India's foreign policy: principles and evolution

The first principle

A country's foreign policy is the pursuit of its national interest abroad with the means it has, and those means change faster than the interest. India's core interests have stayed the same since 1947: security of its territory, room to make its own choices, and an external environment that helps it grow and lift its people out of poverty. What has changed is India's weight and the shape of the world around it, so the instruments have moved from moral leadership and non alignment to strategic partnerships and multi alignment. The thread that runs through every phase is strategic autonomy, the refusal to let another power decide India's choices.

The core

What shapes India's foreign policy

• Geography. India sits at the head of the Indian Ocean, with long land borders with China and Pakistan, so it faces both a continental threat and a maritime opportunity. Its smaller neighbours make South Asia both its first sphere of influence and its first source of friction.
• History and values. The freedom struggle left a dislike of colonialism, racial discrimination and military blocs. Article 51 of the Constitution, a Directive Principle, asks the state to promote international peace and security and to settle disputes by arbitration, and the civilisational idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) is now used in India's official diplomacy.
• Economy. A developing economy needs capital, technology, energy and markets. Since 1991 trade, investment and energy security have become as central to diplomacy as security, and India imports most of its crude oil.
• Security. Two nuclear armed neighbours with whom India has fought wars, cross border terrorism, and the rise of China decide much of India's defence diplomacy.
• Diaspora and domestic politics. More than three crore Indians and people of Indian origin live abroad, and their remittances and influence are an asset. At home, states such as West Bengal on Teesta water can shape policy.

From idealism to strategic autonomy

• Panchsheel (1954). The five principles were written into the preamble of the April 1954 agreement between India and China on trade with the Tibet region: mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non aggression, mutual non interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
• Non alignment (1950s and 1960s). Jawaharlal Nehru refused to join either the American or the Soviet bloc. The Asian African Conference at Bandung (April 1955) built Afro Asian solidarity, and the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) was founded at Belgrade in September 1961 by Nehru, Tito, Nasser, Sukarno and Nkrumah.
• The 1962 shock. Defeat in the war with China showed the limits of moral diplomacy without military strength.
• Realism in the 1970s. The Indo Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation (August 1971) gave India a security partner before the Bangladesh war of December 1971, and Pokhran I (1974) signalled nuclear capability.
• After the Cold War (1991). The Soviet collapse and the balance of payments crisis led to liberalisation and the Look East Policy towards Southeast Asia. The Gujral Doctrine (1996) asked India, as the larger country, to help its smaller neighbours without insisting on reciprocity.
• Nuclear weapon state (1998). After the Pokhran II tests of May 1998, India declared a doctrine of credible minimum deterrence and No First Use, formally adopted in January 2003, with nuclear weapons to be used only in retaliation against a nuclear attack on Indian territory or Indian forces anywhere, while keeping the option of a nuclear response to a major biological or chemical attack.
• Strategic partnerships (1998 onwards). Starting with France in 1998, India built partnerships with many powers at once, of which the India United States (US) civil nuclear deal (2005 to 2008) was the turning point.
• Act East and Neighbourhood First (2014 onwards). Look East became Act East in 2014, adding security and connectivity to trade. Neighbourhood First gave priority to South Asia, and SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region, 2015) set out India's maritime vision, widened in March 2025 in Mauritius into MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions).

Dimensions

Leader of the oppressed, or a rising power?

• The case that the image has faded. India now works closely with the US, Japan and Australia in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), seeks permanent membership of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, and argues for its own interests in trade and climate talks rather than leading a common Third World front as it did in the 1960s and 1970s. Critics call this transactional diplomacy.
• The case that it has been renewed. Under its Group of Twenty (G20) presidency India brought the African Union in as a permanent member at the New Delhi summit (September 2023), and it has convened Voice of Global South Summits since January 2023. Vaccine Maitri sent Indian made vaccines to many developing countries from January 2021.
• A balanced reading. India has moved from leading the developing world by speeches to serving it with capacity, such as digital public infrastructure, lines of credit and training. It speaks for the Global South while being courted by the West, and it uses that position to bridge the two rather than to choose between them.

Waning globalisation and sovereign nationalism

• What has changed. The faith of the 1990s in open markets and global rules has weakened since the financial crisis of 2008. The United Kingdom voted in 2016 to leave the European Union (Brexit) and left in 2020, the US and China have fought a trade and technology war since 2018, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body has not worked since December 2019. In 2025 the US raised tariffs on most trading partners, including India.
• Why. Job losses blamed on trade, dependence on Chinese supply chains exposed during the pandemic, and the use of trade and finance as weapons in the Russia Ukraine war have led states to put sovereignty and security ahead of efficiency. Nationalist leaders win votes by promising to protect home industry and borders.
• What it means for India. India too has turned towards self reliance: it stayed out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in November 2019, and launched Aatmanirbhar Bharat and production linked incentive schemes in 2020. Yet it also signs selective trade agreements, with the United Arab Emirates (2022), Australia (2022), the European Free Trade Association (2024) and the United Kingdom (2025), and presents itself as a trusted part of supply chains that are moving out of China.

The US China rivalry and India

• A harder rival than the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a military superpower with a weak economy and almost no trade with the US. China is the world's largest manufacturing and trading nation, deeply tied to the US economy, competes at the frontier of technologies such as artificial intelligence, batteries and telecommunications, and is building the largest navy in the world by number of ships. Containment cannot easily cut off a country on which much of the world depends.
• What it means for India. The rivalry raises India's value to the US and Europe as a democratic counterweight and an alternative manufacturing base, which brings technology and investment. It also carries risks: India shares a disputed border with China, depends on it for many imports, and does not want to be drawn into a bloc or become a front line state.

In practice

Who makes foreign policy

• The Union executive. Foreign affairs, the UN, war and peace, and treaties are in the Union List (Entries 10 to 15), and under Article 73 the executive power of the Union extends to them. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) sets direction, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) runs diplomacy, and the National Security Council (NSC), set up in 1998 with the National Security Adviser as its key official, handles strategic questions.
• Parliament. Parliament does not ratify treaties, but under Article 253 it can make laws for any part of India to implement them. Its Standing Committee on External Affairs examines the MEA, and where a treaty changes territory a constitutional amendment is needed, as with the Hundredth Amendment (2015) that gave effect to the Land Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh.
• The states. States have no formal role, but their consent shapes water sharing and border trade, and the MEA set up a States Division in 2014 to help states attract investment and partners abroad.

Strategic autonomy at work

• Russia and Ukraine. Since 2022 India has abstained on most UN resolutions on the war, kept buying Russian oil, and called for dialogue and diplomacy, while deepening ties with the US and Europe.
• Many groupings at once. India is a member of the Quad and of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, since enlarged), a pattern described as multi alignment: issue based partnerships with many powers, none of them an alliance.

Issues and way forward

• A thin diplomatic service. India's foreign service is small for a country of its size and ambitions, a point the Standing Committee on External Affairs has made more than once. Steady expansion and lateral expertise in trade, technology and law would match capacity to reach.
• Delivery gaps. Projects in the neighbourhood often run late, which lets China present itself as the faster partner. Ring fenced funds and project monitoring by the MEA's Development Partnership Administration would help.
• Balancing great powers. Ties with the US, Russia and Europe pull in different directions on sanctions, defence and trade. The answer is clarity on core interests and economic strength.
• Credibility with the Global South. India's claim to speak for developing countries depends on what it delivers, so steady finance and technology sharing matter more than summits.

Common confusions

• Non alignment and neutrality. Neutrality means staying out of a conflict; non alignment meant staying out of blocs while taking positions on issues, as India did on colonialism and apartheid.
• Strategic autonomy and multi alignment. Strategic autonomy is the goal, freedom to decide; multi alignment is one method, working with several powers so that no single one has leverage.
• Look East and Act East. Look East (1991) was mainly about trade with Southeast Asia; Act East (2014) adds security, connectivity and the wider Indo Pacific, including Japan, Australia and the Pacific islands.
• Panchsheel and NAM. Panchsheel is a set of principles for relations between two states; the NAM was a movement of many states outside the Cold War blocs.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: national interest, strategic autonomy, Panchsheel, non alignment, Bandung, Gujral Doctrine, credible minimum deterrence, No First Use, Act East, Neighbourhood First, SAGAR, multi alignment, Global South, sovereign nationalism, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
• Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: "At the New Delhi G20 summit of September 2023, India secured permanent membership for the African Union, a sign that its leadership of the Global South now rests on delivery rather than rhetoric."
  • Introduction with a principle: "Article 51 of the Constitution directs the state to promote international peace and security, and India's foreign policy has pursued that aim through strategic autonomy since 1947."
  • Conclusion: "India's foreign policy has changed its instruments, from non alignment to multi alignment, without changing its purpose, which is the freedom to choose in its own interest."
  • Conclusion: "In a world of waning globalisation and great power rivalry, India's influence will depend less on which side it takes and more on how strong and reliable a partner it becomes."