From chanakya to modi evolution of india’s foreign policy

Jane’s Defence, Oxford
Analytica
 and others.
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One of the reason for recent changes is that a majority of the analysts in
think tanks are former civil servants, even diplomats, and so it is easier for
them to ensure that their views reach their peers. However, experts
cautioned that it still depends on the individual and is not institutionalized.
As an example many stated that when Indira called upon someone of the
calibre of K. Subrahmanyam, who was then director, Institute for Defence
and Strategic Analysis, for advice it was in his individual capacity. As a
former foreign secretary noted cynically, everything in India is personal.
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Although India has come a long way since the days of Nehru’s idealism,
it is still more a nation hoping to be a great power than a great power with a
well-defined strategic culture.

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Conclusion
Outlook for a Future Power
‘THE RISE OF India’ is the subject of considerable discussion both among
Indians and the international community. India’s size and significance have
positioned it to be a major world power but so far it lacks the wherewithal,
military capacity and institutional structure to act as one. The British Raj
trained Indian civil servants as writers of first drafts, not as policymakers.
After Independence, these bureaucrats have jealously guarded their
positions at the expense of India’s coming into its own. India’s political
leaders have invoked history, more precisely historical imagery, to forge
national unity and create an aspiration for India’s place under the sun. The
country now needs a pragmatic strategic outlook coupled with forward-
looking institutions that can make India into a contemporary version of
Chanakya’s Chakravartin.
In the years immediately after Independence, India’s priority was
ensuring its territorial integrity and unity, carving out strategic space for
India in the global order and securing a South Asia free from foreign
influence. Underlying India’s engagement with the world was the belief that
India was a great civilization and a future great power. Emerging from
colonial rule, wherein all key decisions about its fate were made by
foreigners, India wanted autonomy in decision making and economic self-

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sufficiency. India was willing to occasionally tread a somewhat lonely path
just to be able to stand up to the dominant superpowers.
Since the end of the cold war, close relations with the United States
notwithstanding, India remains resistant to being referred to as a US ally,
preferring instead the term ‘partner’ or ‘friend.’ Both India and the United
States share strategic goals like a stable and secure South Asia and Middle
East, countering global terrorism and a common security architecture for
the Indo-Pacific region. India now hosts joint military exercises with the
United States, and the US is fast becoming one of the top defence suppliers
to India. Yet, Indian leaders still view occasional disagreement with the US
publicly as critical to India’s autonomy in decision making. Not even