Essay on Changing Contours of Indian Foreign Policy for UPSC : India’s foreign policy in recent times has shown remarkable resilience and initiative to reach out to the countries in her neighbourhood and beyond to secure and strategic partnership for securing her national interests. The frenzy of diplomatic activities, as experienced in past few years, offer a clear picture of India’s diplomatic priorities and strategic objectives. They primarily include prioritizing an integrated neighbourhood through a “Neighbouhood First” policy, leveraging international partnerships to promote India’s domestic development, ensuring a stable multi-polar balance of power in the Indo-Pacific through its ‘Act East’ policy, dissuading Pakistan from supporting terrorism and projecting Indian leadership in matters of global governance.
India’s foreign
policy in recent times has shown remarkable resilience and initiative to reach
out to the countries in her neighbourhood and beyond to secure and strategic
partnership for securing her national interests. The frenzy of diplomatic
activities, as experienced in past few years, offer a clear picture of India’s
diplomatic priorities and strategic objectives. They primarily include
prioritizing an integrated neighbourhood through a “Neighbouhood First” policy,
leveraging international partnerships to promote India’s domestic development,
ensuring a stable multi-polar balance of power in the Indo-Pacific through its
‘Act East’ policy, dissuading Pakistan from supporting terrorism and projecting
Indian leadership in matters of global governance.
The ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy
signifies India’s eagerness to give diplomatic priority to its immediate
neighbours and the Indian Ocean countries. The policy reflects India’s desire
for greater connectivity and integration to improve free flow of goods, people,
services, capital, and information to promote a model of India-led regionalism
without discomforting its neighbours.
Be it the biggest ever defence deal
with Mauritius, extending humanitarian assistance to Nepal and Sri Lanka,
reaching out to Pakistan and Afghanistan, deepening her engagement with Myanmar
and Bhutan or completion of Land Boundary Agreement [LBA] with Bangladesh and
accessing her Chittagong port, India has gone out of way to cooperate and
collaborate with her neighbours. The same has get a positive tone for
improvement of bilateral and multilateral relations in a region long defined by
mutual mistrust and animosity. However, relations with Nepal and Pakistan have
remained hostage to historical politicking notwithstanding significant diplomatic
demarches.
Despite considerable Indian
assistance in the aftermath of recent earthquake, India’s complicated
involvement with Nepal’s constitutional crisis for modifying some contentious
aspects of Nepal’s constitution has negatively affected the bilateral relations
with the Himalayan country. With respect to all its neighbours including Nepal,
India has taken concrete steps over the past two years to promote goodwill and
deepen economic and social connectivity. But nationalist sentiments in all these
countries – often directed against India as the region’s predominant power –
continue to present a challenge. It is notable that while India shares a
littoral or territorial border with almost all her South Asian neighbours, none
shares border with anyone else. The same often goads her immediate neighbours
to bandwagon against India much to her chagrin.
Quite importantly, China has always
been prepared to step in to provide financial, military, infrastructural, and
even political support to all her neighbours in a bid to neutralize India’s
effort to strengthen her position as a dominant player in South Asia. Hence it
would be imperative for India to carefully monitor and appropriately respond to
these developments to pre-empt her security interests being seriously
compromised.
Another major objective of India’s
foreign policy has been to leverage international partnerships to the advantage
of India’s domestic development. This includes improving technological access,
sourcing capital, adopting best practices, gaining market access, and securing
natural resources. Indo-US nuclear deal, India’s induction into Missile
Technology Control Regime [MTCR], forthcoming Japanese investment for bullet
trains, tax treaty with Mauritius and financial deals with Iran and some
African countries for Greenfield investments are examples of India’ s
diplomatic achievements in recent times.
Here, the greatest challenge
remains harnessing improved international relations to spur economic
developments at home. Such collaborations have positive multipliers for our
economic growth though India continues to struggle with her under-performing
military-industrial complex in a bid to indigenize her defence procurement.
With India rhetorically changing
her ‘Look East’ policy into an ‘Act East,’ the purpose has been largely to
counterbalance China’s increasing dominance to maintain the delicate balance of
power in the subcontinent. While India has become a destination for Chinese
investment 2013-2014 to Rs. 3,066 crores in 2014-15, India continues to
flounder in securing an entry for her software companies in Chinese market or
to prevent China’s dumping of goods in our markets.
Despite an ill-timed Chinese
incursion during Xi jinping’s 2014 visit to India, the disputed Sino-Indian
border has proved reasonably stable over the past two years with India-China
border negotiations continuing apace. Even though the diplomatic conditions are
currently favourably for India, any breakthrough in Sino-India border dispute
remains elusive.
In terms of a broader strategic
context, India’s ‘Act East’ policy has largely been successful, mostly as a
by-product of her economic accomplishments since 1990s. Barring the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation [APEC] forum, India has successfully
integrated into Asia’s multilateral for a including the East Asia Summit.
However, the conclusion of Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] agreement, the
largest trade pact in history, threatens to compromise India’s commercial
interests in the region.
To date, india’s Act East policy
has added greater urgency to its regional aspirations. Certain aspects, such as
institutional participation, bilateral land ‘multilateral’ security cooperation
have been steady improvements. India’s primary challenge lies in preserving the
military balance on the disputed border with China, and integrating itself into
the region’s commercial networks. This will require improving border
infrastructure, overland connectivity to Southeast Asia via Bangladesh and
india’s North-east, improved port and shipping infrastructure at home and
tackling the implications of TPP for India.
India’s relations with Pakistan
continue to be problematic despite her frantic efforts to improve the same.
This is because of former’s continued dalliance with terrorist entities and a
refusal to open up economically by reciprocating to India granting her the
‘Most Favoured Nation’ [MFN] status. Every time India has tried to renew and
her ties with Pakistan, the same has been consistently sabotaged by the
sinister military-intelligence-terrorist nexus in that country as also
exemplified by Pakistan’s Kargil incursion in 1999 and the negative role played
by her in the wake of recent Kashmir disturbances. India’s constant eagerness
to engage has successfully kept the United States and others from interjecting
themselves in the region.
New Delhi’s protestations with the
US decision to supply Pakistan with F-16s and prime ministerial visits to Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Afghanistan have all been part of an
attempt to isolate Pakistan, to slowly compel it reconsider its priorities.
India has also expressed concern with the ambitious, multi-billion dollar
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. While India has expressed its apprehensions,
dissuading Beijing from this path remains a big challenge, more so because
China’s historical support for Pakistan has always been driven by its desire to
balance Indian influence in South Asia.
India is not yet fully in a
position to lead, or set the rules of the international order, but it has been
taking steps to seek full membership of the most important global governance
platforms. India is already a member of the G20, the East Asia Summit, and the
BRICS coalition, a testament to its status as a large country with a
fast-growing economy. New Delhi also deservedly aspires for permanent
membership of the UN Security Council. It has also been actively lobbying for
full membership of the UN Security Council. It has also been actively lobbying
for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation organization as well as the
Nuclear Suppliers Group.
All the while, India has been
trying to bolster its leadership credentials, whether through international
relief efforts in Yemen and Libya, its historic engagements with the sundry UN
peacekeeping missions, or the public reclamation of its contributions to the
World Wars. While India will continue to lobby consistently for inclusion in
multilateral security institutions, its presence in the evolving international
economic and trade order will still require a clearer articulation of its trade
policy, one that gives greater priority to India’s concerns on services,
intellectual property, and labour mobility.
Russia being a time-tested Indian
ally, India should ensure that the bilateral relations between the two countries
should once again become an important pillar of India’s foreign policy. India
has been trying to build strategic partnership with Russia in areas of defence
procurement and indigenization, nuclear energy, hydrocarbon prospecting, trade
and economic ties.
A broad overview of the Indian
government’s foreign policy in recent times amply shows not just a strategic
vision, but also a movement along every one of India’s major objectives. It
also reveals some of the frustrations and structural limitations that confront
the Indian government. Indi a clearly has to do a much better job remaining
vigilant in its own neighbourhood, managing or proactively addressing the
domestic political fallout of its Pakistan policy, while suitably modifying its
foreign policy imperatives to the evolving situations to better secure her
national interests.
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