From chanakya to modi evolution of india’s foreign policy

part in any war. The Congress demands that these war preparations be put
an end to and further declares that in the event of the British government
embarking on any war-like adventure and endeavouring to exploit India in
it for furtherance of their imperialist aims it will be the duty of the people of
India to refuse to take any part in such a war or cooperate with them in any
way whatsoever.’
73
The 1928 Calcutta session resolution declared: ‘… that the Congress has
taken a decision to develop contacts with other countries and peoples who
also suffer under imperialism and desire to combat it.’ 
74
The Congress
resolutions also put forth the concept of an Asia whose fate is tied together.
This idea was put forth at the 1926 Gauhati session as well as at the 1928
Calcutta session that sought a conference on Asia in 1930.
75
This finally
materialized in the form of the March 1947 Asian Relations Conference.
In 1936 Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the foreign department of the
Congress and in 1940 a separate Indians Overseas Department was set up.
The Congress also supported freedom struggles in other colonies and
countries. It built ties with the Wafd party in Egypt, the Kuomintang in

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China and with parties in Indonesia and other countries of the Middle East
and South-East Asia. Resolutions of the Indian National Congress
repeatedly spoke out against imperialism.
As World War II approached, Congress resolutions opposed fascism and
Nazism: criticizing Japan’s aggression against Manchuria, Italy’s taking
over of Abyssinia and Germany’s dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Not
only did the Congress pass resolutions but it also raised funds and sent aid
for the Abyssinian and Spanish loyalist causes. As foreign secretary of the
Congress party, Nehru visited Spain, Czechoslovakia, Russia and even
Chungking in China.
76
At the 1938 Haripura session of the Congress, a resolution was passed
that the ‘… people of India desire to live in peace and friendship with their
neighbours and with all other countries and for this purpose wish to remove
all causes of conflict between them. Striving for their own freedom and
independence as a nation, they wish to respect the freedom of others and to
build up their strength on the basis of international cooperation and
goodwill.’ The resolution further stated:
India can be no party to such an imperialist war and will not permit her
manpower and resources to be exploited in the interests of British
imperialism. Nor can India join any war without the express consent of
her people. The Congress therefore entirely disapproves of war
preparations being made in India and large-scale manoeuvres and air
raid precautions by which it has been sought to spread an atmosphere
of approaching war in India. In the event of an attempt being made to
involve India in a war this will be resisted. 
77
A few months later, in September 1939, the Congress Working
Committee issued a statement, declaring: ‘If the war is to defend the status
quo, imperialist possessions, colonies, vested interests and privilege then
India can have nothing to do with it. If, however, the issue is democracy and
a world order based on democracy then India is intensely interested in it.’ 
78

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The Congress steadfastly opposed the British war effort and most Congress
leaders spent the war years in prison or in exile.
The 1942 Quit India resolution of the Congress passed in Bombay
championed the cause of a world federation, pointing out that
… the future peace, security and ordered progress of the world demand
a world federation of free nations, as on no other basis can the
problems of the modern world be solved. Such a world federation will
ensure the freedom of its constituent nations, the prevention of
exploitation by one nation over another, the protection of national
minorities, the advancement of all backward areas and peoples and the
pooling of the world’s resources for the common good of all.
79
Congress’s non-cooperation with the British during the war years created
space for the Muslim League’s demand for partition of India; but it did have
the effect of forcing the British to reconsider their belief in holding on to
India indefinitely. By the time the war ended, Indian independence became
inevitable. In 1945, though not yet an independent country, India was
represented at the San Francisco Conference and signed the United Nations
charter.
Thus, over the years, the political party that led India to independence
had laid down the guiding principles for the conduct of India’s international
affairs. These included expression of a desire to cooperate with other
countries, support for anti-imperial and anti-colonial struggles and
championing peace around the world. The Congress also committed India
to abiding by the Charter of the United Nations, promoting Asian solidarity
and seeking the recognition of India as a non-militarist great power. Many
of India’s post-Independence initiatives, including non-alignment, the
Panchasheel (five principles of coexistence) and the opposition to
multilateral military alliances can be traced to the deliberations of the
Indian National Congress during the independence struggle.

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3
Ideas and Individuals
JUST AS HISTORY and geography shape foreign policy, some individuals
and their ideas also have a profound impact on how a nation looks at the
world outside. During India’s long struggle for freedom from British
colonial rule, several leaders including Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,
Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhbhai Patel and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari
made pronouncements on international relations. It was the foreign policy
views of Jawaharlal Nehru, however, that prevailed over all others. US
Secretary of State Dean Acheson considered Nehru critical to India’s global
role, ‘so important to all of us, that if he did not exist – as Voltaire said of
God – he would have to be invented’.
1
 Most of Nehru’s successors held on
to his tradition, with minor changes, as a guarantee of India’s stability in
dealing with the rest of the world.
Nehru was both politician and scholar. Observing him as prime minister,
sociologist Edward Shils pointed out: ‘Few men so intellectual by
disposition, occupy positions in any countries.’
2
Born into an elite Hindu
family, Jawaharlal Nehru had been schooled at prestigious British
institutions known for training Britain’s ruling class: Harrow Public School
and Cambridge University. In his own words he returned to India ‘perhaps
more an Englishman than an Indian’ and ‘looked upon the world almost

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from an Englishman’s standpoint’.
3
It was his intellectual curiosity that
transformed him into an interpreter of India to the world.
Described as the ‘founding architect’
4
of India’s foreign policy, Nehru
was deemed unique among his contemporaries for his keen interest in
global affairs. Nehru was the principal Congress personality speaking on
foreign policy beginning in 1922. Indian National Congress resolutions and
statements on international affairs often reflected his views. After becoming
prime minister, Nehru once remarked that he was attracted to premiership
because he could then allocate to himself the external affairs portfolio.
5
Nehru had travelled extensively well before his rise to pre-eminence
within the independence movement. On some occasions, the Congress took
advantage of his personal travel to seek representation at international
forums. In 1927, Nehru represented the Congress at the League Against
Imperialism in Palais D’Egmont at Brussels. Two years later, he positioned
himself as an internationalist when, as president of the Congress, Nehru
stated that India could not afford to ignore what was happening in the world
around her. ‘We have our problems, difficult and intricate, and we cannot
run away from them and take shelter in the wider problems that affect the
world but if we ignore the world, we do so at our peril,’ he argued.
6
During the 1930s because of his wife Kamala’s convalescence – and later
death – at a sanatorium in Lausanne, Switzerland, Nehru spent considerable
time in Europe. This enabled him to build relationships in England, Spain,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and even the United States. Nehru later
travelled to countries that were still under colonial rule. Trips to Indonesia
(formerly Dutch East Indies), Morocco, Algeria (formerly French North
Africa), and Egypt enabled Nehru to build close ties with individuals who
later played key roles and came to power in their countries. He also visited
Turkey, partly for sightseeing but also to study the Kemalist experiment in
establishing secularism after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

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Nehru met with Mustafa al Nahhas Pasha (1879–1965), leader of the
Wafd party and later prime minister of Egypt, during a 1938 trip to Cairo.
7
A Wafd party delegation later attended the annual session of the Congress