1

Indian Foreign Policy

Vineet Thakur

(Published in BS Chimni and Siddharth Mallavarapu (eds.) International Relations: Perspectives

for the Global South, New Delhi: Pearson)

Introduction

Walter Carlsnaes defines foreign policy as “those actions which, expressed in the form of

explicitly stated goals, commitments and/or directives, and pursued by governmental

representatives acting on behalf of their sovereign communities, are directed toward objectives,

conditions and actors – both governmental and non-governmental – which they want to affect

and which lie beyond their territory” (Carlsnaes, 2002: 335). However, Carlsnaes misses the

possibility of non-state actors (including supra-state actors like EU) too having their foreign

policies. Christopher Hill’s definition would be more appropriate in this regard. He defines

foreign policy as “the sum of official external relations conducted by an independent actor

(usually a state) in international relations” (Hill, 2003:3).

Different theories of international relations differ with regard to the motives of a state’s conduct

in international relations. Realists of most variety argue that security is the primary consideration

for states in their interaction with other states. Liberals prioritize the welfare dimension and

argue that states interact in order to gain wealth. Mainstream constructivists point out towards

the inter-subjective dimension of the state-international system interaction and place emphasis on

the role of identity as a crucial determinant of a state’s foreign policy.

Critical approaches to foreign policy define it as a representational practice. Viewed thus, foreign

policy of a state does not merely remain a manifestation of its worldview by way of reproducing

its internal identity, but a discourse through which various forms of global otherness are created

(Shapiro, 1989: 15). Conversely, the discourse of foreign policy, being the most authoritative and

most consciously constructed official narrative of a state, also constructs the realm of the internal

i.e. national identity. It not only projects a nation’s values to the outside world, but also targets,

just as much, the domestic constituency by enunciating how the other is different and

2

simultaneously marking what the self is made of. A people know what they stand for through

what their foreign policy tells them they stand for. Thus, foreign policy discourse is as much

directed internally as it is externally. For instance, non-alignment, according to this view, would

not only identify what India stands for to the world outside, but also constructs ‘Indianness’ for

‘Indians’. It tells them what constitutes them as a nation and separates them from others. Foreign

policy and state identity are, thus, mutually framed. In sum, foreign policy not only narrates state

identity but also constructs it.

Moreover, foreign policy also exemplifies the apogee of modern statehood. One can argue that

no state can exist without some form of foreign policy. Foreign policy can exist without a State,

for e.g. foreign policy of the African National Congress in South Africa during apartheid or of

the Indian National Congress during independent struggle, but no state can potentially exist

without some form of foreign policy. After all, recognition by other states, at least a few, is a

necessary condition for granting of modern statehood.

Underlying Themes in Indian Foreign Policy:

Indian Self-Image

India must conquer the world and nothing less is my ideal. ..Our eternal foreign policy

must be the preaching of the Shastras to the nations of the world. …One of the reasons

for India's downfall was that she narrowed herself, went into a shell, as the oyster does

and refused to give her treasures and jewels to the other races of mankind outside the

Aryan fold. – Vivekananda (n.d.)

In a speech at the Indian Institute of Strategic Studies in London in 2010, Indian Foreign

Secretary Nirupama Rao, alluding to India-China relations, stated that the two countries thought

in terms of ‘civilizational time frames’. Evidently, from Vivekananda to Nirupama Rao, the

narrative of Indian foreign policy has been woven around an ‘Indian civilization’ which

possesses ‘the treasure of shastras’ that need to be shared with the world. Indian civilization is

ascribed a status of moral superiority over the West, and India’s role is envisioned as a normative

power. Under this line of thinking, while the material inferiority of India is acknowledged, moral

supremacy of Indian civilization stretching to ancient wisdom of the Indian texts is considered a

3

natural guarantor of India’s high status in world politics. Nehru himself believed that on account

of its great civilizational status, India could either be a great power or perish. There was no mid-

way (Nehru, 2004: 48). Post-colonial theorists argue that this excessive consciousness to India’s

‘glorious past’ and civilizational maturity is a continuation of the anti-colonial resistance that

seeks to obviate injuries that the colonial discourse about India’s inferiority etched onto the

Indian mind (Chatterjee, 1986; Chacko, 2007). Moreover, astute commentators of Indian foreign

policy have constantly emphasized the fact that the self-perceptions of a ‘civilizational power’

and conflation of the idea of Indian state with civilization has imbued the foreign policy

discourse with a distinct profile which could not be encapsulated through the realist-idealist

abstractions of Westphalian IR (Chacko, 2007).

Nayar and Paul (2004) argue India is a status inconsistent power. Analyzing the foreign policy

shifts of first five decades from 1947 to 1998, they avow that India’s attributed status and

achieved status do not match. For Mehta (2009), this dichotomy could be ascribed to a

fundamental gap in how ‘status’ is viewed in Indian and Western thinking. The contemporary

Western notions of ‘status’ view it more aligned with possession of ‘power’. The Indian

aspiration for ‘status’ however is governed more by the idea of ‘honour’ which is not identified

with power but cultural virtues. India, in this way, is a status conscious power, with almost a

Brahminical disregard for ‘power’ as a determinant of great power status (Mehta, 2009).

Meanwhile, the romanticization of Indian history and culture is not the sole prerogative of

Nehruvians in Indian foreign policy. Even realists have felt the need to connect India’s new

found post-Cold War realism to the values inscribed in ancient Hindu scriptures. In most

writings the Balance of Payments crisis at the end of the Cold War is presented as a shameful

crisis for the proud nation and portrayed as the defining moment of post-independence era.

India’s rise post-crisis is deemed as the rise of the phoenix. For those who associate the decline

with Nehru’s millenarian urges, history of Indian Foreign Policy began from here (Pant, 2009:

3). To others, India became a ‘normal nation’ (Rajamohan, 2003). However, this ‘normality’ was

not a mark of dissociation of state from civilization, rather it was the realization of and return to

the true virtues of Indian civilization. A civilization that was based on true realpolitik, a Hindu

matchpolitik (Karnad, 2002; Singh, 1998a) – a civilization nevertheless.

4

From these accounts, one could decipher that the tendency at times is excessive to draw

everything back to either Kautilya’s kutaniti or Asoka’s dhamma. Such self-imaging engraves a

civilizational consciousness onto the Indian mind, which in turn is said to influence India’s

conduct in world politics. These accounts, however, tend to veer towards nativism and

essentializing both India and Indian foreign policy.

Non-alignment

The genesis of Indian foreign policy goes back to Congress years. In 1921, Congress had passed

the first ever resolution on foreign policy, drafted by Gandhi. In 1928, Congress decided to open

a Foreign Department which was finally set up in 1936 under Rammanohar Lohia. Over the

years, foreign policy of pre-independence Congress championed the ideas of Pan-Asianism,

third-world solidarity, anti-racialism and anti-colonialism.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s radio address to the nation, delivered on 7 September 1946, is considered the

foundational text of post-independence foreign policy. The three main features of his speech

were – non-alignment, reconciliation, and universalism (Nehru, 1961: 1-3). Non-alignment, as

he argued in various platforms over the next 17 years, was not just about staying away from the

two power blocs in the Cold War but also about an independent approach to foreign policy that

catered to the developmental needs of India, and not the strategic needs of the two powers.

More generally, non-violence was considered a counter-hegemonic critique of the contemporary

world order (Abraham, 2008:195). Following the Gandhian legacy of moral critique of power

politics, non-alignment presented a scope for an alternative world order underlined by three

broad features: a) rejection of power politics; b) a developmentalist approach with focus on

humanitarian needs rather than military build-up; and c) self-determination.

AP Rana’s (1976) work was a pioneering attempt to look at non-alignment as a strategic policy.

He reasoned that non-alignment attempted at creating a maneuvering space for a country like

India in allowing it to remain equidistant from both sides of the Cold War bipolar order and be in

an advantageous position of bargaining (also see, Rajamohan, 2003; Karnad, 2002). Others go

even further and argue that non-alignment was Nehru’s own balancing strategy in trying to

fashion a third bloc (Subrahmanyam, 1976). Contrarily, critics present non-alignment as a

5

fantasy of a woolly headed idealist who had no grasp of world affairs that was governed by

balance of power logic (Pant, 2009).

Rana (1998), however, in a later article arrives at a much more nuanced assessment of non-

alignment. Rather than suggesting that non-alignment was a reactive policy, as most studies

argue, he observes that Nehru’s insightful understanding of international affairs allowed him to

pre-empt the regression of the bipolar world into a biglobal polity where the two polar actors

would strangulate the maneuvering space of newly emergent nations through encapsulation. This

would rob these states of their newly found independence in foreign policy. Non-alignment, as

an ‘area of peace’, would therefore be, ‘a pioneering, pre-emptive voice, against such

eventualities’ (p.48-49).

In post-liberalization India there is a debate whether non-alignment is dead. Some suggest that

non-alignment makes no sense in a unipolar world and have enthusiastically penned obituaries to

it (Pant, 2009; Rajamohan, 2003). Others argue that the vision of non-alignment remains all too

relevant today, given the demands for global redistribution of power and resources the

developing countries are making (Abraham, 2008: 216). In case of India specifically, the shift is

more ambiguous than marked. There is a patchy, yet significant, co-existence of morality and

realpolitik which in the current parlance is referred to as ‘enlightened national interest’. Mehta

(2009:218) argues that Indian engages in “its own form of realpolitik…[but it] has never taken

the shape of matchpolitik that characterizes standard great power rivalry or straightforwardly

imperial nations.”

Contra-Panchsheel: Understanding Regional Hegemony

While India advocated Panchsheel (five principles of co-existence) to the world, its own practice

in its regional sphere has been contrary. The global moralpolitik has been jettisoned for a

regional realpolitik. Nehru’s own approach towards the region was inconsistent and unclear. He

rejected John Foster Dulles’ offer in 1953 for an Indian Monroe Doctrine embracing Burma and

Thailand, while he defended India’s policy of interfering in Nepal citing “risk to our security”

(Nehru, 1961: 436). However, during Nehru’s times regional policy did not receive much

attention, partly because Nehru was busy at the global stage.

6

With Nehru’s demise, India’s global aspirations were also checked for no one else carried the

halo to be heard in the world capitals. Speaking with undertones of ascribed virtue in what seems

like a necessity, Parekh argues that the post-Nehru phase saw India withdrawing to its regional

backyard with ‘no real desire’ to ‘play a global role and shape the world’ (Parekh, 2010: 37).

Starting with ‘beneficial bilateralism’ during Shastri years, India under Indira Gandhi grew more

hegemonic in the region. This culminated into Indira Gandhi’s own Monroe doctrine. It was

based on two principles: 1) No neighbouring state should undertake any action in foreign affairs

or defence policy that is inimical to India’s interests; 2) Foreign governments that are viewed

unfriendly by India would not be allowed to establish presence or influence in a neighbouring

state. Rajiv Gandhi continued this policy and India’s interventions in Sri Lanka (1987-90), Fiji

(1987) and Maldives (1988) only affirmed India’s willingness to be an active mediator in the

region.

This policy of regional hegemony however was quite obviously resented by the neighbours. The

Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) debacle in Sri Lanka, Maoist insurgency in Nepal, and

shelter to northeastern insurgents in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan exemplified the growing

dissent among the neighbours. Charles Kindleberger (1973) argues that hegemons maintain order

not only through their coercive apparatus but by also by underwriting the system by paying for

its maintenance. This also involves investing in the welfare of the states in the system. Indian

dominance in Southern Asia, on the contrary, was one which was ready to coerce but unwilling

to part with its economic resources for the region. Quite understandably, India itself being one of

the largest recipients of aid could not afford the largesse of granting aid to others.

To remedy this, Inder Kumar Gujral unveiled the Gujral Doctrine in mid-1990s. The doctrine

advocated principles of non-reciprocity and non-interference. The first committed India to

solving disputes with countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Nepal without a strictly

give and take policy undermining reciprocity. Under the aegis of SAARC, India has now agreed

to advance loans to Least Developed Countries and has taken a slew of other measures to take up

responsibility. The second principle of non-interference was meant to assuage South Asian

countries’ fears of India’s excessive interference in their internal matters. However, India has

been selective in applying this principle. In Myanmar, it has chosen a no-interference policy

7

despite calls for using its influence with the junta to facilitate democratic change because of

strategic interests. In Sri Lanka however India advanced covert military help to the Rajapakse

regime to wipe off LTTE. In Nepal, the Maoists have often accused India of interfering in

Nepal’s internal matters.

What explains this contradictory global moralpolitik and regional realpolitik? Tanhem (1992)

argues that such a policy is only natural because the South Asian region is not readily granted a

‘foreign’ identity in Indian perception. The British, out of imperial necessity, conceptualized the

whole of the subcontinent as a strategic unit. This view still remains dominant in the Indian-

based strategic community (p. 23). Moreover, it dovetails with the idea that India forms the

regional core of a broader Indian culture spread through the subcontinent. The subcontinent is

seen as part of the Indian geopolitical and cultural space therefore a culture of coercive domestic

pacification, an endemic feature of Indian civilization, is naturally extended to the South Asian

region (Tanhem, 1992). Most of these states have intricate political, economic, social and

cultural linkages with Indian domestic communities and this further substantiates this point.

Indian writings by Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore, Golwalkar, Savarkar, Bankim and Aurobindo have

been severely critical of Western conceptualization of nation, and their visions of nation were

neither territorial, nor conceptualized in rationalist terms as understood in the modern

instrumental sense. Although it would be vulgar to put these personalities in the same bracket for

their ideas about nationalism differed from extreme parochialism to all embracing universalism;

the point that needs to be accented is that nation has not necessarily been coterminous with

territorial boundaries of India. Indian civilization, as the argument has been made in the

beginning, is seen as spread through the vast expanse of the region, which Hindu rightwingers

have called Akhand Bharat. India’s claim to the region therefore has been, to say the least,

patronizing. Imtiaz Ahmad finds the inspiration for such patronizing, immoral and hegemonising

regional tendencies of Indian foreign policy in Kautilyan and Asokan dictums (Ahmad, 1993).

For Krishna, the Indian hegemony in the region has been a spectacle of its power (Krishna,

1999).

Strategic Thinking and Search for a Grand Strategy

8

George Tanhem, in a RAND study in 1992, made a sweeping claim that India lacked any

strategic thinking and Indian strategic mindset would be an oxymoron. Attributing this strategic

inertness to historical and cultural factors, he established that lack of any political unity

throughout its history and a passive traditional mindset – caught in cyclical time, fatalist belief

systems and a static hierarchical society – meant that Indians by disposition were incapable of

strategising and planning. This raised quite a commotion in Indian strategic circles. Scholars

reminded Tanhem of Kautilyan tradition of realpolitik in India. Instances of militaristic outlook

were also found out in key ancient texts like vedas, great epics – Mahabharata and Ramayana,

smritis and puranas to point out to Tanhem that Indian strategic tradition, if at all one could

decipher, was one of pragmatism and not ideational passivity (Karnad, 2002). Karnad argues that

a rich vein of realism is imbued across these Hindu texts and a Hindu matchpolitik was ultra-

realist, intolerant of any opposition and ‘breathtaking in its amorality’. He however agrees with

Tanhem that the current state of affairs in India betrays a strategically absent mindset. ‘How did

such an aggressive, ultra-realist religion and culture get reduced to the bovine pacifism of the

latter day Indian society and the self-abnegating policies of the government, so much so, that

India now evokes in the West a ‘rather patronizing attitude’ and from China ‘a mixture of

arrogance and condensation?”, he asks (Karnad, 2002: xxvi). To answer this, he castigates post-

Nehru leadership for a selective, ahistoricist and decontexualized reading of Gandhi and Nehru.

Jaswant Singh (1998a) pointed towards the rut in post-Independence selective thinking about

India’s past heavily dressed by colonial legacy that cultivated a servile and tamed strategic

culture. These scholars and many others, while disagreeing with Tanhem on the diagnosis

nevertheless agreed with his basic claim that Indian strategic thinking was practically absent in

current era.

Jayashree Vivekannadan (2010), in an excellent analysis of Mughal grand strategy, criticizes

both these viewpoints. Tanhem, she argues, reduced Indian culture to a particular notion of

Hindu culture notwithstanding India’s historical and cultural diversity, not even the fact that for a

great part of the last millennium what today constitutes as India was ruled by non-Hindus. On the

view that realist tradition is engraved in ancient scriptures, she again avers that any kind of

cultural essentialism veers towards the danger of misreading the broader context of particular

texts and also silencing the other narratives of the past which are not necessarily codified in

9

writing, such as oral traditions of recounting the past. She looks at the grand strategy of Mughals,

a welcome and refreshing change from Westphalian straitjackets, and makes the case for a more

contextual and pluralist, rather than a cultural, reading of grand strategy.

Perhaps, a better way to think of Indian strategic tradition then would be to acknowledge its

strategic pluralism. An example of such a reading is Bajpai (2006).He argues that there is a huge

corpus of writings on strategy in India mainly in newspapers, journals, magazines and speeches

in which scholars and leaders have written and spoken about security policy. From these, he says

one can cull out “an identifiable set of basic assumptions about the nature of international

relations” and strategic thinking in India (Bajpai, 2006:55). Some of these assumptions are

shared and others contested by three different schools of thought in Indian post-Independence

thinking – Nehruvians, liberals and hyperrealists (Bajpai, 2006). Stephen Cohen sums it up

succinctly: “History has bequeathed to Indians a political and strategic tradition remarkable for

its sophistication and complexity…Pragmatism, realism and idealism exist side by side”, and are

displayed sometimes simultaneously, which contributes to India’s legacy of complexity, not

dormancy (Cohen, 2001: 53).

An attendant debate to this has been one about Indian grand strategy. Policy makers and foreign

policy observers, in a Tanhem-ine vein, have rued the fact that Indian grand strategy is absent.

The government in fact has no clear document that lays out the basic features of its grand

strategy. This has ensued a frantic debate in India on the need for a grand strategy which

comprehensively assesses India’s roles, aspirations and capabilities. The Institute of Defence

Strategy and Analyses, a Ministry of Defence funded strategic think-tank, launched the National

Strategy Project (INSP) in 2010 to shape a grand strategy through active discussions with a wide

range of scholars, analysts and experts.

Contemporary Issues

Having investigated the questions of identity, ideology and cultural basis of Indian foreign

policy, we can now look into some of the contemporary issues that dominate the foreign policy

debate in India.

Bilateral Ties, Global Aspirations

10

The United States, China, Pakistan are pivotal to any thinking about Indian foreign policy in the

current context. Rajagopalan (2006) argues that the conduct of Indian foreign policy could be

geopolitically analyzed at three different levels – the International System, the emerging Asian

mid-system, and the South Asia sub-system. The first is characterized by the preponderance of

the United States, the second by an increasing Chinese weight and attempts by United States to

contain it, and the third by Indian hegemony with attempts by Pakistan to contest it.

Post-Civilian Nuclear Deal with the United States, India-US ties are enjoying their best ever

phase. However, with the American hegemony on a decline, if not facing a terminal crisis, US-

India ties are usually looked with suspicion of balancing against a revisionist China. However,

strikingly, despite a cacophony of voices on how India should deal with China from extreme

realists who focus on the threat from China to the other end of people advocating good ties, there

is almost a common viewpoint that India does not think of externally balancing against China.

For Mehta (2009:221), it is because balancing is not “a default common sense of the Indian

strategic thinking.” External balancing, empirical evidence suggests, might not be a common

sense despite the Kautilyan advocacy of befriending a foe’s friend. However, post-1962 debacle

there is a deep urgency shown by India to internally balance against China. In the past couple of

years, India-China acrimony has grown over issues such as territorial disputes, Chinese string of

pearls strategy of alleged concirclement of India, stapled visas to Kashmiris, allegations of

infiltrations across the line of actual control, among others. More severely, Chinese intentions in

Pakistan-controlled Kashmir have been questioned (Harrison, 2010). Towards Pakistan, extreme

caution pervades. The much vaunted rivalry between the two countries stems more from

existential agonies, and less from strategic concerns. In Indian self perception, Pakistan is the

archetype ‘other’. Portrayed as a bastard child of Indian civilization and fundamentalist religious

ethos, Pakistan exemplifies a fraternal twin-turned-enemy. It becomes the ideal type of

everything India is not – servile to major powers, contriving, regressive, and threat to regional

and world peace. To put India’s self image against India and Pakistan in perspective, Chellaney

(2000), drawing on Randall Schweller’s animal imagery in international relations, characterizes

India as a ‘lamb’ against the ‘wolf’ of China and the ‘Jackal’ of Pakistan. As critical theorists

would argue, on the face of it such negative characterization and imagery might seem innocent

11

and objectively explaining reality but deep down it only helps to create and reinforce

stereotypical and deep seated anxieties.

To their credit, the Indian foreign policy makers in the post-Cold War era had learnt from the

Soviet experience well that putting all eggs in the same basket could eventually be self-defeating.

Thus, they were also not willing to invest all their energies in cultivating relations just with

United States. India initiated, what it now calls, a multi-vector policy. Its vectors ran both ways –

the West as well as the East. The ‘Look East policy’ initiated by Narsimha Rao government was

an effort in this direction. Over the years, relations with ASEAN countries both individually as

well as a grouping have been given due importance.

The vectors were progressively moved in other directions. South West – way down to Africa –

and North West – Central Asia – were added to the basket. India became alive to the possibilities

of Africa only after China pushed majorly into Africa. Thus despite a large Indian diaspora in

Africa with traditionally a good reputation, India lost the first movers’ advantage to China. China

has invested majorly in Africa, which of course India with its more modest means could not

compete with. Sahni (2010) notes that Africa in some ways is China’s trump card to the world

table as its claim to a primary seat on world governance is hinged on its championing of the

‘wretched of the earth’. India most definitely lacks such a potential. However, in the recent years

it has massively hauled its Africa policy and a greater stress is given to cultivating relations with

African countries. It is primarily as a way out to tap into Africa’s energy reserves in the face of

India’s insatiable energy needs. Central Asia has been another area where India has invested

recently to extract energy resources. Nuclear energy and natural gas are primary resources that

India is looking to get access to.

Indian Economic Policy and Post-Cold War

The Nehruvian model of state-centred mixed economy began to peter out only a few years after

it reached its peak. In 1976, Indira Gandhi inserted the word ‘socialist’ into the constitution of

India. Soon after, when she came to power again in 1980 she began to introduce incipient

changes towards liberalization. Rajiv Gandhi accelerated the pace to make it seem more

discernable. Narsimha Rao-Manmohan Singh combine however gave it the necessary jolt to

12

cross the tipping point. Ever since the 1991 budget, India has followed the path of neo-

liberalisation, although the policy makers were conscious not to follow the ‘shock therapy’

model of the Washington consensus. A ‘gradualist’ approach to liberalization was followed and

for the first time India’s GDP growth surpassed the Hindu rate of growth. Mallavarapu (2006:

247) argues that the pace of reforms in India had to do with nature of Indian democracy. He

states: “An emphasis on distributive implications of reforms and a concern for ‘equity’ as

opposed to ‘efficiency’ alone, has marked the debate in India’s economic reforms”. Over the past

few years, India has consistently performed well over GDP indicators, and along with China is

widely hailed as the success story of the new century. The Global Economic Crisis of 2009-09

was a huge testing experience for Indian economy, and it fared reasonably well as compared to

major Western economies. However, the political left has been severely critical of this model of

growth and has pointed towards the flaws of a trickle down growth. India still remains the

country with the largest number of people below the poverty line.

A common wisdom in thinking about Indian foreign policy is to declare that Indian Foreign

Policy shifted from idealism to pragmatism after the Cold War. Ramakrishnan (2009) however

argues that the shift is rather from a developmental statist ideology and practice to a neoliberal

ideology and practice. It is also indicative of a fundamental transition in the nature of state and

regime legitimacy. Non-alignment in the early years had proved to be a significant source of

regime legitimacy. In the neo-liberal age, “the proclivity of the state is essentially to seek

external forms of legitimation, whether through the approbation of foreign financers or the

perceived discipline of international markets” (Jayati Ghosh quoted in Ramakrishnan, 2009:35).

Thus non-alignment which had a strong developmentalist statist import was discarded for a neo-

liberal ideology (Ramakrishnan, 2009). This means that foreign policy is conditioned to the

needs of international markets, the turbo elite and a conformist middle class while the needs of a

large poor population are not only overlooked but compromised (Chimni, forthcoming).

Approach towards Global Governance

Stephen Cohen (2001) is intrigued about an ‘India that can’t say yes’ in his book, India:

Emerging Power. He contends that Indian national negotiating style is agreement averse. While

Cohen makes this generalization with regard to Indian negotiations with the US, at the Global

13

institutional level too Indian image is usually one of a ‘nay-sayer’. Cohen goes on to argue that it

is largely because of the general aversion of Indian bureaucrats towards any discriminatory

treatment based on material power capability, on which India had usually been low. It is coupled

with a deep tradition of their belief in India’s great civilizational status (Cohen, 2001; Narlikar,

2006).

Narlikar (2006:73) however argues that India is ‘learning to say yes’. India’s yes vote at IAEA

against Iran is an example of India debunking its Third World solidarity approach. Significantly,

the third world rhetoric also seems to have been tempered in its negotiations on Climate Change.

Before the 2009 Climate Change summit in Copenhagen, India had indicated its willingness to

align its positions with those of the major powers and distancing itself from the G-77. Although,

it did not completely ally with the West, it actively aligned with select players like Brazil, China

and South Africa, and not with G-77 (Rajamohan, 2010: 139-140). Recent trends suggest that

India prefers to deal not with large third world coalitions as earlier on these two platforms, but

with a small minority of a mix of developing and developed country players. Kartikeya (2011)

calls this policy of identifying select players and cultivating ties with them as ‘omni-alignment’.

On issues such as NPT and CTBT, although India still refuses to sign them, the line of critique

has been modified. The aspect of discriminatory treatment and rhetoric of apartheid has been

suitably put in the background after the civilian nuclear deal with United States. The

international community has been slightly assuaged with no-first-use declarations and on CTBT

the government’s promise that it would not stand in the way of the signing of the deal meaning

that if all others signed, India would sign it too.

Most institutions of Global Governance, as realists and critical theorists both would concur, are

underwritten by material power realities. Over the past six decades, India has deeply resented the

fact of its unequal status and discriminatory treatment in these institutions and thus has been a

vociferous critic of current global institutions. In the current scenario, when India’s material

capabilities have been enhanced, it has actively championed reforming old institutions and has

been at the forefront of emergence of new formations. Interestingly, India is the only country to

be a part of all the new emerging power groupings (or the alphabetical soup, as they are more

caustically referred to) – G-20, G-77, IBSA, BRICS, BASIC, G-4, Outreach 5 among others.

14

Nuclear Power - From Apartheid to Apathy

The very technical and strategic nature of nuclear weapons means the debate about them is

dominated by the technocratic elite that include scientists and nuclear experts. The recent debates

regarding civil nuclear deal and K. Santhanam’s claims about inadequate yield results of 1998

tests showed that while disproportionate national importance is given to nuclear weapons they

are also the farthest removed from people’s understanding. The debate in effect is completely

securitized.

The 1974 Pokhran test was not articulated in strategically conscious terms. Even though India

became a nuclear weapon state, the test was downplayed as a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’. The

tests in 1998 were however defined as stemming out of acute strategic need. The nomenclature

of these tests itself indicates towards this distinction. The 1974 tests were named – smiling

Buddha (the prophet of non violence), while the 1998 tests were codenamed Operation Shakti

(Goddess of Power and Strength).

Investigating the reasons for India’s nuclear tryst, Perkovich (2001) argues that India’s approach

to these weapons reflects a sense of injury inflicted by the West in not accepting its nuclear

status. It deeply resented the apartheid like approach of the major powers (Singh, 1998b) in

which certain players are allowed to retain nuclear weapons while all others are barred from

obtaining them, codified in the treaties (NPT, CTBT) of the global non-proliferation regime. It

mooted proposals for global disarmament which would mean all states renouncing nuclear

weapons in a phased manner.

India’s nuclear doctrine, first drafted by experts in 1999 and subsequently formalized by the

government in 2003, has a declared ‘no first use’ principle, barring some exceptions, and

promises ‘massive punitive retaliation’ in case of a first strike by an opponent. Moreover, it

declares a voluntary moratorium on India’s part and non-use of nuclear weapons against non-

nuclear weapon states. Rajagopalan (2008) argues that post-1998 India has not seen China’s and

Pakistan’s growing weapons as references for its own programme. India’s policy has been one of

building a relatively small but capable nuclear arsenal. India follows a policy of credible minimal

deterrence, although there are searing debates over what is ‘credible’ as well as what is

15

‘minimum’. The former pertains to the contested claims about the yield results of 1998 blasts,

while the latter points to the question – against whom? Pakistan, China or even United States?

Indian Foreign Policy and World Order

There is a growing consensus amongst the students of international politics that the least that

could be said about the current international system is that it is in a state of tremendous flux.

Apart from the famed decline of American hegemony, there are clearly three discernable patterns

visible in the dynamics of international politics:

First, for the first time in modern world, power is being distributed across continents. China and

India, considered the hardware and software superpowers of the world, have emerged as

countries of central importance to any new formation. Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Saudi

Arabia are also increasingly becoming stakeholders in the international arena, not to forget the

already-there claimants – Russia, Japan and the European Union. Haass (2008) describes the

current situation as a non-polar world.

Second, for the first time in modern history, raw power, in terms of pure military capabilities, is

no more the overarching factor in ascertaining the power potential of a country. The term

security itself has in fact been broadened to include social, economic, energy and welfare needs.

For example, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as energy powers hold sufficient screws to twist other

nations to their tune. Moreover, the traditionally sacrosanct internal domain of ‘nation-state’ is

being opened up by processes of globalization. The concerns about global commons, rise of sub-

national actors as threats to national and international security, the vertical and horizontal spread

of technology exceeding the potential of governments to regulate it (for example wikileaks), and

rise of non-state civilian actors both above and below the level of nation-state has challenged

traditional notions of foreign policy and power. Material power of a country is circumvented by

these new issues and actors.

Third, with so many emerging powers, it is pretty natural that the permutations and combinations

that add up to gauge potential alliances would even baffle mathematicians. Scholars and

practitioners of international politics, for that matter, are even less equipped. The proliferation of

16

forums like NATO, SCO, BRIC, GCC, IBSA, APEC et al., as against the static bloc politics of

the Cold War or the great power club just before World War I, has a double effect of enticing

states into networked relationships thus giving more space for deliberations and also increasing

the number of potential flashpoints.

The geographical spread of the new power architecture, proliferation of power-determining

variables and the volume of emerging powers all contribute to the novelty and complexity of the

current international system.

In such a scenario, how does India navigate the terrain of global politics? In doing that, it also

has to grapple with a persistent tension between its post-colonial legacy and great power

aspirations. These tensions reflect in three classic dilemmas for Indian foreign policy – autonomy

versus responsibility, order versus equity, and universal multilateralism versus selective

coalitions (Rajamohan, 2010). The choice of one for other in each case cannot be sustainable in

longer run. Pragmatism, if at all this much abused word can be used, demands a synthesis.

Conclusion

‘India rising’ on the world scene in the 21st century is a tale well documented and a term much

accepted now. Similarly, terms such as ‘pivotal state’, ‘swing state’, ‘emerging power’, ‘middle

power’ have been used by various experts for India. Admittedly, the debate about India’s great

power potential looks fairly settled. The focus has now shifted to the attendant term

‘responsibility’. The responsibility of a great power is to be able to bring a great idea to the

international table in order to share the burden of underwriting the system (Sahni, 2010; Mehta,

2009:218). As the French scholar Raymond Aron perceptively put it, “the strength of a great

power is diminished if it ceases to serve an idea. (Quoted in Mehta, 2009:218). The British

invested in laizeez faire, the Americans underwrote the post-world war II liberal order, the Soviet

Union advocated communism, and the Chinese are laying claim to superpower status by being

the champions of the wretched of the earth. What does India bring to the international table?

(Sahni, 2010)

17

The paradox that defines India’s six decades of foreign policy is that in the initial years of

independence when India had the idea – non-alignment, as it was called – it did not have the

material capability to back it up. Today, when it has the material capability, many ask whether it

has the intellectual fertility left to come up with new ideas, or even the ideational character to go

back to the old.

To that end, there is an urgent need to overhaul the foreign policy ‘software’ in India. An

inadequately small, elitist foreign policy bureaucracy, poorly funded universities, a research

averse think-tank culture, and a little interested media have not caught up with India’s ascent in

the international system (Markley 2009).

References

Abraham, Itty (2008) “From Bandung to NAM: Non-Alignment and Indian Foreign Policy,

1947-65”, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 46 (2): 195-219.

Ahmed, Imtiaz (1993), State and Foreign Policy: India's Role in South Asia, New Delhi: Vikas.

Bajpai, Kanti (2006) “Indian Strategic Culture and the Problem of Pakistan”, in Swarna

Rajagopalan (ed.), Security and South Asia: Ideas, Institutions and Initiatives, New Delhi:

Routledge.

Chacko, Priya (2007) Indian Foreign Policy and the Ambivalence of Postcolonial Modernity,

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Adelaide.

Chatterjee, Partha (1986) Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World – a Derivative Discourse,

London: Zed Books.

Chellaney, Brahma (2000), ‘Hug, Then Repent’, Hindustan Times, 26 January.

Chimni, B.S. (forthcoming) “Indian Foreign Policy”, International Studies.

Cohen, Stephen (2001), India: Emerging Power, Washington: Brookings Institution.

18

Haass, Richard N.(2008), “The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow US Dominance”,

Foreign Affairs, May/June.

Harrison, Selig (2010), ‘China's Discreet Hold on Pakistan's Northern Borderlands’, The New

York Times (online), 26 August (Accessed http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/opinion/27iht-

edharrison.html on 1 May 2011).

Hill, Christopher (2003) The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy, New York: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Karnad, Bharat (2002), Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of

Security, New Delhi: Macmillan.

Kartikeya, Raja (2011) ‘Raising Multipolar Stakes’, The Times of India, 4 January.

Kindleberger, Charles (1973), The World in Depression 1929-1933, Berkeley: University of

California Press.

Krishna, Sankaran (1999) Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka, and the Question of

Nationhood, Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.

Mallavarapu, Siddharth (2006), “The template of globalization and the making of Indian Foreign

Policy”, in Fabio Villares (ed.), India, Brazil and South Africa: Perspectives and Alliances, Sau

Paulo: Institute de Estudos Economicos Internacionais.

Markey, Daniel (2009), “Developing India’s Foreign Policy ‘Software’”, Asia Policy, No. 8, The

National Bureau of Asian Research, Seattle, , pp.73-96.

Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (2009) ‘Still Under Nehru’s Shadow? The Absence of Foreign Policy

Frameworks in India,’ India Review, 8 (3): 209-233.

Narlikar, Amrita (2006) ‘Peculiar chauvinism or strategic calculation? Explaining the negotiating

strategy of a rising India,’ International Affairs 82 (1): 59-76.

Nayar, Baldev Raj and T.V. Paul (2004), India in the World Order: Searching for Major Power

Status, New Delhi: Foundation Books.

19

Nehru, Jawaharlal (1961), India’s Foreign Policy – Selected Speeches 1946-1961, Ministry of

Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, Delhi: Publications Division.

Nehru, Jawaharlal (2004), The Discovery of India, New Delhi: Penguin.

Pant, Harsh (2009), “Introduction” in Harsh Pant (ed.), Indian Foreign Policy in a Unipolar

World, New Delhi: Routledge.

Parekh, Bhikhu (2010), “India’s place in the world”, Indian Foreign Affairs Journal, 5 (1): 32-

46.

Perkovich, George (2001), India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation,

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rajagopalan, Rajesh (2006), “India and Geopolitical Challenges Ahead”, South African

Yearbook of International Affairs, Johannesburg: SAIIA.

Rajagopalan, Rajesh (2008), “Nuclear Non-Proliferation: An Indian Perspective”, Friedrich

Ebert Stiftung (FES) Briefing Paper 10, October.

Rajamohan, C (2003), Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India’s New Foreign Policy, New

Delhi: Penguin Viking.

Rajamohan, C. (2010) ‘Rising India: Partner in Shaping the Global Commons?’ The Washington

Quarterly, 33 (3) -133-148.

Ramakrishnan, A.K. (2009) “Neoliberal Globalism and India’s Foreign Policy: Towards a

Critical Rethinking”, in Rajan Harshe and K.M. Seethi (eds.), Engaging with the World: Critical

Reflections on India’s Foreign Policy, Hydrabad: Orient Blackswan.

Rana, A.P. (1976) The Imperatives of Non-Alignment: A Conceptual Study of India’s Foreign

Policy Strategy in the Nehru Period, Delhi: Macmillan.

Rana, A.P. (1998) “Nehruvian Tradition in World Affairs: Its Evolution and Relevance to Post-

Cold War World Order: in Surjit Mansingh (ed.) Nehru’s Foreign Policy: Fifty Years On, New

Delhi: Mosaic Books.

20

Sahni, Varun (2010) “Revisiting and Revising Trusteeship: A Foreign Policy Idea for Our

Time”, Pandit Hriday Nath Kunzru Memorial Lecture Series, New Delhi, 8 February.

Shapiro, Michael J (1989) ‘Texualizing Global Politics,’ in James Der Derian and Michael J.

Shapiro (eds.) International/ Intertexual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics,

Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp. 11-22.

Singh, Jaswant (1998a), “What Constitutes National Security in a Changing World Order?

India’s strategic Thought”, Centre for the Advanced Study of India, Occassional Paper No.6,

June, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

Singh, Jaswant (1998b), “Against Nuclear Apartheid”, Foreign Affairs, September/October.

Subrahmanyam, K. (1976) “Nehru and the India-China conflict of 1962”, B.R. Nanda (ed.),

Indian Foreign Policy: The Nehru Years, New Delhi: Vikas.

Tanhem, George K (1992) Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretative Essay, Santa Monica,

CA: RAND Cooperation.

Vivekananda, Swami (n.d.) The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (n.d.), vol. 3, Advaita

Ashram: Calcutta (Accessed from

http://www.vsmpantnagar.org/files/SWAMI%20VIVEKANANDA%20COMPLETE%20WORKS%20%

28Vol%203%29.pdf on 1 May 2010)

Vivekanandan, Jayashree (2010), Interrogating International Relations: India’s Strategic

Practice and the Return of History, New Delhi: Routledge.