| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper will provide a survey of India's foreign policy from 1947
to the present day. It is divided into three distinct historical sections.
It will also attempt to explain the underlying reasons for these policies,
India's initial orientation, and subsequent shifts that occurred over
time. The first section deals with the period from 1947 to 1962, the
second from 1962 to 1991 and the third from 1991 to the present. The
choice of these three segments is far from arbitrary. The first period
constituted the most idealistic phase of India's foreign policy under
the tutelage of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The
second began with India's disastrous defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian
border war. This period saw a gradual shift away from the early idealism
that had characterized the country's foreign policy and the adoption
of an increasingly "self-help" approach to foreign policy while retaining
elements of the Nehruvian rhetoric.1 The third phase began with the
end of the Cold War and the adoption of a more pragmatic foreign
policy hewing closely to the principles of Realism.
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