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India’s foreign policy: nationalist aspirations and

enduring constraints

Ian Hall

To cite this article: Ian Hall (2022) India’s foreign policy: nationalist aspirations and enduring
constraints, The Round Table, 111:3, 321-332, DOI: 10.1080/00358533.2022.2082685

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2022.2082685

Published online: 15 Jul 2022.

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THE ROUND TABLE
2022, VOL. 111, NO. 3, 321–332
https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2022.2082685

India’s foreign policy: nationalist aspirations and enduring

constraints
Ian Hall
Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
India’s leaders have pursued a series of ambitious agendas in inter­ India; foreign policy;
national relations, driven by a sense of national destiny and civilisa­ nationalism; non-alignment;
tional mission. This article explores these different agendas and the strategic autonomy
strategies they shaped, noting the underlying convictions that
unite them: that India’s civilisational inheritance has lessons for
the world, that India’s status is yet to be properly respected, and
that New Delhi must strive for the highest levels of autonomy India
can attain in international affairs. It argues, however, that their
pursuit has been confounded by domestic challenges, which inhibit
India’s capacity to accumulate power and exert influence.

Introduction
For seventy-five years, New Delhi’s foreign policy has been energised by the conviction
that India has a unique contribution to make to the world and is constrained by
internal weaknesses and external threats. The belief in a special global mission was
evident in nationalist thinking long before independence and has remained strong ever
since. Realising India’s mission has proved difficult, however, because New Delhi has
struggled – and continues to struggle – to find a path out of what Mohammed Ayoob
once dubbed the ‘Third World security predicament’ (Ayoob, 1995). Like so many
states in the postcolonial world, India has had simultaneously to manage multiple
internal vulnerabilities and external threats. Its government has never had the luxury of
unchallenged authority and legitimacy, as it contends with social division, economic
inequality, and violent insurgencies which all put the state under significant strain.
Understandably, managing these challenges has long diverted scarce resources away
from projects to build international influence and address external threats and con­
tinues to do so today. At the same time, awareness of those vulnerabilities, heightened
by collective memory of the ways in which stronger powers exploited internal weakness
in the past, still conditions both Indian thinking about international relations.1
This article explores some of the most influential conceptions of India’s global role, the
strategies leaders have used to try to realise them, and the constraints they have faced
and – repeatedly – failed to overcome.2 It focuses in particular on three: the ambitious

CONTACT Ian Hall i.hall@griffith.edu.au

[Editor’s Note: Although a separate section on Indian foreign policy has been included in this special issue, the present article
was originally submitted as part of the general assessment of India at 75, and it is therefore carried in this part of the issue.]
© 2022 The Round Table Ltd
322 I. HALL

one that emerged under Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, largely at his
direction; the more limited one that supplanted the Nehruvian vision under his daughter,
Indira Gandhi, and her successors; and the expansive one that Hindu nationalists like
Narendra Modi would like to replace both of those earlier visions. It argues that for all the
change India has undergone, especially since the end of the Cold War, and despite
significant shifts in strategy, its room for manoeuvre remains tightly constrained by
domestic circumstances and external challenges.

Splendid isolation and satyagraha

Just after midnight on 15 April 1947, members of India’s newly formed Constituent
Assembly, which was charged with governing the country and drawing up its new
constitution, were enjoined by Nehru to make a pledge. He asked them promise to
devote themselves ‘to the service of India and all her people’ but not just to those tasks.
Convinced that ‘a free India on every plane will play a big part in the world stage’, he also
asked them to dedicate themselves to ensuring that ‘ancient land attain her rightful and
honoured place in the world and makes its full and willing contribution to the promotion
of world peace and welfare of mankind’ (Nehru, 1961, p. 13).
The idea that India could and should play a grand global role – or even that such
a role was in fact India’s destiny – was not peculiar to Nehru. It was a staple of
nationalist thinking from the mid-19th century onwards, arising in reaction to the
belief that the West was superior to all things Indian. Visions of the society India might
become and the influence it might have on the rest of the world can be found in the
thinking of Dayananda Saraswati (1824–1883), the Hindu reformer and founder of the
Arya Samaj movement, and the novelist Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838–94),
whose poem, Vande Mataram, is now the national song.3 They are central to the
teachings of Hindu revivalists like Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) and Aurobindo
Ghosh (1872–1950), as well as to the more eclectic philosophy of Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948). Vivekananda and Aurobindo argued that India
was destined to emerge, once it had regained its strength, as a vishwa guru, a teacher
and spiritual guide to the world.4 Gandhi, for his part, was convinced that India was
‘fitted for the religious supremacy of the world’ – a role to be won by satyagraha or
‘soul force’ (Gandhi, 1947, p. 3).
Nehru did not share these views in their entirety, despite his caste, youthful dabbling
in theosophy, and affinity with Gandhi.5 But he was equally convinced of India’s
exceptionalism and – crucially – uniquely positioned to shape India’s diplomacy to
express it (Sullivan, 2014). Like Vivekananda, Nehru believed that India’s centuries-old
capacity to reconcile extraordinary social diversity into a kind of unity held lessons for
the world (Nehru, 1946/2004, p. 54–56; Brecher, 1998, p. 561). Like Gandhi, though with
caveats, he believed that non-violent activism, moral authority, and truth-telling could
transform international politics, with India’s aid, just as they had transformed India’s
own circumstances (Brecher, 1998, p. 562).
Thanks in no small part to Nehru, what some reasonably term India’s postcolonial
‘grand strategy’ reflected these beliefs, but also a series of significant constraints.6 That
strategy was intended to manage both internal and external challenges and pave the way
to India’s emergence as a global force commensurate with its size and history. It had three
 THE ROUND TABLE 323

elements. First, constitutional democracy, federalism, and state neutrality in matters of

religion were used not just to provide good governance, but also to manage internal
division, whether economic, linguistic, social, religious, or otherwise. Second, a mixed
economic model was adopted, in which a combination of planning and markets allocated
resources and met India’s many social and economic needs. Third, New Delhi sought to
manage its relations with the rest of the world with a blend of activism and aloofness soon
dubbed ‘non-alignment’ – an approach intended to lend India’s leaders time and
resources to address its many domestic challenges (Fair, 2019, p. 174).7
Non-alignment meant remaining uncommitted in the Cold War, but as Nehru was
keen to emphasise, it did not imply neutrality, still less pacifism.8 India reserved the rights
to criticise one or the other superpower if it chose to and even to fight if the situation
arose in which that was needed. In other words, as A. P. Rana argued, non-alignment
fused Gandhi’s truth-centred moral politics with the United Kingdom’s 19th century
policy of ‘splendid isolation’ – ‘in which . . . [the UK] . . . refused to ally with any
continental power but, at the same time, pledged to oppose any power that tried to
dominate Europe’ (Rana, 1969, p. 302). It reflected Nehru’s dislike of ‘power politics’, his
knowledge that states still engaged in those practices, and his recognition that for as long
as they did, Gandhian pacifism was impractical (see, Nehru, 1946/2004, pp. 597–602,
Raghavan, 2010, 1–2). But it also recognised the capacity of morally infused activism,
most clearly demonstrated by Gandhi in the struggle against British rule, to bring about
political change (Rana, 1969, pp. 303–304; cf., Brecher, 1998, pp. 562–564).
Nehru did have great successes with this approach. He and India’s representatives
played major roles in the delegitimisation of colonialism and racism, lent their good
offices to conflict resolution in Korea, Indochina, and the Belgian Congo, and cham­
pioned a nuclear test ban treaty (see, Bhagavan, 2013). But over time, India’s scope to act
as a ‘normative power’ narrowed, as it faced accusations of hypocrisy, as social and
economic progress slowed, and as it was outflanked by most radical postcolonial states
demanding revolutionary rather than incremental change in international relations
(Hall, 2015). New Delhi’s heavy-handed management of the security challenges posed
by ongoing tension in Kashmir, separatist insurgency in Nagaland, and the status of the
Portuguese colony of Goa, which India eventually invaded in late 1961, were all widely
criticised in the international community as inconsistent with its principles (Rana, 1976,
pp. 227–233).
Non-alignment did not provide India with as much space to promote world peace and
the welfare of mankind as Nehru hoped it would. Nor did it guarantee India’s national
security. Nehru’s legacy is overshadowed by his government’s abject failure to ward off
China’s attack in October 1962 with effective diplomacy, to prepare India’s forces to
defend the country, and to garner international support during the conflict (Raghavan,
2010, p. 313). The border war laid bare the frailty of his approach, especially his reliance
on clever diplomacy and the United Nations (UN), the refusal to ally, and the diversion of
scarce resources from military power to domestic development.9 Neither the early
recognition of the People’s Republic of China in late 1949 nor acknowledgement of its
sovereignty over Tibet in 1954 bought India goodwill in Beijing (Garver, 2001, pp. 117–
122). And when war came, the Security Council failed to respond to open aggression as it
should have done, with Resolutions pledging support to New Delhi. For its part, the
United States provided some assistance but did not send the troops or planes that Nehru
324 I. HALL

wanted (Chaudhuri, 2014, pp. 102–104; Madan, 2020, pp. 143–146). And India’s armed
forces performed poorly, revealing ‘malaise and disarray’ in planning, procurement, and
leadership (Brown, 2003, p. 328).
Had the domestic political and economic elements of Nehru’s grand strategy delivered
what they were designed to accomplish, some of these problems might have been over­
come. Democracy, federalism, and secularism did help New Delhi manage some of the
challenges associated with forging a nation-state out of a postcolonial patchwork, includ­
ing the integration of the 562 princely states into India. But they did not heal all social
divisions, which meant Nehru had to wrestle with demands to create new states within
the federation for distinct ethno-linguistic groups, which degenerated into political
violence in places like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and, most problematically,
Nagaland (see, Adeney, 2007). Nor did they placate separatists in Kashmir, despite
special provisions to ensure its autonomy. All this diverted scarce resources away from
managing external threats – a problem that grew more acute after Nehru’s death. And
resources were scarce, as economic growth faltered towards the end of the 1950s, falling
to an average of only 2.8% in the last three years of the decade (Majumdar, 2018, p. 77),
and India struggled with poor harvests, inflation, and its balance of payments (Brecher,
1998, pp. 540–545).

Tilting and testing

Despite the failure of non-alignment to deliver security to India, Nehru’s worldview
persisted long after his death in 1964, shaping the language of Indian foreign policy and
often the practice. It was challenged on the political margins by figures like the Hindu
nationalist ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya (see, for example, Upadhyaya, 1968). But
within the Congress Party, which ruled India for most of the next thirty-four years, it
continued to frame discussion of international affairs, even when policy deviated from its
principles (see, Mehta, 2009).
At the same time, a new more limited national role conception emerged after Nehru
with a more limited foreign policy agenda. To an extent, this scaled back approach
reflected Indira Gandhi’s lack of intellectual ambition – she was not inclined to introduce
a new vision, however adept she was at the practice of diplomacy (Singh, 2019, pp. 193–
197, 219–221).10 But in the main, it was a function of the fact that India now found itself
in far more difficult circumstances, with a hostile China to the north, and an emboldened
Pakistan to the west, which launched a limited war against India in 1965 (Singh, 2019,
pp. 200–201). These pressures pushed New Delhi to spend more on military power, to
expand the army to a million troops and to develop a nuclear deterrent, tested in 1974.11
They also undermined India’s faith in the idea that power politics would soon be
rendered obsolete and in the activist diplomacy Nehru had favoured.
Indira Gandhi’s approach thus focused more narrowly on India’s national interests
and on using national power to secure them. It also tilted away from the West, especially
from the United States. Non-alignment had, of course, always been a ‘particular type
of . . . balance of power policy’ (Rana, 1969, p. 302). Under Indira, this became more
obvious, as India tried to use its influence over the other postcolonial states that mostly
comprised the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to defend its interests, defy the West, and
shift a bipolar international order towards a multipolar order perceived as more
 THE ROUND TABLE 325

amenable. It was also clear in New Delhi’s decision to sign a Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation with the Soviet Union in August 1971. By that point, Indira’s government
had arrived at the view that India was unlikely to receive substantial assistance from the
US to manage the threat posed by China, given differences over Pakistan and Vietnam,
nor unconditional aid to develop the economy (Madan, 2020, pp. 221–259). Moreover,
the acrimonious Sino-Soviet split of 1969 had opened a window of opportunity too
tempting not to exploit (Singh, 2019, pp. 206–213).
So too was the insurrection that erupted in East Pakistan later in 1971. India’s military
intervention, which humiliated Pakistan and led to the creation of an independent
Bangladesh, marked a decisive shift away from Nehruvian sensitivity about the use of
force and the impact that it might have on India’s image in the world as a benign force
replete with ancient wisdom, towards a more pragmatic worldview.12 New Delhi retained
a deep-seated belief that India was a great nation – if not yet a great power – that ought to
be given due respect by the world, not least because of what Indira herself called the
‘[t]wo centuries and more of . . . foreign intervention, domination and exploitation’
it had endured (Gandhi, 1972, p. 66). For those reasons, Indira declared, India’s
‘first concern is to prevent any erosion of our independence’ (1972, p. 68). And
achieving that aim meant confronting potential threats in South Asia with military
power, if necessary, and speaking frankly to others, including the US, when they
‘impinged’ on India’s interests (Gandhi, 1972, pp. 74–75).
This shift towards a narrower, more Machiavellian, version of non-alignment was
accompanied by changes in the two other elements of the grand strategy enacted by
Nehru’s governments. As internal divisions split the Congress Party, as Indira and her
allies succumbed to authoritarian temptations, and as federalism, democracy, and secu­
larism failed to contain multiple outbreaks of unrest and insurgency, the post-
independence political settlement began to fray. In Kashmir, the Northeast, Punjab,
and West Bengal, armed uprisings broke out, requiring the deployment of the army in
support of the police, and elsewhere both political and communal violence flared. By the
1980s, India faced what Atul Kohli (1991) famously called a ‘crisis of governability’, as the
authority and capacity of government eroded away. In part, this was the result of the
failure of Nehruvian and post-Nehru economic policies, which over time had become
more statist and controlled, stifling growth, which ran at an annual rate of 3% during the
1970s (Majumdar, 2018, pp. 85–90). Some reform in the 1980s did boost growth above
5% per annum, but debt, inflation, and poor harvests pushed the economy back into
crisis by the end of the decade (Majumdar, 2018, pp. 90 and 99).
The weakening of the political and economic pillars of Indian grand strategy had
predictable effects on foreign and security policy. Heavy-handed responses to internal
unrest such as the brutal counterinsurgency campaign waged against Sikh separatists in
the 1980s undercut India’s capacity to present itself as a ‘normative power’. They also tied
down significant military and paramilitary resources that might have been employed to
address external threats or even project power beyond the borders.13 And they opened up
opportunities for malign outside actors to exploit, as the Pakistani military did in the Sikh
case, feeding acute anxiety in India about external interference in its internal affairs (Fair
et al., 2021; Mansingh, 2015, p. 111). At the same time, low levels of economic growth
restricted state capacity at all levels, limited the availability of resources to invest in
instruments of diplomatic and military power, and undermined India’s image abroad
326 I. HALL

(Cohen & Park, 1978, pp. 3–4; cf., Subrahmanyam, 1982, pp. 121–129). So too did New
Delhi’s increasingly overt push to acquire a nuclear deterrent, which jarred with a high-
profile diplomatic campaign for nuclear disarmament (Nayar & Paul, 2003, pp. 198–201).

Crisis to crisis
During 1991, India’s fragility was exposed for all to see. The Iraq War pushed up oil
prices, triggering a balance of payments crisis, and forced New Delhi to devote consider­
able resources to repatriating citizens working in the Gulf. The loss of their remittances
merely compounded the economic damage (Ganguly & Pardesi, 2009, p. 11). The Soviet
Union then collapsed, robbing India of economic assistance and diplomatic cover.
Together, these prompted significant changes to India’s domestic and foreign policies,
though – interestingly – not to New Delhi’s overall strategy nor the role conception that
underpinned it. P. V. Narasimha Rao’s newly elected government rapidly deregulated
much of the economy and began a remarkable stint of diplomatic outreach to a region
mostly neglected by India during the Cold War: East Asia. Rao went to China, Singapore,
South Korea, and Thailand during 1993 and 1994, exploring their dynamic economic
models, and launching the ‘Look East’ policy (Gordon & Henningham, 1995). The effects
of these changes were quickly felt. Economic growth rose to an average of 6.5% per
annum between 1992 and 1999 (Hall, 2019, p. 28). Trade with East Asia began to grow, as
did investment flows into India.
Rao’s economic reforms were dramatic. But the other key elements of the post-
Nehruvian grand strategy remained in place, despite coming under increasing pressure
(Mohan, 2015, p. 134). The insurgency in the Punjab abated in the early 1990s, but the
political settlement was challenged by renewed unrest in Kashmir (Evans, 2000) and the
mobilisation of a mass movement by the Hindu Right, signalled most clearly by the
demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 (Jaffrelot, 1996, pp. 449–481). The
subsequent rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), backed by the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and like them at least nominally devoted to trans­
forming India from a secular republic to an avowedly Hindu rashtra (loosely, ‘state’)
indicated strong support in sections of the community for a remodelling of India’s polity
(Hanson & Jaffrelot, 2001, pp. 1–21).
It was also increasingly clear that non-alignment was not fit for purpose. Rao himself
insisted that non-alignment was ‘entirely valid’, even in a unipolar world, because it
permitted New Delhi to question an ‘arrogant’ West without fear or favour and to promote
India’s alternative civilisational ‘vision’ (Rao, 2016, pp. 187–193). Whether it made India
secure or advanced its interests was less obvious. The unrest in Kashmir permitted Pakistan
to meddle throughout the 1990s and to create militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba to use as
proxies within India (see, Fair, 2011). To the north, China loomed ever larger, as its
economy boomed following Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. New Delhi concluded two agree­
ments with Beijing in 1993 and 1996 to try to stabilise the situation along the Line of Actual
Control (LAC), but a lasting settlement proved elusive (Pardesi, 2016, p. 181). At the same
time, India’s nuclear weapons programme came under increased scrutiny, as a Western-led
coalition pushed for an indefinite extension of Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it was
not a signatory, and a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Ganguly & Pardesi, 2009, p. 15).
 THE ROUND TABLE 327

During the 1990s, India explored various ways out of these binds. One was ‘Look East’,
boosting not just trade and investment ties, but also diplomatic and security relations with
East Asian states. That was relatively successful, leading to an invitation to join the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in 1996 and then
a framework free trade deal in 2003 (Hall, 2016, p. 273). Another was to reset relations
with the rest of South Asia in a spirit of magnanimity, captured in the so-called Gujral
Doctrine (after I. K. Gujral, who served as External Affairs and then Prime Minister). That
was arguably less successful, as New Delhi struggled to overcome years of accumulated
mistrust, and the push for deeper regional integration foundered when India and Pakistan
went to war at Kargil in 1999. The last was much more contentious: crossing the nuclear
threshold and acquiring a deterrent. Rao probably attempted that in 1995 but was dissuaded
by the US (Sitapati, 2016, pp. 289–294). The BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee achieved it three years
later.

Beyond non-alignment
The decision to test was motivated by various factors, including boosting the newly
elected BJP’s image as the defender of a great Hindu nation and stabilising the strategic
balance with China (Malik, 1998). It also had one major unintended consequence:
focussing Washington’s attention on India and stimulating dialogue with the US. What
resulted was an extraordinary change in attitudes: a realisation on the US side, catalysed
by 9/11 and by the rise of China, that India was a putative partner worth supporting, and
a realisation on the Indian side that the US was less of a threat to its interests than New
Delhi had long believed (Tellis, 2005; cf., Mohan, 2003). A strategic partnership was
formed, signalled most clearly in 2005 by the conclusion of a ten-year Defence
Framework Agreement and a civilian nuclear agreement that recognised India as a de
facto nuclear power (Hall, 2019, pp. 31–32).
In retrospect, we can see how advantageous this partnership was for New Delhi.14 It
alleviated Western pressure on India concerning its management of the Kashmir issue
and complicated the US-Pakistan relationship. It widened access to US markets and
capital. It smoothed the way to better ties with regionally important US allies, including
Australia and Japan. In other words, the partnership opened new opportunities for India
to address internal vulnerabilities, address pressing development needs, and build sorely-
needed capabilities to manage the security challenges emanating from Pakistan and
China – to escape the Ayoob’s ‘Third World security predicament’. It was not cost-
free, but nor did it demand much of India. New Delhi could remain committed to
a version of non-alignment, rebadged as ‘strategic autonomy’ (Mohan, 2013) or ‘multi­
alignment’ (see, Hall, 2016); maintain its longstanding ties with Iran and Russia; and even
engage China, economically and diplomatically. At the same time, it buttressed an
optimistic view of India as a rising democratic power, emerging to play a positive role
in an emerging multipolar order (see especially Tharoor, 2012).
At the end of the 2000s, however, India – and the Congress-led government of
Manmohan Singh – ran into difficulties. Economic growth stalled, falling from almost
10% in 2007–8 to under 5% in 2012–13 (Majumdar, 2018, p. 77). Anger grew at corrup­
tion, highlighted by alleged graft accompanying the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Political
328 I. HALL

violence flared, with Maoist Naxalite insurgency affecting a third of the country by the end
of the decade (Mahadevan, 2012). Ominously too, Chinese pressure on India grew, with an
increase in intrusions by its soldiers across the LAC (Stobdan, 2010).
Public concern about these issues propelled Narendra Modi’s BJP-led coalition into
government in May 2014. Initially, however, Modi did not alter the basic settings of India’s
foreign and security policy, despite some energetic personal diplomacy with neighbouring
states and the rebranding of ‘Look East’ to ‘Act East’ (Basrur, 2017). His government
looked to strengthen India’s strategic partnerships with Japan, Vietnam, and of course the
US. But with a view to boosting investment, trade, and thereby economic growth, Modi
also tried to establish a relationship of mutual respect with Chairman Xi Jinping, inviting
the Chinese leader to India in September 2014. That outreach failed. Beijing was dis­
appointed by New Delhi’s unwillingness to sign on to Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
India was upset by another intrusion across the LAC just before Xi’s visit. Bilateral ties
deteriorated thereafter. In April 2015, Xi unveiled the BRI-linked multi-billion dollar
China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with infrastructure running through territory
India claims at its own. Beijing then blocked India from adding a Pakistan-based terrorist
to a UN list and from joining the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. In mid-2017, the two clashed
rhetorically over BRI and physically over Chinese roadbuilding at Doklam in Bhutan, with
Beijing threatening war if India did not back down (Ganguly & Scobell, 2018).
In response, India moved away from Rajesh Rajagopalan (2020) calls the ‘evasive’
balancing of China towards a more overt strategy of working with the US, Japan,
Australia, and others to better manage and deter Beijing’s assertiveness (see, Jaishankar,
2020). It took up a different kind of role – of an emerging regional security provider,
working with like-minded states (Fung and Lam 2021). To signal this shift, India adopted
the language of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ – albeit an ‘inclusive’ one – and a ‘rules-
based order’ (Hall, 2020). To make it more possible to perform the role, it signed three so-
called ‘foundational agreements’ to facilitate military cooperation with the US (Pant &
Saha, 2020). And India also consented in late 2017 to resurrect the ‘Quad’ minilateral with
Australia, Japan, and the US, in order to share assessments of a dynamic region and
coordinate responses (Madan, 2017). Since then, India has agreed to expand its purview
far beyond maritime security to include a wide range of challenges, from cyber security
and critical minerals to supply chains and vaccines, and to elevate the dialogue first to
foreign minister-level, and then to a regular leaders’ summit (Channer, 2021).

Conclusion
Under Modi, India has shed many of earlier inhibitions about cooperating more closely
with the West, including the US. It has grown more open in criticising and confronting
China. It has become bolder in dealing with insurgency emanating from Pakistani
territory, as the 2016 and 2019 military strikes demonstrated. It has forged closer
partnerships with several Indo-Pacific states, including Australia, Japan, Singapore,
and Vietnam, and recalibrated relationships in Europe and the Middle East. At the
same time, New Delhi has downgraded India’s involvement in some longstanding
concerns, including the Non-Aligned Movement, whose summit Modi has conspicu­
ously failed to attend since coming to power. And it has managed to do all this while
 THE ROUND TABLE 329

avoiding diplomatic entrapment, allowing India to push back on Western agendas,

notably on climate change, and avoid definite commitments to the defence of its
strategic partners.
Yet, India still faces serious constraints – and others lurk. The Modi government’s
freedom of action and international influence has been constrained by scarce financial
resources, intensifying security challenges, and domestic policy – some generating inter­
national concern. After 2014, due partly to government policies and partly to global
circumstances, India’s economy struggled to post growth rates much above 5%, with
knock-on effects for government budgets and key items like expanding the diplomatic
corps or modernising the military (Soz, 2019). Then, in 2020 and again in 2021, the
economy was hit very hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, likely with lasting effects on New
Delhi’s finances (Mukhopadhyay, 2021). At the same time, India was put under sustained
pressure by Beijing, as Xi sought to coerce India into reversing its strategic alignment with
the US and its allies. In the first half of 2020, Chinese troops seized control of territory in
what India considers part of Ladakh, leading to a skirmish in mid-June that left twenty
Indian troops and an unknown number of Chinese dead (Tarapore, 2021). In parallel, New
Delhi has had to manage an upsurge of unrest in Kashmir resulting from the Modi
government’s decision to change its status and curb its autonomy within the Indian state.
These actions – and the government’s handling of Kashmiri grievances – have once again
focused international attention on India’s domestic politics. And so too have Modi’s
attempts to unpick parts of Nehru’s political settlement, especially government neutrality
in matters of religion, and privilege Hindu communities and concepts (see, Jaffrelot, 2021).
In combination, these difficulties will likely frustrate attempts to realise the Hindu
nationalist dream of ensuring India becomes a vishwa guru, as similar domestic shortcomings
hobbled Nehru’s effort to make India an exemplar of a different kind. They may also test the
faith of both international investors and foreign governments in India, making it harder for
New Delhi to access the capital and assistance it needs to satisfy demands from citizens for
a better life and to manage acute security challenges inside and outside the country. India’s
approach to managing its international relations has changed in significant ways in recent
years, but its power and influence continue to be bounded by serious internal constraints.

Notes
1. On this awareness, see, (Chacko, 2012) and (Chatterjee Miller, 2013).
2. On national role conceptions, see Holsti’s classic study (Holsti, 1970).
3. On Saraswati, see, (Scott, 2014), and on Chattopadhyay, see, (Chatterjee, 1986), pp. 54-84.
4. For a useful introduction to these thinkers, see, (Sharma, 2003).
5. Nehru’s ambivalence about religion in general and Hinduism in particular, as well as his
views on theosophy, are clear in his Autobiography (Nehru, 1936/1982) [1936] and Nehru
(1946/2004).
6. See especially (Nayar & Paul, 2003), pp. 115-158, and (Subrahmanyam, 2012).
7. According to Nehru’s confidante, V. K. Krishna Menon, he apparently disapproved of the
term ‘non-alignment’, but came to accept it (Brecher, 1968, p. 3).
8. On neutralism in theory and practice, and compared to non-alignment, see, (Lyon, 1963).
9. On the diversion of resources, see, (Wilkinson, 2015), pp. 86-123.
10. On Haksar, see, (Ramesh, 2018).
11. On the conventional build-up, see, (Kavic, 1967), pp. 192-207, and on the nuclear pro­
gramme, see, (Perkovich, 2001).
330 I. HALL

12. In Indira Gandhi’s view, ‘[d]iplomacy and the conduct of foreign affairs are generally
thought to require a certain shrewdness. Perhaps this is important: Machiavelli and
Chanakya certainly thought so’ (Gandhi, 1982, p. 95).
13. On India’s approach to these challenges, see, (Rajagopalan, 2007).
14. Not all, of course, were happy with this partnership. See, (Ollapally & Rajagopalan, 2012),
pp. 101-105.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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