From chanakya to modi evolution of india’s foreign policy

participates in all high-level talks and often accompanies the prime minister
on his foreign visits. An example of the role of the NSA in such talks was
the start of conversations between India and the US on the civil nuclear
deal. The idea of the India–US nuclear deal, for example, originated during
a conversation between Indian NSA Brajesh Mishra and his US counterpart,
Condoleezza Rice.
Direct and constant access to the prime minister enables the national
security adviser to be better informed about current events than even the
minister for external affairs. The creation of the office of the NSA has
resulted in an erosion of authority for both the foreign secretary and the
external affairs minister, which is what the permanent civil service feared
all along. It has, however, paved the way for better coordination between
different branches of government and made decision making as well as
implementation easier. Critics argue, however, that the concept of national
security adviser is better suited for a presidential system of government than
a parliamentary one.
The national security adviser does not have any executive authority and
can only advise the prime minister. In India the national security adviser is,
in the view of critics, simply an extension of prime ministerial intrusion into
affairs of the foreign ministry.
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The first NSA, Brajesh Mishra, was
principal secretary to the prime minister, in addition to being national
security adviser, and therefore carried weight within the bureaucratic
structure. His successors, however, have had to invoke the authority of the

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prime minister as their office does not derive any from the Constitution or
legislation. The national security adviser is not answerable to parliament
and the position is considered superfluous by those averse to greater
executive privilege within a parliamentary system. ‘The cabinet secretary is
a bureaucrat and the national security adviser is a political appointee,’
observed one retired civil servant, explaining why the job might have been
created. ‘You can get the political appointee to do what they want; the
cabinet secretary goes by the rules,’ he added.
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The Indian civil service’s culture of jealously guarding its turf has
resulted in classic stovepipe decision making. Foreign policy in the
contemporary world involves dealing with myriad issues ranging from
climate change to trade, defence and energy. This means the involvement of
what is termed in Indian bureaucratic parlance ‘the line ministries’. The
Ministry of External Affairs must increasingly consult the Ministry of
Home Affairs (MHA), Ministry of Defence (MoD), Ministry of Finance
(MoF), Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Ministry of Science
and Technology, the Atomic Energy Commission and Ministry of
Commerce. Normally, the ministry concerned is the driver of policy
whenever international issues relate to its sphere. Policy proposals go to the
prime minister’s office or the Cabinet Committee on Security for approval
after an inter-ministerial process.
Sometimes the nature of India’s relationship with a specific country
makes a ministry other than the Ministry of External Affairs salient in
relations with it. The Ministry of Finance always has a say in dealings with
Japan because Japan is one of India’s largest aid donors. With a potential
civil nuclear deal in the offing, the Department of Atomic Energy is also
weighing in heavily in bilateral ties with Japan. Similarly, the presence of a
large diaspora and the extent of energy ties makes ministries of energy and
overseas Indian affairs significant players in dealing with Gulf Arab states.

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The Ministry of Defence is always a key ministry involved in decision
making on foreign and security policy. It plays a critical role in ties with
countries from which India purchases weapons, such as Russia, France,
Israel and even the United States. The presence of the Indian military in
several countries as part of United Nations Peacekeeping Missions requires
coordination between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of External
Affairs in dealing with both the UN and the countries concerned.
The role of the Ministry of Defence in foreign policy is likely to expand
as India tries to modernize its forces and plans to spend around US $250
billion on acquisition and building of military equipment. The subject has
led to some tension between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of
External Affairs. Diplomats often advocate weapons purchases as a means
of enhancing ties with countries such as the US whereas defence officials
prefer building weapons at home. The MoD’s policies have led to India
supporting local public sector enterprises even when they produce costlier
weapons that take a long time to deliver. The Modi government’s emphasis
on ‘Make in India’ even in the defence sector reflects this indigenization
policy that is often criticized by diplomats and national security experts.
India’s defence ministry establishment is even less flexible than the
foreign service mandarins. Unlike the US or the UK, the civilian-led
Ministry of Defence plays a greater role than the services headquarters.
This has led to a growth in the role of the Ministry of Defence in foreign
and security decision making but civilian bureaucrats, not uniformed
officers, exercise that influence. Service headquarters have always
complained that the civilians in the ministry and even the diplomats of the
Ministry of External Affairs have more say on strategic issues than their
uniformed counterparts. Unlike the American system, the Indian services
have rarely been allowed a structured vertical and horizontal role to send
input into the system.

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Civil–military separation is so deep that the training programme of
Indian Foreign Service probationers does not include training in military
affairs. There is no arrangement for specialization of at least some foreign
service officers in military affairs even at a later stage in their career.
‘India’s approach to international politico-military problems has generally
been based on a political and even ethical assessment,’ wrote one observer
in 1970, adding that it was ‘largely divorced from any objective
understanding and evaluation of the military and technical implications of a
given situation’.
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This imbalance favouring political platitudes over hard-
nosed politico-military analysis has continued.
The uniformed services have demanded for years that India should create
an organizational set-up similar to that of the American joint chiefs of staff.
The latest government committee to recommend this was the Naresh
Chandra task force on defence in 2012.
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Critics argue that keeping the
uniformed military out of policymaking and strategic thinking has resulted
in a situation where the uniformed military does not really know how to
make policy if it were asked to do so. India’s generals are said to have no
clue about foreign policy because they have been marginalized by the
civilians. Instead of working a way out of that marginalization, the military
has embraced it and remains unaware of events and decision making
outside its immediate sphere.
The Indian Navy is the only service that has been proactive on strategic
issues. Starting around 2004, the navy produced a naval doctrine in addition
to preparing analyses on maritime security, countering piracy and protecting
India’s sea lanes of communication (SLoCs). The navy has also built ties
with navies of other countries including the US and the Gulf regions. In the
words of a former diplomat ‘the navy has muscled its way into the foreign
policy realm’, possibly because it is by nature outward-looking. It will,
however, take more than the Indian Navy’s efforts to integrate uniformed
services in formulation of foreign policy.

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NEW STAKEHOLDERS
The fragmentation of India’s national political parties and the rise of
regional, identity-based formations have changed India’s foreign policy
discourse drastically since the days when the Indian National Congress held
sway over the country’s politics. Political parties are critical to setting
agendas in every parliamentary democracy. The rise of coalition
governments and the gradual devolution in the social and economic arenas
to the states within the Indian Union has resulted in states becoming new
stakeholders even in the realm of foreign policy.
India is the only state in South Asia that borders all its neighbours and
hence those states that share a border with India’s neighbours have often
treated ties with those neighbours as a domestic issue. What this has often
meant is that the vagaries of domestic politics now affect foreign policy.
India’s ties with Sri Lanka and especially the Tamil question have been
affected by the views of the party in power in the southern state of Tamil
Nadu. Similarly, it took India decades to resolve the land border issues with
Bangladesh and sign the border agreement in June 2015.
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Devolution of financial power to the state governments and economic
growth in states has led some states, like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and
Maharashtra, to have a higher economic growth rate than the federal
government. These states have also started building their own ties with not
only neighbouring countries but also with countries far away. For example,
when he was chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi travelled to China
and Japan. Singapore is the leading investor in the construction of the new
capital of Andhra Pradesh after the creation of India’s twenty-ninth state
Telangana.
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New technology and methods of communication have had their impact
on foreign policy as well. Today governments do not wait for long
telegrams or dispatches from their embassies when television, smartphones
and social media provide them with the latest information. Critics may

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argue that ‘diplomacy cannot be practised simultaneously at the
marketplace and in the chancelleries’
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but diplomacy in a democracy
means that the public will often force the government to take decisions
based not on logic but on emotion. The media, both old and new, is thus a
key medium for agenda setting and framing which issues will be prominent
in the eyes of the public.
The growing involvement of the media and public opinion in foreign
policy led the Ministry of External Affairs to set up a public diplomacy
division in 2006. In recent years the MEA has become increasingly active
on social media, both Facebook and especially Twitter. Both Prime Minister
Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj are extremely active on
twitter and the latter especially has been extremely responsive to queries
and calls for help from the Indian diaspora around the world.
An insular focused system of institutions with a permanent bureaucracy
that is reluctant to accept outside expertise has meant that for decades there
was an absence of think tanks and external research institutions in India. It
is only in recent years that these institutions have developed, and still more
recent for them to be privately funded. Even though India has a number of
well-regarded universities, significant discussions in these academic
institutions on foreign policy issues has been negligible.
One area in which it has been easier to accept outside expertise is the
economic arena. Economic foreign policy has been an area that the
government has been slow to enter and has allowed private entities,
including the corporate sector to play a role. Indian business organizations
like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI),
Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM)
and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have played a role in economic
foreign policy right from the 1950s and have been accepted as collaborators
by the various ministries.

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A key challenge facing outside experts working on foreign and security
policy issues is the issue of classification. As one expert noted, almost
nothing gets declassified and so those in the government or in government-
affiliated think tanks have an advantage. The Ministry of External Affairs
has the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) at Sapru House and
Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS). The
Ministry of Defence has the Institute for Defence and Strategic Analysis
(IDSA) and the United Services Institute (USI).
Most outside experts as well as retired and serving diplomats and
officials agree that compared to a decade ago there is more outside input or
as one stated, there is greater osmosis between universities, government and
think tanks. As a former foreign minister noted, you cannot depend on the
brilliance of an officer or a minister or prime minister, you need outside
inputs for difficult policy decisions. The same politician pointed out that he
was a subscriber to intelligence publications like