From chanakya to modi evolution of india’s foreign policy

Defending India
(1999), Singh outlined the core elements of this
world view. To Vajpayee and Singh, the US was a friend rather than a
threat, China was not a natural ally of India (unlike what Nehru believed till
1962) and India needed to build its economic and military power because
that is what would make India acceptable by the world as a major power.
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It was not surprising, therefore, that tests declaring India as a nuclear
weapons power took place under a BJP government in 1998. An assertive
India was able to improve relations with Pakistan, China and the United
States even though India and Pakistan fought their fourth war, the Kargil
conflict, in 1999.
After five years in office, Vajpayee and the BJP lost the 2004
parliamentary elections, paving the way for the return to office of the
Congress party, this time at the head of a coalition government, the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA). Manmohan Singh, the technocrat and reformist
finance minister in the last Congress government, was chosen as prime
minister and he remained in office for two successive terms, spanning the
decade from 2004 to 2014. Singh was known as the architect of India’s
economic liberalization, leading to a lot of expectations, especially in
further opening up of India’s economy. He was hemmed in by the fact that
the Congress party chief, Sonia Gandhi, and not the prime minister wielded
real power. Sonia controlled the Congress party machine and Manmohan
Singh had no popular political base. In the end, Sonia’s views on the
economy and on India’s role in the world prevailed. These were reminiscent

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of early Nehruvianism, wedded to Fabian socialism, suspicion of the West,
and non-alignment.
Manmohan Singh laid out what Indian analyst, C. Raja Mohan, described
as the Manmohan Singh doctrine in speeches at the 
Hindustan Times
Leadership Initiative Conference on 5 November 2004 and at the 
India
Today
Conclave on 25 February 2005. According to this doctrine the ‘single
most important objective’ of Indian foreign policy was to ‘create a global
environment conducive to her economic development and the well-being of
the people of India’. India sought ‘greater integration with the world
economy’ especially with those in Asia. India’s ties with major powers
would be shaped by economic factors and especially energy security. India
championed greater regional cooperation and deeper physical connectivity
within South Asia. Like his predecessors, Manmohan also saw India as an
example to the world of a country that pursued economic growth and yet
remained a plural, secular and liberal democracy. India also had a ‘global
responsibility to assist societies in transition’.
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Nehruvian idealism was visible when at an annual conference of Indian
diplomats Manmohan Singh asserted, ‘Foreign policy is not defined merely
by our interests, but also by the values which are very dear to our people.
India’s experiment of pursuing economic development within the
framework of a plural, secular and liberal democracy has inspired people
around the world.’
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For Manmohan, as for every prime minister before
him, the key priority was ensuring that India secured the requisite space to
grow economically and occupy its place under the sun. But after the
pragmatic approaches of Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India’s
new prime minister reverted to idealistic proclamations on certain issues as
a substitute for hard-nosed policy choices.
Nehru had emphasized the importance of economic foreign policy but it
was only from Rajiv Gandhi onwards that Indian leaders really focused on
this issue. As prime minister, Manmohan Singh carried this view forward,

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especially in his first five-year term. He also spoke of the importance of
India’s neighbourhood, the need for building regional institutions and
deepening economic ties and building connectivity between the various
countries of South Asia. He was unable during his ten years in power to
implement many of his policies in the region even though he put forth a
number of suggestions.
Manmohan Singh’s decade-long stint as prime minister was not
distinguished by new ideas or successful foreign policy initiatives. One
major step during that period was the conclusion of the US–India civil
nuclear deal, negotiations over which were started in the Vajpayee years
and concluded in 2005. The deal separated India’s civil and military nuclear
programmes, allowed purchase of nuclear material under IAEA safeguards
by India for civilian purposes and opened the possibility of India’s
membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) without signing the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Manmohan Singh government had to
overcome considerable opposition from within the ranks of its left-leaning
coalition to secure parliamentary approval of this major agreement.
A MODI ERA?
The 2014 election brought the BJP to office after ten years in opposition,
with Narendra Modi as prime minister. Unlike Vajpayee, who owed his
position solely to the party, Modi’s personal popularity was a major factor
in his party’s electoral success. This gave him considerable leeway in
defining his own foreign policy. The Modi doctrine, though still evolving,
appears to have elements of both continuity and change with his
predecessors. Despite the desire to be different from the Congress and
Nehru, Modi’s foreign policy still has much in common with Nehru’s,
though he envisions a more powerful India than its first prime minister.
Modi, like Nehru and several other prime ministers, has so far ensured
that foreign and security policy is formulated in the Prime Minister’s Office

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(PMO) and not in the foreign ministry. Modi has risen to the office of prime
minister from heading the state government in Gujarat, without earlier
serving in the Union cabinet. He is an outsider to Delhi’s bureaucracy and
traditional power brokers in the mould of Rajiv Gandhi and Vajpayee.
Reflecting his position as the key, perhaps only, decision maker, Modi has
handpicked both his ministerial colleagues as well as the key civil servants
working under him.
His right hand man from Gujarat, Amit Shah, was chosen to head the BJP
as party president. Senior party leaders above a certain age were forced into
retirement while other potential contenders to power within BJP were
incorporated into the cabinet. Emulating Rajiv, Modi changed his foreign
secretary in order to nominate a candidate, career diplomat Subrahmanyam
Jaishankar, whom he identified as sharing his own world view. Like
Vajpayee, he depends on his national security adviser, former intelligence
officer Ajit Kumar Doval, for advice on both internal and external security.
Modi is in charge of his foreign policy and seems to understand the
intrinsic link between economic growth and projection of power abroad.
Unlike Nehru, he does not seek stature for India solely through speeches in
international forums though he is not averse to that variety of international
attention. He actively pursues economic partnerships and investment and
wants international and Indian business to collaborate in expanding
manufacturing in India. His first act of foreign policy took place even
before he was sworn in as prime minister. In May 2014, he invited all South
Asian heads of government to his inauguration.
South Asia, India’s immediate periphery, will perhaps remain critical to
every Indian prime minister and every Indian administration. In his first two
years in office, Modi emphasized his regional focus by travelling to a
number of India’s immediate neighbours including Afghanistan, Bhutan,
Nepal, Mauritius, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. During his visit to
Dhaka, India and Bangladesh signed a land border agreement which was

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first agreed to in 1958 between Nehru and then Pakistani premier Firoz
Khan Noon.
Indian leaders have coveted improved relations with Pakistan as their
potential legacy. Given the record of discord and acrimony between the two
neighbours, the idea of making history by resolving that conflict appeals to
Indian politicians. Modi too started his tenure by reaching out to Pakistan,
hoping to write a new chapter in the troubled India–Pakistan relationship. In
December 2015, he made a short stopover in Lahore on his way back from
Kabul to Delhi to meet with Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif. In a
symbolic moment, Modi was photographed holding Sharif’s hand, amid
much fanfare reminiscent of Vajpayee’s 1999 bus trip to Lahore.
The bonhomie ended with a terrorist attack on a military base at
Pathankot, near the Pakistan border, in January 2016. A second terrorist
attack on the Indian base at Uri in Kashmir in September 2016, which India
blamed on Pakistan-sponsored jihadi groups, resulted in Modi’s decision to
break off talks with Pakistan without its concrete commitment to end
support for terrorism. The 2016 SAARC summit, scheduled to be held in
Islamabad, was cancelled after India (along with Afghanistan, Bangladesh
and Bhutan) announced its boycott. India hinted at its desire to
internationally isolate Pakistan in an effort to force policy changes over the
terrorism issue. Indian special forces conducted what experts termed a
‘surgical strike’ aimed at terrorist camps across the Line of Control (LoC)
in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This is not the first time that India had
targeted terror camps inside Pakistan but this was the first time that the
Indian government publicly announced such strikes.
Notwithstanding the setback in ties with Pakistan, Modi managed to
forge closer relations with most of India’s traditional friends around the
world while adding some more to the list of global partners. In his first
thirty-one months in office, Modi has travelled to forty-five countries
including the United States, Japan, China, Australia, France, Germany and

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Brazil. One of India’s former national security advisers, Shivshankar
Menon, referred to this as India ‘speed dating’ the global powers.
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Singaporean diplomat and scholar Kishore Mahbubani postulates that
Modi’s world view is made up of genuine non-alignment, an emphasis on
economic growth and the desire to rebuild ties in India’s ‘regional
backyard’. 
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According to Mahbubani, Modi’s ‘genuine non-alignment’ is
reflected in India’s good ties with and ability to secure economic investment
and defence equipment from diverse countries like the United States, China,
Japan, Israel, Iran, Germany, France and Russia. ‘It takes great political and
psychological confidence to maintain equally good relations with such
sharply divided leaders,’ Mahbubani observed’.
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French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot attributes Modi’s passionate focus on
foreign policy to his being a nationalist leader, just like Vajpayee. In
Jaffrelot’s view economic interests and South Asia are Modi’s two key
foreign policy priorities.
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Like Mahbubani and Jaffrelot, Harsh Pant
acknowledges that Modi has focused on strengthening ties with diverse
powers like the United States, Japan and China as well as South Asian
neighbours.
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 But Pant asserts that Modi seeks to dismantle non-alignment
and move beyond ‘ideological rhetoric’ to real action. To that effect, Indian
diplomats have been provided with a detailed strategic evaluation of how
the Modi government sees India’s place in the world and have also been
encouraged to deepen and push India’s economic interests.
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Modi’s foreign policy activism in his first two years in office is
reminiscent of Nehru’s travels soon after India’s independence. Nehru, like
most Indians, believed that India shouldered a great responsibility by virtue
of its size and its history. He spoke of ‘the responsibility of the freedom of
400 million people of India, the responsibility of the leadership of a large