- Prelims: Current events of international importance, G20, SCO, UNSC, NAM etc
- Mains GS Paper II: Bilateral, regional and global grouping and agreements involving India or affecting India’s interests, Important international institutions agencies and fora etc
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- The ongoing war in Ukraine and the confrontation between Russia (India’s traditional partner) and the United States and the West (also India’s partners) on the other have increased the frequency/regularity of the question: which side India stands?
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
India First Policy:
- With one-fifth of the world’s population, India has the right to have its own side and to weigh its own interests.
- Realistic Diplomacy: India has a new voice in the global firmament, rooted in its domestic realities and civilizational ethos, as well as firm in the pursuit of its vital interests.
- Indian Foreign Minister remarks at Raisina Dialogue:
- It is better to engage with the world on the basis of “who we are” rather than try and please the world.
- India is confident about its identity and priorities, the world will engage with India on its terms.
Moral Aspects of India’s Foreign Policy:
- Panchsheel (Five Virtues):
- Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty
- Mutual non-aggression
- Mutual non-interference
- Equality and mutual benefit
- Peaceful co-existence
- Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The World is One Family): It is based on the concept of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas.
Reason for India not taking the sides:
- Pole: It views itself as a pole in the international system, and not as a satellite state or a camp follower.
- Interests: It views itself as a side whose interests are not accounted for by other camps or poles.
Why does India consider itself as a pole in the international system?
- Character of the country’s long struggle for independence
- The pre and post-Independence articulations of leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhiji, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak among others on international politics
- Legatee(legacy)state: The primacy India inherited as the legatee state of the British empire in South Asia
- Civilisational: India’s larger than life civilisational sense of self
- Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) experiment: It contributed to India’s desire for a unique foreign policy identity and a voice in the comity of nations.
Evidence of India as pole since beginning:
- NAM: pursuing non-alignment for several decades after Independence.
India’s stand:
- South Asia: It has not actively sought to dominate the South Asian regional subsystem even when it could.
- Balancing behavior: Its balancing behavior has been subpar
- Alliances: India has refused to build alliances in the classical sense of the term.
- Occasional balancing behavior: for instance, the 1971 India-Soviet Treaty during the Bangladesh war was contingent on emergencies.
Elements of India’s idea of being a pole:
- Strategic periphery: India believes that it has a strategic periphery in South Asia where it has a natural claim to primacy.
- Discourages interference by other powers in space.
- Stand with underprivileged: India often tends to speak for ‘underprivileged collectives’, physical (South Asia) or otherwise (NAM, developing nations, global south, etc.
- Rule of law: It welcomes the rule of law and regional order
Way Forward
- NAM: India’s non-alignment is not neutrality, but the ability to take a position on a given issue on a case-by-case basis.
- South Asia: India’s historical focus on the region has been more of a provider of common goods than as a rule setter or/of demand of allegiance.
- India’s recent or past statements on issues of global importance: Ukraine or Iraq, NATO’s aerial campaign in Serbia, or bringing climate change to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
- Taking positions not just suit its interests but are also informed by its sense of being a unique player on the global stage.
- India is a pivotal power in the Indo-Pacific and beyond with an ability to help tackle security, climate and other challenges of global consequence.
- India will chair the G20 and the SCO in 2022: It will further seek to assert itself as a major pole in the international system, and dissuade demands to follow one camp or another.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
Q. The long sustained image of India as a leader of the oppressed and marginalized nations has disappeared on account of its new found role in the emerging global order.’ Elaborate(UPSC 2019) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
