From chanakya to modi evolution of india’s foreign policy

Hindustan Times
Leadership Summit, Nehru’s granddaughter-in-
law, Sonia Gandhi, spoke on the idea of India as ‘The Next Global
Superpower’ in her capacity as leader of the Congress party, which ruled
India at the time. She said that being a superpower ‘evokes images of
hegemony, of aggression, of power politics, of military might, of division
and conflict,’ insisting that these images did not reflect India’s aspirations.
Sonia Gandhi argued that for centuries ‘India exercised a profound
influence on the course of world history and it did so without exercising any
covert power’. Citing Mahatma Gandhi, Sonia asserted that Indians were
able to take on the superpower of the day ‘through the mere force of his
values and ideas’. She ended her speech by stating: ‘We Indians have
always known our place in the world even when the world was treating us
lightly. … Why should we think of ourselves as a “Global Superpower”?
Why not instead work towards becoming a global force for Peace, Progress
and Prosperity?’
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 The 2012 policy document 
Non-Alignment 2.0
too argued
that India was an example to be followed by the world,
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implying that India
could be a moral leader without necessarily having the wherewithal
associated with being a great power.
Pursuit of the middle path is not the only legacy of antiquity in
contemporary Indian thinking about international relations. Anti-
imperialism, which became a key ingredient of India’s foreign policy as a
legacy of colonial rule and the Indian national movement, is also traced by
scholars such as Murty to ancient Indian writings. Murty points out that no
ancient Indian writer, whether realist or idealist, ‘advocated or contemplated
the extension of Indian culture outside of India by force’. 
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In a sense,
India’s ancient philosophers were isolationists and ‘there was a kind of
Monroe doctrine towards states outside India’ forbidding aggressive wars
on states or cultures outside of the Indian subcontinent.
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This ties in with Jha’s view that even though ancient Indian monarchs
sought to become chakravartin (supreme ruler dispensing justice and
maintaining peace), the boundaries of his rule were limited to the
geographically and culturally defined region of the subcontinent.
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 Indians
did not like exercising power beyond their shores and could not
philosophically accept others occupying their land or ruling over them.
When Nehru said, ‘India’s foreign policy is grounded in the ancient
tradition and culture of this country’,
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he also suggested that India’s
opposition to Western imperialism could be traced back to the ancient
Indian world view.
The Chola Empire (300 
BC
–
AD
1279) was a notable exception to India’s
eschewing overseas entanglements. It was the only Indian empire that
sought not only trade ties with other civilizations but a political presence
beyond India’s geographical boundaries. The Cholas’ willing militarism and
activist external policy enabled this South Indian dynasty to last from the
third century 
BC
to the thirteenth century 
AD
. Initially the Cholas only
extended their political and cultural influence into present-day Sri Lanka. In
doing so they followed the path of other south Indian dynasties like the
Pandyas (sixth century 
BC
to twelfth century 
AD
) and the Pallavas (third to
ninth century 
AD
), who saw the island just south of India’s coast as a natural
extension of India rather than as imperial expansion. During the eleventh
century 
AD
, however, the Cholas invaded the Sri Vijaya Empire in present-
day Indonesia, breaking from the tradition of isolationism and acting as an
activist great power in south-East Asia.
Historians disagree on the reasons for Chola expansion into South-East
Asia and the extent of their subsequent political influence in that region. For
some, the reason was the simple desire to control trade routes while others
discern aspirations for political control similar to those of imperialist
nations. According to some historians, the Chola invasion was simply a
one-off military raid as they did not have the capacity to control a region so

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far away from their heartland; their naval prowess was insufficient for long-
term overseas colonization. Others assert that the Cholas left a viceroy in
Java, creating longer-lasting political influence.
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Disagreement among
historians about the circumstances notwithstanding, the fact of an Indian
empire extending its political influence outside of the subcontinent
demonstrated the willingness of some Indian rulers – and their advisers – to
expand India’s sphere of influence as early as the eleventh century.
Just as ancient Indian philosophy casts its shadow on the orientation of
Indian foreign policy, another long-lasting legacy of the medieval era is the
religious and cultural pluralism that came with the rise of Muslim sultanates
and the establishment of the Mughal Empire. The sultans of medieval India,
as well as the Mughal emperors, were Muslims from outside India who
made the subcontinent their home. They came to India from Persia and
Central Asia, bringing with them the threat of further invasions from rival
Muslim dynasties.
Under the Mughals, India became cognizant of the need to secure ties
with the predominantly Muslim west and north-west – a policy
consideration that remains paramount even today. In strategic terms, the
Mughals knew that in order to safeguard their empire from rival rulers in
Persia and Central Asia they needed control of the key forts of Kabul and
Kandahar (present-day Afghanistan). A weak or friendly Central Asian
ruler would be beneficial as it meant that the Mughals needed to spend
fewer resources on safeguarding their empire’s border. The British
continued with the policy of building buffer zones along India’s northern
frontiers and modern India acquired that outlook.
The Mughals also had emotional reasons for seeking to extend their
influence into Central Asia. The founder of the empire, Babur, was a
Central Asian prince from the principality of Fergana (present day

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Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) who lost his throne to rivals and
entered north India hoping to build his resources in order to recapture his
original kingdom. Babur was never able to regain his Central Asian crown
and his son Humayun and great-grandson Shah Jahan tried unsuccessfully
to fulfil their ancestor’s dream. Other Mughal emperors, like Akbar,
Jahangir and Aurangzeb gave up the dream of recapturing Babur’s
principality and focused primarily on consolidating the empire in India. The
subcontinent became ethnically and religiously more diverse under Mughal
rule, laying the basis for a culturally pluralist India.
An affinity for the regions west and north-west of India, a frontier policy
based on the concept of buffer regions and the use of Persian as the official
language were not the only legacy of the Mughals affecting external
relations. The British also inherited from the Mughals an institutional
legacy of a personality-driven administration. Under the Mughals, while an
imperial council or council of nobles (Diwan-i-Humayun) existed, the
emperor was the decision maker.
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The Mughals bequeathed lack of
institutions and personalization of power to India’s subsequent rulers. The
British replaced Persian with English, tried to create a professional
governing elite and laid some foundations of institutional governance. But
they were unable to shake off the culture of personalized governance honed
by seven centuries of sultanate, including Mughal rule. The ruler was more
important than rules in Muslim-ruled India and the penchant for Indian
officials to see themselves as the focus of the state has endured.
However, it can be argued that the modern Indian nation and India’s
contemporary sense of self were shaped primarily during the era of British
colonial rule and not earlier. The British brought with them printing and
modern means of communications, such as railways and the telegraph.
They created schools, colleges and universities and a system of formal
education that did not exist before on such scale. Indians in various regions
could now travel to other parts of the subcontinent with greater ease, share

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ideas, organize and even react as colonial subjects with an ease they had
previously not known. Although resentful of colonial rule, modern- day
India owes much to British rule, both in the realm of ideas as well as
institutions.
The British Indian Empire – or the Raj – left an entire infrastructure of
institutions and personnel, which were inherited by the Indian state. In
addition, Indian leaders and strategists inherited the world view of the Raj
that went beyond looking only at the immediate periphery of South Asia
and instead sought India’s influence from the Gulf to South-East Asia and
even beyond. The role for the Indian Empire envisaged by London left an
indelible mark on New Delhi’s post-Independence strategic thinking.
For the British, India was the heart of their global empire, the jewel in the
British queen or king’s crown. It provided both economic and military
wherewithal as well as manpower for sustaining the empire in Africa, East
Asia, the Pacific islands and the Caribbean. As historian Lawrence James
points out, for over a hundred years, the Indian Empire had ‘underpinned’
Britain’s global power status by providing it with ‘markets, prestige and
muscle’.
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India was both a low-cost producer as well as a market for British
products. The British Indian army was critical to maintaining British
presence around the globe. In order to sustain Pax Britannica across the
world, London believed it needed to maintain control of India. It sought to
do this by defending its imperial policy both as a civilizing mission as well
as one that kept the subcontinent from breaking apart due to communal or
ethnic differences.
To understand the views of those who saw the Indian core of the empire
as part of Britain’s global civilizing mission one need only to turn to Philip
Mason, author of the two-volume