From chanakya to modi evolution of india’s foreign policy

participated in forty-four of the sixty-nine UN peacekeeping missions
mandated by the UN and 156 Indian peacekeepers have been killed while
serving the United Nations.
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A similar activism characterizes India’s role in global financial
institutions. India has been a member of International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), known as the World Bank, since

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its creation in 1945. One of the twenty-five executive directors on the
World Bank board is from India. For years, India was among the World
Bank’s leading borrowers, utilizing loans for infrastructure development
such as construction of dams and canals or for poverty alleviation
programmes. Since 2006, India has also contributed financing for projects
in other parts of the world. India’s direct lending through the World Bank
stands at $10.5 billion.
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India’s membership of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also dates
back to its inception. India has drawn on IMF funds on three occasions,
once in the 1980s and twice in the 1990s to address balance of payments
problems.
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India has drawn more on technical assistance from IMF than
seeking actual financial assistance. This has included training of Indian
officials in monetary policy and tax administration, assistance in foreign
exchange market reform as well as in tax and customs administration.
Mirroring its stand in the United Nations, India has also sought reform of
the IMF quota system so that developing countries – like India – have a
greater voice in the IMF.
More recently, India has supported two new financial institutional
arrangements – the New Development Bank (also referred to as the BRICS
Bank) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). India is a
founding member of both institutions. The BRICS Bank was announced in
2013 as a bank that would provide investment for infrastructure
development in BRICS and other developing countries. The bank is to be
headquartered in Shanghai with an Indian, K.V. Kamath, as the first chief
executive.
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India has also shown interest in the concept of an Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank with around fifty-seven or so founding
members including Turkey, Australia, Austria, Israel, Portugal, France,
Germany, South Korea and the United Kingdom. For India, inclusion in
global financial bodies is a way to demonstrate India’s place under the sun
in addition to securing economic benefits.
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Although deeply involved in international financial institutions (IFIs),
Indians are wary of the potential for political and strategic factors
influencing their decisions. For example, the Asian Development Bank
(ADB), under Chinese pressure, has turned down Indian requests in the past
for financing of projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian state that China
claims as its territory. India has sought a greater voice for itself and other
developing nations in the Bretton Woods system while also helping to lay
the foundations of new institutions like BRICS Bank and AIIB where the
developing world might have greater say.
India’s position in multilateral institutions, from the United Nations and
its specialized agencies to the IFIs, has been consistent since India’s
independence. India supports multilateralism but it also seeks to reform
global agencies, which it feels are influenced heavily by the world’s major
powers. Seeing itself as a future major power, India has positioned itself as
the voice of equity in international bodies, demanding that more powerful
nations voluntarily cede some of their power for the sake of greater fairness
in international affairs.
GLOBAL DIASPORA, GLOBAL INTERESTS