Indian Foreign Policy – A history
July 17th, 2006 | by Digvijay Lamba |Foreign policies of any nation do not function in a vacuum. They depend, firstly, on the nation’ internal strengths and capabilities including the country’s geo-strategic location, economic health, military strength, domestic stability, and outlook on what it wants to achieve. Secondly, a nation’s foreign policy also depends on the prevailing international environment. Let’s analyze India’s foreign policy keeping these factors in mind.
To analyze any policy we must look at the goals of the policy, their evolution and the degree of success achieved. I believe the one continuing goal of Indian foreign policy from it’s inception till date has been to increase India’s international standing and influence so as to become a major power, both regionally and internationally. The explanations are many, starting from our economic needs, geo-political standing, need for security and our people’s feelings regarding the standing we deserve on the international scene. One other underlying factor in all of this has been our nations need to be a friend to most nations. We are historically and culturally a country that wants good relations with everyone.
Starting from our independence in 1947 till date, our country has been attempting to become a major player in the world affairs. Our reasons – to get economic leverage, to increase security and to enhance national pride. Our policies have focused on us becoming an “independent” international player and a “responsible” player so that we have influence across the board and not limited to a particular political group.
The defining policy of the first 20 years of Indian independence was the Non Aligned Movement. While there have been many critics, and we may have made some mistakes, I believe on the larger scale it was a successful policy. It allowed an economically and militarily week India to stand out and play an independent role in the world affairs. We managed to put together a rag-tag bunch of countries and form and lead a coalition in a strongly bipolar world. It gave India some international standing when any other course – becoming a stooge to the US or USSR – would not have given us the same standing. Unfortunately, due to the inherent weakness of our leadership and our economic and military strength, we could not hold that state through the 70’s. US started playing a larger role in Pakistan and we found ourselves between two relatively strong and hostile neighbors in Pakistan and China. Our engagement with the Soviets through the 60s and the 1971 treaty of friendship that India signed with the Soviet Union was a direct result of that. While many see that as the eventual failure of the NAM movement, I believe it was an ok response to the changing situation in the world. We were, at the time, of lesser use to the US and the engagement with the Soviet’s allowed us to build a military that could provide much necessary security. Our historical hostility with Pakistan and the US’s need for that country effectively disallowed an India-US partnership when the US had lesser need for us. The use of Soviet help in that era is un-debatable. So while, at the end, our foreign policy floundered, we continued to attempt to have an independent international role. Liberation of Bangladesh, leadership in initiating sanctions against South Africa and a few other events allowed to us remain a player on the bigger scene.
It was in the 1980’s that India began to come into it’s own in terms of foreign policy. The success of the 1971 war, a stronger military and a mature nation was partly the reason. Secondly, increasing domestic troubles led to the need of a greater engagement with the world as the emergence of media had led to the increased role of “international pressure”. India began to have greater role in the Asian forums, engaged several countries bilaterally and heavily increased their UN peacekeeping engagements. However, internal troubles and changing politics stopped us from truly achieving a global status in economic forums. Weak sports and other methods of diplomacy caused similar negative effects.
In the 90’s the world suddenly began to change. PM Narasimha Rao’s ‘New Look’ foreign policies arose from India’s forced open economy policy, the prevailing international environment at the end of the Cold War, the disintegration of the former Soviet Union and its global countervailing power. It continued to attempt to give India an international role by focusing on neglected regions. Hence, the thrust for a strategic partnership with Israel in West Asia and the ‘Look East” foreign policy came to be. Gujral’s policies continued this trend. India opened up its economy and what the world economic treaties decided began to be important. I believe, the subsequent role India managed to play, in terms of becoming the leader of the non-developed world, and the champion of their causes in the economic forums was a major success. India’s role in SAARC and SAFTA became more leader like and India finally managed to do what it had been trying for a long time. It managed to de-link Pakistan to a fringe player in its foreign policy equations.
The late 90’s saw the major rise of United States unilateralism and the new American policies of pre-emption and military intervention in global affairs without restraint. At the same time, under Vajpayee’s government, Indian nuclear tests, vast increases in defense spending after the Kargil war and the success of the Indian economy saw India become internally strong and for the first time a genuine player on the world scene. The 50+ years of efforts, some successful and others not, began to take fruit. India’s ambitions as a global power suddenly became useful to other players due to the recent geopolitical happenings. Rise of terrorism, India’s location of influence, rise of economics as a major political force, need for the western powers to expand influence to Asia and fading away of the negativity associated with Soviet association during the cold war led to India becoming a favored partner for many in the world.
The recent years have suddenly seen India redefine it’s foreign policy objectives. While the basic goal remains the same: “to become an independent and responsible international player”, to the modern India, the benefits are much more tangible. Energy security, terrorism, new markets and globalization are just a few of the things that have huge direct benefits to an influential country. The major debates of today are, the degree of our engagement with the US, our handling of the Islamic world, China and our lofty international goals vis-à-vis a poor and starving nation. I’ll address these when discussing the future in the next article.
And thus we see that we stand well today. When despite some colossal failures, the very basic policies that India has been pursuing make absolute sense in the new world. India is today a country with an emerging economy, proven history of “responsible” leadership in international issues, peace keeping missions, economic forums and the like, a nuclear arsenal, a growing military and economy, influence with several important countries and strategic location from where it can help shape events in many hotbeds of the coming decades. Our goals: of achieving an independent international standing as a major power are closer to being realized. While we have bungled up several bilateral relations, have for the most part not been a sufficient player with in the subcontinent, and have been weak at many points where we should not have been, as a whole we have managed to reach where we wanted to. On a macro level, taking any different path at any strategic point would not have made us the player we are today… and while we could have done more, I believe we have been an overall success.
In the continuing article, I will write about today’s geo-political situation, India’s unique position and how we can make the most of it. I’ll discuss bilateral relations and how we have bungled some up and done well in some.
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3 Responses to “Indian Foreign Policy – A history”
By Neel on Jul 17, 2006 | Reply
well writtten article dude
.. will read it again to write some comments 
..
By Ri on Jul 18, 2006 | Reply
The article glides through to build a picture in mind through the pages of histroy……..a positive picture of ‘a no mistakes commited in the past’ for a positive future. That’s true. A nation can become ‘responsible’ only when it is FIRM in its stand on foreign alignments……..be it a simple treaty or be it approach towards international peace. However, Bombay is toooo fresh in mind, and one wonders how far can this go?? Khushwant Singh had once written that India can be at peace only when there is peace in the/with the neighbouring countries. India has so far lived upto this……..in many ways! so good job done, in reminding us that we have not been wrong…….and even if in the simplest ways we have been wrong, who si perfect?? to err is human,and to err in a foreign policy is nation!