Discuss the continuity and change in India’s foreign policy.

‘Continuity’ and ‘change’ are alienable feature of a working foreign policy and balancing the both is the key for successful foreign policy.

Continuity in India’s foreign policy

One important aspect of continuity in India’s foreign policy is its quest for strategic autonomy. States prioritize a variety of external goals including power, security, survival, justice etc. In this vein, strategic autonomy has been India’s primary foreign policy goal for the last seven decades. It can be best understood as a state of independence from the constraints imposed by goals, policies and actions of other actors in the international affairs. This thinking was in large parts the motivation behind India’s cold war foreign policy of ‘non-alignment’, which created space for India to pursue its national interests with maximum autonomy given the intensely polarized conditions of the cold war. Therefore, India has continued with the basic characteristics of this policy even after the end of the cold war. At the same time, keeping in view the developments in international politics from time to time, changes & adjustments have been made in this policy but these changes have been more in India’s relations with specific countries rather than in basic elements of India’s foreign policy. This is so because right from the beginning it was clear that non-alignment wasn’t an end in itself rather an instrument of policy designed to safeguard India’s interests. Therefore, it wasn’t a static policy but subject to change in accordance & needs.

Changes in India’s foreign policy

• With the passing of the cold war that necessitated much rhetorical posturing aimed at avoiding alliance with the superpowers to maintain strategic autonomy, Indian foreign policy has shed its moralizing concerns and embraced a more overt pragmatism.  In other words, the contemporary Indian strategic thinking reflects a conscious rejection of Nehruvian ‘idealism’ in favor of more pragmatic mode of business.
• India’s growing economic power, especially since the liberalization of 1991, has added significant economic content or overtones to its foreign policy, which also contributes to pragmatism.
• India’s foreign policy increasingly complicated by the fragmentation of India’s domestic political sphere into a multiple of regional parties that form often unwieldy coalition governments at the federal level. In the new millennium coalition governments are the norm in India and relatively small regional parties are often able to detail India’s established foreign policy objectives.

Change’s in India foreign

• Ideational level :- At this level the India has grown interestingly shifting from a discursive course with real time consequences of how India redefines it’s alignment in terms of strategic economy for a strong global image is a pre- emptive for India.
• Structural level :- Managing great power matrix at a time of structural fluidity in the international order has been a core component in the past 5 years. The imagery of an Indian P.M with world leaders presents India’s strengthening position in the global politics and structural order.
• Institutional level :- At this level remapping India’s strategic frontiers should have important consequences as it redefines India’s role in south Asia and links it substantively with east and south east Asia, something that has been dormant in the past years.

Conclusion:-

The recent change in the India foreign policy is guided by the imagery view of the Indian PM with the world leaders presents India’s strengthening position in the global politics and structural orders and according to the foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale, India’s future would be largely shaped by the kind of role New Delhi managers to play in the G-20 and the Indio-pacific signaling clearly the changing priorities of the Indian Foreign policy establishment.