and strait of the indian ocean and the entire block of islam. chinese are supporting more and more oil and natural gas from the middle east across the indian ocean through the south china sea. and they bristle at the idea that the americans would come from half a world away with their great navy and air force and seek a balance of power in the region. the chinese feel they should

dominate the region. >> rose: they do recognize that united states is a power in the region and not going to go away. >> they do. they're very realistic. they recognize that the, remember china may be authoritarian but it's a very collegial technocratic regime of people who, you know, it's not a thugocracy the way russia is. what china bristles at is it doesn't want to make compromises to what they consider these small countries like vietnam and malaysia that have, and the philippines which have claims in the blue water of the energy rich south china sea which contradicts china's own claim. and it bristles with japan claiming the -- islands in the east china sea. the chinese can live with the united states as a great power in the region. what they can't live with is the idea that they will not be the

preponderant indigenous power in the region. >> rose: they've had fractured relationship with almost everybody in the region. >> absolutely. >> rose: witness to what makes it happen leading up to world war ii including south korea which is a huge economic power. is there any possibility that those countries will get together because they fear vietnam, south korea, japan. >> japan is distrusted because unlike the germans, they never properly accounted for what they did in world war two. therefore, their distrusted especially by the south koreans. because remember japan occupied what is now south korea, not just for the war but from 1910 to 1945, often very brutally. and japan, so throughout the region the japanese are distrusted. but increasingly people see the japanese as a hedge against the chinese. in other words, japan is

slipping out of its quasi passivistic phase and now has more time as many major war ships as the high british royal navy. >> rose: what do you make about the fact this week they are changing their nuclear philosophy shipping their enrichment ukrainian to the united states. >> what they want to do is reassure the united states because they need u.s. diplomatic and military support in the region. >> rose: they have a treaty. >> they are a treaty ally of the united states. maybe our most important treaty ally in the world. the philippine is also a treaty ally but it's a much weaker state. japan hosts tens of thousands of american troops. it's going to be hosting a nuclear power aircraft carrier. >> rose: but -- >> south korea as well but japan is really our anchor in northeast asia. because in south korea, we have

much less ground troops, much fewer. >> rose: when you say china wants to i think the word you used was -- >> finland eyes. >> rose: okay, go ahead. making these countries like finland. >> during world war, during the cold war. during the cold war finland had a long border with the soviet union so finland has an independent capitalists country but its foreign policy was essentially compromised by moscow. >> rose: because of geography. >> because of geography. it couldn't, it didn't do anything in the foreign policy realm that was hostile to the kremlin. now, the united states needs to fear between two extremes. we cannot allow china to finlandize vietnam, the philippines, malaysia. but at the same time, we cannot allow the nationalism, the very hot blooded nationalisms of the philippines and vietnam, for

example, to lure us into a military conflict with china. because our bilateral relationship with china is just so important for peace in the 21st century. so it's a matter of steering when those two extremes. >> rose: as you know, there are many books being written by 1914. >> yes. >> rose: suggesting that we slid into war and suggesting that sliding into war are present today. you reject those. >> there's been a lot of references to 1914 in regards to the pacific. in the last two or three weeks in regard to the ukraine but to the pacific it's been in the academic journals for like a year now. i think they're overblown. i think it's overblown because europe was a landscape. the pacific is a seascape. europe was armies clashing over places with large civilian populations. east asia's a seascape where any war would be sharp and short and

would be air sea and would involve naked uninhabit it rocks. remember, world war i was a culture and history transforming event because it went on for four years and killed 17 million soldiers and civilians. that is not going to happen in the pacific. >> rose: compared to how many in world war ii. i think about 50 million. >> yes, i think so. >> rose: this book is called asia's cauldron, the south china sea and thend of a stable pacific. robert kaplan has been named one of the top global thinkers, global policy magazine and geography is his thing it's fair to say. and he looks at geography's impact on geo political events and there is a lot of to be argued and a lot to be understood and i'm pleased to have him on this program. thank you. >> it's my pleasure. >> rose: next month more than 800 million voters will cast

their ballots in india's general election. it will be perhaps the largest democratic exercise in history. may also mark a political turning point for the world's second most populous nation. there's wide spread dissolution with the current government. early polls predict opposition for -- sad -- sad nand dhume, n vaishnav, arvind panangariya and non-than -- jonathan shainin. welcome to this table and i hope it-c]d a moderate job of getting those names right. let me just start here. the significance of this election. >> i think this is an historical election. one of the most important ones. i would compare it to the 1977

election in which -- lost the election -- because last ten years i have seen governance of the kind which has not done great. >> rose: is it about corruption or incompetence. >> it is both. it is both. actually not only there have been numerous scandals that have come up on the corruption front but the economic reforms since 1991, great moment until 2004 then it was turned over. the present government came in last ten years no reforms whatsoever. >> rose: someone explain to me how lookions work in india. because it's not over in a day. it takes how long. >> about six weeks i think, maybe more. basically the country gets divided up into sort of voting stages because you know you said it could be the largest democratic exercise by definition every new indian general election is a large's exercise in history. i think the number for this one

is something like a hundred million new voters join the rolls between every election. so what they'll do is there will be six or eight voting days and then the counting happens only at the very end. and i think i would agree with arvind this looks like what an america we might think of kind of a wave election. there's been the prospect of a rather large realignment here, the congress party which is at the head of the coalition looks likely to be reduced probably to its lowest number of seats in several decades. >> rose: will there likely be a clear winner or the necessity of a coalition government. >> yes and yes. it's a pure winner in the sense it's likely that people emerge as the single largest party and also more than ever in its history. >> rose: tell me what the -- bjp is. >> bjp is -- and it's right now the most popular politician in india and he's likely to emerge

as having lend its body to biggest electorate ever. >> rose: but he's also controversial. >> he's controversial. and the main controversy goes back 2002 when there were riots on his watch in 2002 where about a thousand people died three quarters of them and the shadow of those riots is really stayed with him over the last 12 years. >> rose: he has not yet been sort of given even though there's been investigations, he's not been in the minds of many people given a clean bill of health. >> well i would say that he has been given the clean bill of health by a supreme court who ordered an investigation which has been upheld by a court and many people clearly have given him a clean bill health that's why he's doing so well in the polls. however there's a small but significant minority that still sees him through the prism of the election. >> rose: tell me about the congress party. >> the congress party is the ten-year incumbent in power

since 2004 most of india's independent history has been controlled in india. >> rose: gandhi -- >> it's a political dynasty around for a hundred years and they were going through this election deeply unpopular. people are upset with the state of the economy first and foremost. they're upset over corruption and i think they're upset with what they perceive to be just a lack of direction. the country used to be talked about in the same breadth as china. and now it's seen as a back water which takes many back to the period several decades ago when they thought they were. >> rose: what happened because i went to i think 2009 and interviewed the prime minister. this is when india, everybody was talking about india. he had been the prime minister and had credit for the economic growth of india and it was like india and china take your mcbut two power houses in asia. what happened. >> fundamentally the reform

agenda which got started in the early 1990's ran its logical course. and there was a time -- >> rose: my prime minister sing. >> when he was the prime minister in 1991. there was a second round of reform that was needed so the congress party seemed unable or unwilling to push on those reforms. when you couple that with massive malfeasance in government that the prime minister although else perceived to be a very upstanding honest politician, his administration engages in this kind of corruption. those two things are coming together to be a very powerful vote getter for their opposition. >> so the reforms that mr. shingh did -- 2004 and those reforms were delivered very very rapid growth.

for the first progressive alliance -- but in the second term of the government, lots and lots of mismanagement also the reforms had run their course and the structure actually came to complete kind of bottleneck. and growth has really gone from eight to 9% down to between four and five. that is really where the backlash has begun to form because the government had come to believe that growth was to be taken for grand and all they needed to do was to spend money on the poor which was overdue and it correctly did so. but you forget about growth, you have avenues that begin to slow down as well. >> rose: where is the gandhi family in all this. >> well you know -- said directly it's been the dominant party for most of history. you see something like what the a and c in south africa looks like now what the labor party in

israel was until 1997i i think what has happened is for various reasons unique to india, the gandhi family has not gone away. some people rue this. i think they managed the kind of continue to use their family brand as for a time the only thing that they've seen to hold the party together. gandhi -- was assassinated in 1991, his widow sonia hung in the background for a little while but in the lay 90's came back and took over the party in 2004 and led them to victory. now with her son -- she has kind of always been the power behind the throne. the relationship between sonia and -- who has been her prime minister is not i think very well understood. no one apart from the two of them and a few other people i think have access for the kind

of conversations they have. >> rose: does anybody disagree with that this relationship between her and the prime minister. >> i think it may not be perfectly understood but it is widely seen as him being her employee. you can use people use unkind words but it's widely seen as a one-sided relationship. the real question with the congress though is can gandhi the 40-something heir to the family, so far he has shown little aptitude for policies. so the crises the party faces is this they only have one means of succession which is from, which is family rule. but the children heir doesn't seem to show a great aptitude for politics. so that's the dynamic that they trade. >> alongside also on the other party is a charismatic leader so

i think has brought out the trust between the very effective leader on the other side and nearly totally effective leadership on the congress. >> it's been really a one-sided campaign. you have a powerful charismatic leader who has run a stated for ten years and that often gets left aside. this is an historic thing to actually have somebody in india who ran a state, who then tried to use that as a spring board for national office. that happens all the time in the united states. you have governors running for president. this is actually a new thing but he has a track record and he says you can look at what i've done. i've been a leader and you contrast that with gandhi. he's an mp but he's never run anything he's never been a minister and that contrast has been very unfavorable. >> rose: let's assume moody wins. what kind of government will we expect what kind of relationship with the united states do we expect. >> the other thing about moody that's remarkable in the context of indian politics is that

anyone can correct me i think india has never seen a campaign like this before. so -- >> rose: how so. >> in several ways. one thing you hear a lot is it's a presidential style complain. the leading candidate, modey has been put front and center as the presidential candidate. sometimes in an election a party will go to elections without specifying who is going to be the prime minister. i would go further back. american political scientists now talk about what they call the invisible primary. so it's know, mitt romney's running but even before iowa and new hampshire he's meeting donors, he's talking to the party faithful. he's basically trying to line up an aura of inevitability. in 2005, 2006, 2007, modey began to do things in a way that i think haven't been seen in india before where he started hosting these huge investment something called vibe result -- so we'd call in all these investors and people would pledge i'm going to build a factory, i'm going to

bring my car plant to you. there was a very clever and maybe deliberate is too strong a word but he really set himself up in a way that i don't think we've ever seen before to show that his track record -- was going to be appealing to voters. and that i think has raised expectations very high. i think there are a lot of liberals in india who i think are afraid of modey coming to office. and i think -- >> rose: why are they afraid. >> i think they see him as autocratic, possibly authoritarian. they see him as to use the indian vernacular as communal. he's someone who is a majoritarian figure who will occasionally do what again using american terms sort of dog whistling in terms of maybe making muslim voters one welcome kind of stuff. this is stuff that's debated very fiercely in india right now. people disagree. i would say one thing which is that when i have spoken to

liberals who feel this way, i think it can be little overdone. modey if he becomes prime minister will filed himself running what i think charitably you could call a byzantine government. i don't call him running rough shod over the opponents. >> very briefly, if you look at him through the prism of the riots of 2002, that's where all this starts from. if you look at him from after that for the last 12 years he's essentially run a business friendly government that is not discriminated against anybody i would argue. so that is what has allowed him to go from being a regional figure to the dominant national figure. you have to ask yourself why would he be stupid enough to endanger that when that has work sewed well for him. >> rose: go ahead. >> this is looking at the record in the last ten years since

2002. there's history of discrimination. if you look at the numbers, i'm an economist i do the numbers. mostly in rural india have the lowest rate of -- so his mow disoperandi is look i stand for development. development is for everybody -- or for that matter -- and it brings up everybody and that certainly is the kind over track record he's established in his own state. >> are the issues are personal or are they about bigger issues, issues about him primarily or gandhi or are they issues about india's future. how you think each of them would impact the future. >> i think if all the polling suggests that the number one issue on every indian's mind is the economy. they saw india growing at chinese level growth rate.

that's been split in half. inflation has run among, corruption is a big issue. people have seen their wages increased eroded because of inflation and so on and so forth. there was this myth in end yawn politic that good economics didn't make for good politics. you could get away with a lot of stuff as long as you were the right -- religion i think that's starting to fray and i think voters are behaving as they do in most democracies which is to say it's the economy, stupid. >> i would say maybe three big things about this election. one of them is it holds out the possibility that the nature of the voter's changing. indian politics i think has always been more transactional than what we see today in america. it's often a certain community in a certain place will look to see what can i get from the various politicians. in some cases this is where the community will meet with each candidate and they'll offer various different things. and i think more and more economic growth good governance

is becoming part of that package. and i think the other thing is that for the first time in a while is competition between two different visions how to shake india. >> rose: is that difference or vision about a view about investment and a view about development. state versus private. >> i think that modey is campaigning on the development plaque and modey is saying look, as arvind just said unless we have growth, we can't take care of our poorest. i think if the congress could even be said to have a coherent counterargument to that, they're saying we have to take care of the poorest. >> in the last 20 years -- has tripled. now if you compare that to the previous 40 years it doubled over a period of 40 years. so the -- aged 20 to 45 years

today has seen this growth that the previous generation has never seen. so that has made all the difference. and mr. bodhi clearly kind of growth. >> i see two fundamental differences or three. is first is that simplifying this is largely true. modey is saying growth and -- the second is the idea of indian secularism. is it about special rights of minorities or is it questioning rights. >> rose: when you say minorities -- >> -- that's the second. and the third is about indian politics going to be the preserver for family or can someone who started life in a tea stall in a railway station. >> rose: that would be modey. do you think he's prepared for that. >> looks like he is. >> rose: what happens to the

gandhi family if they lose this election. >> i wouldn't write them off. they've been around for a long time. they've made come backs before. i don't think one election wipes out the gandhi family. there's a question mark about the future of gandhi. if he loses this he can still survive but if he loses another big one -- >> rose: why has his mother never wanted a public. she was the power behind the throne, she was in fact the most important person in the party. and the most important person you could say in india. why has she never wanted to run. >> in word because she was born in india. >> to say she thought she realized if you want to be cynical about it, which i don't think is wrong, she realized she could have more power. the moment in 2004, the congress won a very surprising victory over the -- and the cadre of the political parties, there's a lot of love and loyalty for whoever

the leader is, bakhti as they would say. these people -- said sonia sonia sonia. she said her inner voice told her she should not run the country. ease yeah the canniest and most cleverest move you can imagine. for a very long time you can differ over how many years. there was an enormous amount of goodwill toward her because she had handed the crown to singh. >> i think people are speculating -- he will be the power behind the throne. the problem is there's nobody to hand the throne to. >> rose: does the united states unspoken not spoken favor one candidate over the other? >> it depends. sort of who in the united states. >> rose: i mean the administration. >> we have to remember that after 2002, the united states

government had no relationship with modey because of the riots that happened, his visa was revoked, he was denied a new visa. it was only until a couple months ago that the u.s. ambassador could even meet with modey. that was stated under u.s. government policy. i think the u.s. government and the state department sees the writing on the paul. he's the most likely person to become the next p.m. we have to have a relationship with him. it would be incredibly awkward if these two partners did not have relations. and that has been, so it's a sense of pragmaticism. and also a push from the private sector in the economic community saying he has done good things. we think he could scale that model up and let's give him a shot. >> rose: so they might like grow to like him. >> there was a big advance in u.s.-indian relations between bush and singh -- and i think you could say after many years

of non-alignment india has really come into the orbit of the u.s. i mean here it was very much military cooperation, defense sales, trade. i think a lot of people especially in india feel that the obama administration has kind of taken its eye off the ball. >> rose: as i remember, wasn't india the first stated -- >> -- was the first person to come. >> rose: the president said a lot about the fact he's been to india and gone to india again and all that. >> it's a larger question with u.s. foreign policy about the famous pivot to asia the idea that obama really in his second term was going to fulfill this balance. the names keep changing but because of events in the middle east, that focus has changed. so india but a lot of other asian countries as well. >> rose: the assumed idea was or policy was that the united states would have a series of relations with asia other than china, not so much to contain china but to have strong

relationship that might contain china. >> i think you also found as the india economy started to flag and you see this corruption and governance that people in america more sort of real politic types started saying hang on, india's going to be our turning point to china. this is ridiculous. we got on the wrong horse here. so i think in host people would prefer a stronger india. >> rose: pakistan, kashmir. will modey make a difference, will he change or is that simply will be there forever and ever as a central. >> there are two issues in indian pakistan foreign policy. >> there are two views in modey's policy towards pakistan. this person comes from the right, he's a hard line national nationalist and he cares a lot. like the mumbai attack -- only a

person like modey who comes from the right is a strong leader and has the backing of indian population who is hostile. >> rose: does he have a backing of the military. >> he would have the backing of the military. >> i would propose a third alternative to what sadanand is saying, i think what you're saying almost since the mumbai attacks is the development of thought process in india that says look pakistan is a basket case, our best bet is to let them work out their problems and not necessarily, you know, you had earlier these efforts on the part of singh and others for these grand peace-making initiatives and i think it's stalled now and i think a lot of people would be happy to see it continue that way. >> rose: let me ask beyond this election. in terms of politics, though, or in terms of the society, rich

poor, urban rural. >> yes, these divisions exist. if you look at all though across all categories except for muslims and people above the age of 60, i believe. all of the categories are leaning towards modey. so this election, the divisions exist in society but they're not necessarily being reflected in this election. >> rose: would i be ill informed if i said that probably in most countries the relationship between india and hindus and muslims is better than it is in most places where there's a strong diverse, i mean difference in religious relationships. >> certainly it's true -- side by side for millennia and there are episodic events that happened. other than that --n't episode can break out in any part of it.

let's get into the focus and it's plays out a lot more in the media. but if you look overall it's correct actually i agree -- we grew up, i grew up right next to a mosque and muslim communities around. >> rose: do most of you believe that india will regain its economic mojo. >> yes, i certainly believe so. >> something that's underlying this whole congress versus modey thing and it's been obscured by the incompetence governance of the congress it's a very that dr. -- and his collaborator -- were involved only in india would you have a kind of profile, you know, almost like the kind of thing that would be a to be lloyd spat in new york between two competing teams of economists. on one side you had dr. -- and

on the other side you had -- and his collaborator. and the debate there in a way was partially about do we need welfare or growth but it was also i think about look how intractable are the problems in this society right now. is it just that the congress has mismanaged thing or have they dealt incompetently which is with something that's also a very difficult situation. and i think one of the things that i think people will be waiting to see with modey is do some of the same problems the persistent poverty in some places, some of the issues of gender relations or religious relations do these continue to go on. i think as modey can work growth starts smoothing over some of these things, people will say well no it really was the congress they messed things up. >> in a way yes they're going to continue. i thought modey or anybody sort of is going to turn india into

denmark. but the question is, is he going to get, does india get momentum again and is it clearly seen as moving in the right direction rapidly. that's the question. >> it's really ultimately leadership. the kinds of problems you're describing have existed but -- comes along -- you have those reforms and then -- comes along in 1998-2004 he gets a message that reform is happening -- 9% growth projectory. last ten years the leadership -- >> rose: let me just ask this too since we're talking about these kinds of issues in society. what about women in india. we've had all the publicity about how rape has been a lot of focus on that. the place of women in society. >> i think it's changing and i think women are forcing the issue. if you look at recent state

elections for instance, women are turning out at higher rates than men. which is a phenomenal thing in a society viewed as traditional. and so there's two thing which are going to interact in an election which aren't good news. one is writing female turnout and the second is about economy and high inflation. now in india it's the women in the household who tend to know where the money in the household's going they know what the price of onions is. if they're turn out to vote and they're really upset about the economy, those two thing are going to play in the opposition's favor. >> rose: thank you. this is very very interesting to me. >> thank you. >> rose: great to have you here. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by -- thestreet.com. featuring stephanie link who shares her investment strategies, stock picks and market insights with action alerts plus, the multimillion dollar portfolio she manages with jim cramer. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. citi sinks as the federal reserve rejects the bank's capital plans and shares slide after the closing bell. short-term gain, long-term pain. black rock ceo larry fink tells every ceo in the s&p 500 to think twice before buying back stock and issuing dividends. why and is he right? odd couple? facebook shares tumble after a supplies acquisition of virtual reality headset maker oculus. now