From chanakya to modi evolution of india’s foreign policy

Partition reinforced the need for unity and cohesion lest the country be
again divided in the name of religion or ethnicity. Independent India has
consistently sought an international environment that would guarantee its
independence, safeguard its territory, help build its economy, bolster its
military resources and ensure domestic stability and social cohesion. A
peaceful and stable global environment is seen as the precondition for
India’s development and evolution in pursuit of its historic place under the
sun.
India’s decision to stay away from military alliances and follow a path of
non-alignment stems from the view that this path would ensure
independence in decision making. While other newly independent countries
opted to seek benefits of alignment with one or the other superpower, India
chose to stay out of the cold war. India did not have the resources to
participate in such a conflict, did not consider the inducements of aid and
weapons offered by the superpowers as worth their price and feared that
cold war alignment could tear its fragile nation apart.

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India’s policy on nuclear weapons was also framed by the desire to be
independent, to be unique and to ensure full strategic space. Nehru
championed disarmament – conventional and nuclear – and yet understood
the benefits of nuclear energy as well as the wherewithal for a future
nuclear weapons programme. His successors Indira and Rajiv continued
with his policies and in 1974 India conducted her first tests. Despite
international pressure, India continued to build its nuclear weapons
programme independently and was ready to test by the early 1990s. For
India, nuclear weapons represented a combination of prestige, security and
capability. For India, nuclear disarmament is the ideal but as long as other
powers possess nukes, India must maintain a nuclear arsenal too. At the
same time, there has always been the view that India would disarm as part
of global disarmament as India does not need weapons of mass destruction
to bully or threaten other nations.
India’s desire for economic autarky and self-sufficiency also has its roots
in the almost zealous guarding of independence. The dominant streak
among Indian policymakers and public has tended towards protectionism.
While India as a developing country has always needed both foreign aid
and foreign capital, it has never been comfortable with either. The fear of
foreign capital and malevolence of foreigners goes back to colonial rule and
the manner in which the East India Company transformed trade and
investment into occupation.
The desire for self-sufficiency has also extended to the military arena,
where India has sought to not only maintain large professional armed forces
but also to equip them with weapons that can be manufactured at home.
Nehru embraced the ideas of the German philosopher Kant and the
internationalism associated with former US president Woodrow Wilson, but
the Indian state veers towards a Hobbesian view of the world wherein India
has to depend solely on itself.

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Concerns about India’s territorial unity and integrity have led India to try
and build indigenous military capability instead of simply buying weapons
off the shelf, which would make it dependent on other countries. The effort
to indigenize weapons manufacturing has not been sufficiently successful to
foreclose the option of massive purchases on the global market and India
remains one of the world’s top importers of military equipment and arms.
Until recently, the Indian government was reluctant to allow even Indian
corporations to enter the defence sector and preferred to rely exclusively on
public sector enterprises. The private sector has now been invited into the
field of defence production because state-owned manufacturers have not
reached the production levels of their Chinese counterparts.
The ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Modi government carries forward
the legacy of building an Indian defence capacity. The initiative expects that
foreign firms will be willing to share their technology in return for access to
the Indian market. The assumption is still that the size of the Indian market
compensates for bureaucratic hurdles and other inconveniences that serve as
a disincentive. The focus still remains on manufacturing locally rather than
importing India’s defence needs. In this case, the security imperative has
been merged with economic nationalism as a principle of external relations.
INDIAN EXCEPTIONALISM
Many Indians see the role of Indian foreign policy as being a set of
measures designed to safeguard Indian nationalism. The desire to find
India’s place in the sun, to project India as an example or guide to others,
and the belief that as one of the oldest civilizations India was a future great
power can all be traced back to the influence of nationalism. The moralistic
dimension to India’s foreign policy can also be traced back to the deeply
high-minded and value-based independence movement, which was
influenced by the views of the leader of the national struggle, Mahatma
Gandhi, who is acknowledged as the father of the modern Indian nation.

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These views are clearly visible in the Constituent Assembly of India
debates from the first two years after Independence. Leaders like
Purushottam Das Tandon, Sri Krishna Sinha, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and
Algurai Shastri championed it to the notion that India would one day lead
Asia and that India owed it to the world to work for global peace and
prosperity. 
10
 In Nehru’s words India had the ‘responsibility of being some
kind of guide to vast numbers of people all over the world’.
11
Even Nehru’s main rival as leader of the Congress during the 1930s,
Subhas Chandra Bose, held views similar to Nehru with respect to India’s
role in Asia and its critical geographic location. For Bose, as for Nehru, it
was the time for Asia to ‘throw off the yoke of thralldom’ and ‘take her
legitimate place in the comity of free nations’. Bose firmly believed that
India had ‘a mission to fulfil and it is because of this that India still lives’.
12
The first and only Indian Governor General of independent India, C.
Rajagopalachari, spoke about global citizenship and the mission that lay
ahead for all Indian citizens. ‘Not only the Prime Minister and I, but every
enlightened citizen of India must now rise to the full height not only of
national citizenship but of world citizenship,’ he declared. According to
Rajagopalachari, ‘The world is watching India with goodwill. Our culture,
our philosophy and our outlook on life have a new meaning and a new hope
for the nations that have suffered and are suffering in the West. … Being
citizens of a free country we should now realize our mission as a nation and
our place in world civilization. We must fulfil the obligations that arise out
of our place in Asia and our long and intimate connection with the West.’
13
It seems that a deep-rooted inheritance of India’s long civilizational past
is the belief that India’s civilizational greatness trumps the current status of
the Indian state. As a civilization, India historically possessed hard (military
and economic) as well as soft (religious and cultural) power not just in its
region but also in Asia and beyond. The Indian belief that historical
greatness is manifest destiny persisted even during British colonial rule

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when Indians were subordinate subjects of a faraway sovereign. Despite
being a developing country with limited economic and military potential at
Independence in 1947, Indian leaders projected themselves as the inheritors
of a great civilization and the trailblazers of a future big power. In his
presidential address to the parliament in 1999, then president K.R.
Narayanan restated something that has been said and resaid several times
since the departure of the British. India, he announced, will secure ‘a place,
role, and position in the global arena, commensurate with its size and
importance’.
14
Under the influence of the founding fathers like Mahatma Gandhi and
Jawaharlal Nehru, the average Indian has also believed that India was
special, is special and will remain special. This ‘Indian exceptionalism’ –
the term used by several public figures – rested on the faith that there was
something unique about India, which enabled it to gain independence
without violence, revolution or war. Other aspects of the same conviction
are that India is special because it is the land of Gandhi and Nehru or that
India’s ability to subsume various cultures under the rubric of Indian
tolerance makes it unique. Indian discourse often speaks of an ‘Indian
character’ that will overcome odds and circumvent difficulties. In the words
of a former Indian president, ‘The vision of a mighty India will be realized
only in the actual lives of men and women who have strength of
character.’
15
‘India stands tall as a nation because we are seen as a liberal and plural
democracy, which has faced and overcome tremendous odds,’ declared the
current president, Pranab Mukherjee, in his presidential address of February
2013. According to him, ‘The world recognizes India’s demonstrable
democratic and secular practices as a major achievement. While we should
rejoice in the benefits that our plurality brings, the challenge is to
relentlessly pursue our efforts to accelerate economic growth and widen
opportunities within our democratic framework. It is only if we constantly

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renew and defend the democratic values that define our nationhood that we
will be able to face the great challenges that lie before us.’ 
16
Such pronouncements are not just the ‘feel good’ avowals of leaders
trying to rally their people. In India’s case, they reflect a deep-seated way of
thinking almost identical to the messianic vision of the United States. It has
repeatedly manifested itself in India’s policies.
As India has become more globally connected and integrated, Indian
exceptionalism has not diminished. In fact, it even lives on among the vast
Indian diaspora, including second and third-generation non-resident Indians
(i.e. immigrants to other countries). Conversations and interviews with
politicians, civil servants, scholars and diplomats over the last decade
reflect a continuing sense of destiny and sense of India’s specialness. Like
others who believe in national uniqueness and manifest destiny, Indians
tend to stick to what they see as their principles and not give up on them as