Indian Foreign Policy and National Interest
Indian Foreign Policy and National Interest
The exam tests the principles, doctrines and trade-offs of Indian foreign policy. You need to connect ideals such as autonomy with security and development interests.
Core rules and concepts
- Foundations: Panchsheel with China in 1954; non-alignment; anti-colonialism; support for the UN; Article 51 of the Directive Principles urges international peace and security.
- Nehru's era: non-alignment, the Kashmir issue at the UN, the 1962 war with China, the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty, and Pokhran-I in 1974.
- Post-Cold War: Look East from 1991, Act East from 2014; the Gujral Doctrine; Pokhran-II in 1998; the 2003 nuclear doctrine of credible minimum deterrence and no first use; India remains outside the NPT and CTBT.
- Current practice: strategic autonomy and multi-alignment; Quad, SCO, BRICS and G20; Neighbourhood First; Indo-Pacific; border management with China; Pakistan; diaspora and energy security.
- National interest includes territorial integrity, security, development, status and autonomy. These can conflict, so policy involves trade-offs.
Worked example
Is strategic autonomy the same as non-alignment? Reasoning: non-alignment was a Cold War policy of not joining US or Soviet blocs. Strategic autonomy is a wider capacity to choose partners issue by issue, which can include the Quad and SCO. Continuity lies in autonomy; change lies in the post-Cold War context.
Traps
Equating non-alignment with neutrality; dating Pokhran-II to 1974; saying India signed the CTBT; treating no first use as no nuclear weapons.