A New Modi Doctrine For Indian Foreign Policy?


NEW DELHI: Marking a decisive break from the slowly eroding traditional underpinnings of Indian foreign policy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his United Nations speech set out a new framework marked by two elements: replacing the polemics of a bipolar era with a policy centred on dialogue and engagement and the vestiges of anti-colonialism with a focus on democratization.

In the Nehruvian era India's foreign policy was forged in the crucible of anti-colonial struggles in a world emerging from the trauma of a global war into a new confrontation between two ideologies. Jawaharlal Nehru sought to build a third way through the nonaligned movement and the solidarity of the developing countries and people fighting colonialism.

The legacy of colonialism generally infused it with a streak of antipathy towards the West, which often lined itself against some of the anti-colonial movements. The heady dreams of independence and people power for a majority of the nonaligned nations newly independent turned into nightmares of authoritarianism or dictatorship.

Although, the world has changed since the heyday of the nonaligned movement and the collapse of a bipolar world with the breakup of the Soviet Union 23 years ago, India drifted along as it tried to find a place for itself in the new universe with an evolving foreign policy.

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Source: IANS