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India's foreign policy: Key drivers

a
Varun Sahni
a
Professor of International Politics at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, India

Version of record first published: 11 Nov 2009

To cite this article: Varun Sahni (2007): India's foreign policy: Key drivers, South African Journal of International Affairs, 14:2,
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 21

India's Foreign Policy:

Key Drivers
Varun Sahni1
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Introduction

T o survive, to prosper and to be oneself: these basic needs are the

life force of countries just as they are of individual human beings.
While states derive their interests from needs that are common and
shared, they define these interests in concrete terms on the basis of
their specific attributes. To understand the interests that drive Indian
foreign policy therefore requires us to focus on India's attributes. What
kind of country is India internally and where is it located in the
structure of world politics?
There are eight key drivers of contemporary Indian foreign policy:
India's quest for strategic autonomy; its aspiration to status
transformation; its desire to play a role in shaping the global system; its
need to access technology and bypass technology denial regimes; its
hunger for energy; its regional imperatives; its search for a continental
role; and its diaspora policy. There are also five crucial factors that are,
significantly, not acting as drivers of India's foreign policy today —
democracy, culture, geography, markets and norms. While the drivers
are obvious enough, the non-drivers are not and are therefore
deserving of analysis as well. This article will analyse both the drivers
and non-drivers of India's foreign policy.

Key drivers of India's foreign policy

Strategic autonomy

The roots of India's quest for strategic autonomy can be traced back
to 1991, and even all the way back to India's independence in 1947.
Non-alignment was the attempt of a large, but weak, post-colonial
state to maintain policy autonomy in a bipolar world. In 1971, in the
face of an emerging Washington-Beijing-lslamabad axis and in

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 22 South African Journal of International Affairs

anticipation of another war against Pakistan, India signed a Treaty of

Peace, Friendship and Co-operation with the Soviet Union. For 20
years, India enjoyed a quasi-alliance relationship with the Soviet Union
that provided it with a sense of security backup. Since the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991, India has been friendless in the international
system: it has friendly relations with many countries but friendship, in
the sense of mutual support in security matters, with none.
Thus, India's quest for strategic autonomy is partly the outcome of
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a conjunction of unexpected circumstances in the 1990s, India's most

dangerous decade by far.2 India discovered that it was friendless at the
same time as its external environment was becoming fraught with
every type of domestic problem imaginable. In the early 1990s, the
Indian economy was facing an acute foreign exchange crisis; divisive
identity politics had created violent religious, caste and regional
fissures in Indian society; Pakistan was openly fomenting rebellion
through terrorism in Punjab and Kashmir; and Beijing had blatantly
transferred not just missile components but entire M-11 missiles to
Islamabad.3
As we now know, India not only successfully navigated the
perilous 1990s; it was during these years that its long-incubating
technological revolution finally emerged. Thus, the quest for strategic
autonomy is also the product of deliberate choice: India is now far too
big to lie under the security umbrella of any other power.
Nevertheless, we must be clear that India has not yet attained strategic
autonomy; it still remains a quest. It is in the context of this driver that
India's nuclear policy is best understood.

Status transformation
The second driver of India's foreign policy is palpable even to
outsiders: India's desire for status transformation in the international
political system. This desire manifests itself most obviously in India's
overt bid to acquire a permanent seat with veto rights in the United
Nations Security Council (UNSC). In 2004-05, India was a committed
member of the Group of Four (C-4), an alliance of convenience with
Germany, Japan and Brazil formed for the exclusive purpose of
supporting each other's bids for permanent UNSC seats. Although the
G-4 gambit failed spectacularly in September 2005, India's desire for a
UNSC permanent seat remains a strong driver of Indian diplomacy.
It is worth noting that India's foreign policy has always exhibited a
dichotomy between principle and practice: an ideological opposition

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 Sahni: India's Foreign Policy 23

to formal institutionalised discrimination in the international system —

such as UNSC permanent membership and nuclear weapon state
status in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — has gone hand-
in-hand with a pragmatic willingness to seek the best possible deal for
India within a hierarchical international system that is not egalitarian.
This pragmatism is even more pronounced today than in the past. To
understand why, we must recognise that India is now an emerging
power, in other words one of a very small group of states that possess
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both the capability and the willingness to manoeuvre their way into
great power status. Indeed, the emergence of India is now widely
recognised as one of the significant developments in world politics
over the past decade.

Shaping the system

To acquire great power status implies the acquisition of a system-
shaping role. It is therefore hardly surprising that the need to shape the
global system has emerged as a key driver of India's foreign policy
today. This need stems from the fact that India remains a developing
economy, located in a world economic system that is designed in a
manner inimical to the interests of developing countries. India is now
a technology-producing economy in many important sectors, some of
which involve frontier technologies such as biotechnology and
nanotechnology.
Nevertheless, the country's dynamism in these sectors must be
balanced against its persistent technology dependence in many other
sectors of the economy. In particular, the needs of a large and
impoverished rural hinterland remain a core driver of India's economic
and trade policy.
There are therefore many areas in which India can make common
cause with other countries of the Global South. This can be witnessed
in concrete terms in the formation and operation of the India, Brazil
and South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA), a new trilateral initiative
involving two other important southern countries. Formally
inaugurated by the Brasilia Declaration of 6 June 2003,4 IBSA has led
to an impressive co-ordination of policies and strategies of the three
countries in the context of world trade negotiations. Inasmuch as it
involves changing the status quo, this driver obviously makes India
revisionist at the international level. However, this is a form of weak
revisionism, and does not involve the use of force to change the status
quo, especially the territorial status quo.

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 24 ' South African journal of International Affairs

Access to technology
Although strategic autonomy and status transformation are
fundamental drivers of India's foreign policy, this does not imply that
India is either willing or able to 'go it alone' in the international system.
On the contrary, India needs to interact with the outside world for a
wide variety of reasons, not least of which is access to new
technologies that, in a globalised world, cannot germinate in any single
country in isolation. This imperative poses a significant challenge to
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India's diplomacy. India, it should be remembered, is currently outside

the web of interlocking treaties, arrangements and supplier groups that
make up the multilateral non-proliferation architecture, much of it set
up with the express purpose of denying technology to India.5 The US,
in particular, as the leader of the global technology denial regime, has
placed controls on the export of 'dual use' technologies to India since
the late 1970s.6
With the positive transformation of US-India relations since 2001,
India began to put significant diplomatic and political pressure on the
US to ease restrictions on the export of dual-use technology, and also
to increase bilateral co-operation in the areas of space technology and
civilian nuclear technology. India forcefully projected access to dual-
use technology as a 'litmus test' of the quality of the bilateral
relationship with the US, the 'touchstone' of a new strategic
relationship aimed at building a 'long-term strategic partnership'.7
India's diplomatic pressure and concessions, coupled with the US
strategic interest to see India emerge as an authentic counterweight to
China, led to the signing of a civil nuclear co-operation agreement
between the two countries on 3 August 2007.8 The technology denial
situation could now change rapidly: India would now be able to
negotiate agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency
and the Nuclear Suppliers Group that would bring it within the global
non-proliferation architecture.

Energy security
If access to technology has been a longstanding driver of India's
foreign policy, concerns about guaranteed access to energy supplies
has emerged in the past few years as a powerful foreign policy driver.
India has an enormous population that is growing and modernising
rapidly from a low socio-economic base. India's energy dependence is
expected to grow fivefold over the next 25 years.9 Its growing hunger
for energy is evident: it now has the sixth largest energy consumption

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 Sahni: India's Foreign Policy 25

in the world and one of the fastest growth rates of increasing energy
consumption.
Energy scarcity, both in its burgeoning cities and its rural
hinterland, is emerging as an issue that could have an impact on India's
internal security. It therefore comes as no surprise that the search for
energy security has become a fundamental driver of foreign policy.
The frenetic search for energy will therefore drive India's
diplomacy in many parts of the world into the foreseeable future. In
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return for its civil nuclear co-operation agreement with India, the US
has attempted to wean India away from a possible gas pipeline project
that would connect Iranian supplies to the Indian market via Pakistan.
However, it is clear that India needs to diversify its energy basket.
Thus, it can be expected that all feasible energy options — building gas
pipelines, constructing nuclear reactors, diversifying oil supplies,
revisiting coal-fired thermal power stations, investing in alternative
fuels and renewable energy — will be considered and put into
operation in the coming years.

Regional consolidation
One of the most important drivers of India's foreign policy is the
imperative to integrate and pacify its own region. In South Asia, India
clearly is the regional power: its population,10 GDP11 and military
expenditure12 are three times larger than those of all its neighbours
combined. Military power in South Asia is also acutely concentrated.
India's military and paramilitary forces vastly outnumber those of its
neighbours,13 as do the weapon systems and platforms in its arsenal.
Unsurprisingly, India is a status quo power at the regional level.
Nevertheless, its dominance in South Asia is contested, often severely,
by its regional neighbours. This poses a serious challenge for Indian
policy: India cannot emerge at the global level if its neighbours keep
its policy attention focused on the region. For India, its region isn't a
launching pad, it's a constraint.
Over the past three decades, China has built strong political and
economic links with nearly all of India's neighbours in South Asia.
While India has failed to present a feasible regional vision and invest
heavily in it, China has worked in a systematic and piecemeal manner
to create an alternative incentive structure for India's neighbouring
countries. The net result, by Chinese design and Indian default, has
been to tie India down within a regional framework that is detrimental
to India's interests and ambitions.

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 26 South African Journal of International Affairs

India is now trying to undercut South Asia, a regional frame of

reference in which it has encountered stubborn hostility, not only from
its most important neighbours, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also from
some of its smaller neighbours.
Frustrated with the lack of progress in the South Asian Association
for Regional Co-operation (SAARC), India is now seeking to break out
of the SAARC region and invent a new regional framework for itself.
This involves a new emphasis on sub-regional as well as super-regional
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(i.e., pan-Asian) co-operation. India is, in fact, already beginning to

move in several directions simultaneously.
In the first place, it is emphasising the bilateral co-operation route;
the most significant example is the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade
Agreement.' 4 Secondly, India is now putting considerable diplomatic
energy into sub-regional initiatives, such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative
for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Co-operation and the
Mekong Ganga Co-operation.15 Thirdly, the notion of an 'extended
neighbourhood' that includes Central Asia and South-East Asia is
another novel notion in Indian regional policy.16 Finally, India is
beginning to emerge as a factor and player in continental contexts; its
participation in the East Asian Summit is surely a sign of things to
come.17

Asian balances
Thus, a new driver of India's foreign policy is its search for a
continental role. As an Asian and Indian Ocean power, India has
always had a strategic geographic location. Furthermore, the shift in
the global centre of gravity from the Euro-Atlantic to the Asia Pacific is
increasing India's global weight, as it is doing for the other major Asian
states. The rise of China, emergence of India, normalisation of Japan
and staying power of the US will make the 21st century an
'Americasian' century.18 Unlike Europe, Asia is still living in the era of
political modernity; the principal political driver across the Asian
continent remains the sovereign territorial state perfecting its
sovereign territoriality.
Unless proactive diplomacy succeeds in preventing it, two
opposing axes of power in Asia will emerge over time due to the rise
of China and American attempts to contain Chinese power. For India,
this would not be a welcome scenario either externally or domestically
and would raise many troubling policy dilemmas. It is unlikely that
India will be drawn into the containment of China. India is simply too

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 Sahni: India's Foreign Policy 27

large to be a member of America's security community. However,

India will also not be party to an Asian alliance against the West for the
simple reason that such an axis would be led by China.
To put the matter bluntly, India is unlikely to trade American
global hegemony for Chinese continental hegemony. India would be
too big to hide, so a new round of non-alignment, despite being the
logical outcome of India's politico-diplomatic dilemma, would also be
difficult to pull off.
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Fortunately, an alternative exists: India could work actively to

bring both the US and China into a new co-operative security
architecture in the Asia Pacific. An 'Asian Helsinki process' could
potentially achieve a lot. It could, for instance, reduce the size of
arsenals in Asia, enmesh Chinese and American capabilities in Asia
within a larger co-operative process, lead to the evolution of a new
and authentic Asian identity, build habits of co-operative behaviour on
the Asian continent, and perhaps even play a role in the
'democratisation' of China. We can also be certain that co-operative
security will not emerge in the Asia Pacific without the acquiescence,
if not the enthusiastic participation, of both China and the US.
As Table 1 suggests, transcending would be a more efficient and
effective strategy for India than hiding, balancing or 'bandwagoning'.19

Table 1: India's options in Asia

Active strategy Passive strategy

Involved in BALANCING BANDWAGONING

power politics
(Against China; hence an (With China; hence an
anti-China strategy) anti-US strategy)

Not involved in TRANSCENDING HIDING

power politics
(Buifding cooperative (Non-alignment — neither
security in Asia) balancing nor bandwagoning)

Overseas Indians
The final driver that we will consider is very recent in origin. India has
launched a proactive diaspora policy to attract persons of Indian
origin. This initiative involved setting up a High-Level Committee on
Indian Diaspora, which submitted its report in December 2001.20 This

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 28 Sooth African journal of International Affairs

new policy of extra-territorial incorporation marks a sharp break with

the past, when India demonstrated little concern for persons of Indian
origin living in other countries. There are many instances of this official
apathy to the diaspora. When Indians in Burma faced persecution in
the early 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru advised them to identify completely
with the local population. The expulsion of the large Indian population
from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972, likewise, did not result in any
meaningful reaction from India. This attitude of neglect has now
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changed. For example, during the Gulf War of 1991, India airlifted
about 300 000 Indians from the region and brought them back to
India. In July 2006, at the height of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon,
four Indian Navy warships docked at Beirut in order to evacuate
12 000 Indians living in that country. What explains this dramatic
change in policy?
Three factors have contributed to the new diaspora policy. The
first is religious-cultural: the emergence of Hindu assertiveness in India
and in the diaspora has been simultaneous and mutually reinforcing.2'
The election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power therefore led
to a radical re-examination of India's policy towards overseas Indians.
The second is economic: the Reserve Bank of India reports that Indians
living abroad transferred $24.6 billion to India in the fiscal year
2005-2006, which amounts to 3.08% of the country's GDP (in
comparison, exports from India's booming software sector brought in
$23.6 billion in 2005-2006).22 But the final factor - politics - is
perhaps the most important one. The Indian government has realised
the impressive political influence that overseas Indians can bring to
bear in the policymaking process of other countries; lobbying by
Indian-American organisations in the US is easily the most important
example of this political influence.23
Nevertheless, the politics of extra-territorial incorporation also
poses novel challenges for India's foreign policy. What should India do
if persons of Indian origin were to clash with the government of a
country with which India has friendly ties? This question is far from
academic, as India learnt when it initially supported Tamil insurgent
groups against the Sri Lankan government. India faced an awkward
situation in December 2007, with the Hindu Rights Action Front, a
coalition of 30 Hindu non-governmental organisations in Malaysia,
openly taking on the Malaysian government. While there is
considerable sympathy in India for the Indian population in Malaysia,
the Indian government clearly decided not to get involved in a
diplomatic squabble with Malaysia on the issue.24

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 Sahni: India's Foreign Policy 29

What are the non-drivers of foreign policy?

Democracy

In June 2000, India was one of the co-sponsors of a US-led initiative

that resulted in the creation of a 'Community of Democracies' in
Warsaw, Poland.25 For India, this diplomatic initiative was an
aberration. Although India is a liberal democracy, it resists playing the
democracy card in its foreign relations. This reluctance is for three
distinct reasons. While being a democracy may well mean India is on
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the 'winning side' of history at the level of values, we must recognise

that democracy has taken root in the country for prosaic and
instrumental reasons. From the foundational moments of the republic,
participative and representative politics have created the space for
socio-cultural pluralism and thus made the political experiment called
India possible. Thus, India has very Indian reasons for being
democratic,26 reasons that do not translate easily into the sphere of
foreign policy.
The second reason why democracy does not feature in Indian
foreign policy is because of India's ambiguous relationship with the
Western market democracies. India has never been a part of the
Western security community: threats to India have never been seen as
threats to democracy. This was true even during the border war
against China in 1962. Even today, the liturgical roll call of post-9/11
terrorist outrages includes Bali, Madrid and London, but not Mumbai.
Finally, India resides in an undemocratic neighbourhood; in most
of India's neighbours, democracy has either been completely absent
or has been at best a fleeting visitor. Today, the military runs the state
in four of India's neighbours — Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and
Thailand. Thus, India does not have the luxury of interacting only with
those countries that are democratic. Indeed, an argument could be
made that overt Indian support for democratic forces in its
neighbouring countries would weaken those forces. Nevertheless,
India's reluctance to play the democracy card has opened it up for
criticism, particularly from Western countries that would like to see a
more active Indian role in Burma, Nepal or even Sri Lanka.

Culture
Socially plural and constitutionally inclusive, India will continue to be
extremely suspicious of battle lines drawn on the basis of cultural
extremism and exclusion. India has the world's second largest Sunni

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 30 South African journal of International Affairs

and Shia populations, so its relations with the Ummah — the worldwide
community of Muslims — will remain balanced and moderate. India
can be expected to resist ferociously any foreign alignments resulting
from a 'clash of civilisations': its domestic social peace depends upon
it. This factor explains, for instance, why an India-Israel alliance against
the Islamic world in general and Pakistan in particular remains nothing
more than a figment of the fevered imagination of some Pakistani
analysts.27 Similarly, India's unwillingness to loosen ties with Iran,
despite significant US pressure, is also partly explained by the
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civilisation factor.

Geography
As India's energy dependence grows and as foreign trade captures an
ever-larger part of the Indian economy, India's dependence on sea
lanes of communication will surely increase. In other words, India will
soon have both a reason and the resources to build an authentic blue
water naval capability.28
As India's defence doctrine moves from territorial defence to
some form of extended defence, India can also be expected to
develop a limited ('one ocean plus') expeditionary capability. India's
security perimeter will slowly expand as well from the Strait of Hormuz
to the Strait of Malacca.
However, India's continental location and preoccupations will put
limits on its maritime power (as it will on that of China). In other words,
the constraints of geography will prevent India from becoming a first-
rank maritime power.

Markets
When India opened its economy in 1991, the fear that Indian
companies would be overwhelmed by overseas competition was
widespread and palpable. This fear was exemplified by the so-called
Bombay Club, an informal grouping of some of India's most prominent
business tycoons who came together to protect the interests of local
companies from foreign predators. Just 15 years later, it is clear that
many Indian companies are globally competitive across a range of
sectors and markets, more often predators than-prey in the global
jungle of mergers and acquisitions.
Perhaps the best example of this is the $11.3 billion buyout of the
British Corus Group by India's Tata Steel in January 2007. The shift in

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 Sahni: India's Foreign Policy 31

weight is self-evident: in 1907, when Tata Steel was being set up, a
British colonial administrator had scoffed at the very notion that an
Indian company could produce steel.29
Although domestic demand still drives two-thirds of the Indian
economy, many Indian companies, especially in sectors such as
information technology and Pharmaceuticals, are increasingly outward
oriented. In 2004-05, foreign direct investment (FDI) by Indian
companies in other countries stood at $1.5 billion, nearly half the FDI
that India itself attracted in the same year.30 The apex industrial
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chambers — Confederation of Indian Industry, Federation of Indian

Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Associated Chambers of
Commerce and Industry of India — all have active overseas and
international departments and activities.
In recent years, there have been several occasions when the
Indian government has intervened forcefully on behalf on Indian
business interests overseas. The most notable of these was in February
2006, when Indian Trade and Industry Minister Kamal Nath accused
European governments that were opposing Mittal Steel's €18.6 billion
(£12.7 billion) bid for the French-Luxembourg steel company Arcelor
of racial discrimination.3' In December 2007, when a bid by Tata
Motors to buy the Jaguar and Land Rover marques from Ford faced
some opposition in the US, Nath again insisted that under
globalisation, trade and investment was a two-way street: There
cannot be any discrimination against outward investment from India.'32
Should we take these interventions as a signal that business interests
are now driving India's foreign policy?
In reality, the Indian government's concern in both cases was
thinly veiled racial discrimination against Indian persons and entities
rather than Indian penetration of foreign markets per se: while Laxmi
Mittal holds an Indian passport, Mittal Steel is 'the world's largest and
most global steel company, with ... steel-making facilities in 16
countries, spanning four continents ... listed on the New York and
Amsterdam stock exchanges'.33 It is also worth noting that the issue in
both cases was one of Indian outward investment; while Mittal Steel's
acquisition of Arcelor was successful, the outcome of the Tata bid for
Jaguar is still to be determined.
The important point is that the role of government in the growing
global profile and presence of Indian business has thus far been limited
to creating a more conducive macroeconomic environment at home.
Business interests are not yet a driver of India's foreign policy. This,
however, could surely change in the years to come.

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 32 South African Journal of International Affairs

Norms
Finally, although it is still not very popular in India to say so, the
country is beginning to leave a negative footprint upon the global
commons. As India industrialises, it will become a major consumer of
energy and emitter of pollution.34 India is located between the Golden
Crescent and the Golden Triangle and has therefore become a major
transit country in the global narcotics trade.3S It will soon have the
world's largest number of HIV/Aids infected persons.36 Sooner, rather
than later, these concerns will become a major component of India's
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foreign policy, but they do not drive it as yet.

As India becomes a state with system-shaping capabilities and
intentions, the world is entitled to ask a straightforward question: what
would India bring to the table? In other words, would India the great
power be any different from any other great power? China has already
seized the idea that it must signal its difference from previous great
powers in history; hence its unremitting campaign to project itself as a
developing country mindful of the needs, concerns, fears and
vulnerabilities of other developing countries. Many countries in Africa
look to China to protect their interests. India has not yet understood
that it needs to articulate an attractive and distinctive vision of world
affairs in which other states and societies can benefit along with India.
It is in India's interest to do so.
This is where the Gandhi idea of trusteeship comes in.37
Developed by Mahatma Gandhi to smooth the rough edges of
capitalism, trusteeship is admittedly a difficult concept to put into
practice. Nevertheless, it holds the key to some of the most pressing
global common concerns in the contemporary world. A central notion
in Gandhian trusteeship is the value of non-possession. This goes hand-
in-hand with the notion that we, as individuals, institutions and groups,
are embedded in something larger than ourselves. This involves our
asking not only 'What do we work for?' but also 'Who do we work
for?' The fragile global ecosystem is crying for a new type of world
politics based in part on the idea of trusteeship. Putting such
trusteeship into operation is where India could have a distinct voice in
the future.

Endnotes
1 VARUN SAHNI is Professor of International Politics at the School of International
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Volume 14, Issue 2, Winter/Spring 2007

 Sahni: India's Foreign Policy 33

2 In 1960, Selig Harrison had suggested that India was living through its most
dangerous decades. See Harrison S, India: The Most Dangerous Decades. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960. The 1990s, for India, were even more
dangerous than the 1960s.
3 According to the Rumsfeld Commission Report (1998), China supplied 30 M-11
missiles to Pakistan in 1991-92. See 'Pakistan's Nuclear Capable Missiles', The Risk
Report, 5, 1, January-February 1999, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control,
[Link]
4 The text of the Brasilia Declaration (2003) can be downloaded from http://
[Link]/[Link].
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5 US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger proposed the creation of the Nuclear Suppliers
Group in London in 1975, immediately after India's first nuclear test in 1974.
6 The Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, adopted by the
US Congress in 1976, prohibits American economic and military assistance to any
country delivering or receiving nuclear enrichment equipment, material, or
technology not safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The
Glenn Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, adopted by the US
Congress in 1977, prohibits US assistance to any non-nuclear weapon state (as
defined by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) that conducts a nuclear explosion.
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Act (1978) prohibits the export of nuclear technology
to non-nuclear weapon states unless the recipient state accepts full IAEA safeguards.
These three laws were key to preventing 'dual-use' trade between India and the US.
7 Bagchi I, 'Indo-US Relations High on Tech', India Today on the Net, 24 November
2003, [Link].
8 US Department of State, 'US and India Release Text of 123 Agreement', 3 August
2007, [Link]
9 According to the Indian government's Planning Commission, India's total primary
commercial energy requirements are projected to increase from 403 Mtoe (millions
of tonnes of oil equivalent) in 2006-07 to 2 289 Mtoe in 2031-32. See Government
of India, Planning Commission, Integrated Energy Policy: Report of the Expert
Committee. New Delhi: Planning Commission, August 2006, Table 2.4, p.18,
[Link]
10 According to the latest available data, India's population in 2004 (1 085 million) was
3.4 times larger than the combined population of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (321 million). United Nations Statistics
Division, 'Estimates of mid-year population: 1995-2004', [Link]
unsd/demographic/products/dyb/DYB2004/[Link].
11 India's GDP in 2006 ($906,268 million) was 3.6 times larger than that of all its South
Asian neighbours combined ($251,327 million). World Bank, World Development
Indicators, Washington DC: World Bank, 1 July 2006. Available at
[Link]
12 India's military expenditure in 2004 ($19,821 million) was 4.2 times larger than the
combined military expenditures of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and
Maldives ($4,771 million.) The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The
Military Balance 2006. London: Routledge, 2006, p.400 (Table 44: Comparative
Defence Expenditure and Military Manpower, 2002-2004).
13 In 2006, India had 1.3 million military and 1.7 million paramilitary personnel, which
was twice the size of the military and paramilitary strength of Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka combined (1.5 million). Ibid.

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 34 South African Journal of International Affairs

14 See Kelegama S, 'The Bilateral Track: The Case of the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade
Agreement', South Asian Survey, 13, 2, 2006, pp.295-301.
15 See Kaul M, 'Regional Groupings: An Overview of BIMSTEC and MCG', South Asian
Survey 13, 2, 2006, pp.313-322; also Singh S, 'Mekong-Ganga Co-operation
Initiative: Analysis and Assessment of India's Engagement with Greater Mekong Sub-
region', Occasional Paper 3, IRASEC (Bangkok), 2007.
16 According to the Indian defence ministry: 'India is making every effort to enhance its
defence ties with its extended neighbourhood in South-East Asia, North-East Asia,
Central Asia, the Gulf and Middle East regions.' See Government of India, Ministry
of Defence, Annual Report 2006-2007, New Delhi: Ministry of Defence, 2007, p.11.
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17 See Malik M, The East Asia Summit: More Discord than Accord', YaleGlobal Online,
20 December 2005, [Link]
18 I first used this term in 2006. See Sahni V, 'India and the Asian Security Architecture',
Current History, April 2006, pp.161-166.
19 The diplomatic historian Paul Schroeder has suggested that states do not only
balance against rising powers, as suggested by neo-realists like Kenneth Waltz; they
could also choose to climb onto a bandwagon with the rising power, hide from
power politics or transcend the balance of power game by building institutions. See
Schroeder P, 'Historical Reality vs. Neo-realist Theory', International Security, 19, 1,
Summer 1994, pp.108-148.
20 Government of India, Report of High Level Committee on Indian Diaspora,
[Link]
21 See Jaffrelot C (ed), Hindu nationalism: A Reader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2007, pp. 361-369; also see Jaffrelot C, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in
India. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997; Vertovec S, The Hindu Diaspora:
Comparative Patterns. London: Routledge, 2000.
22 Chishti M, 'The Rise in Remittances to India: A Closer Look', Migration Information
Source, Migration Policy Institute, February 2007, [Link]
org/Feature/[Link]?ID=577.
23 McIntire M, 'Indian-Americans hone their lobbying: Nuclear deal offers a test of their
sway', International Herald Tribune, 6 June 2006, [Link]
2006/06/05/news/[Link].
24 Mohan CR, 'Malaysian Indian row: PMs careful, there's room yet for some quiet talk',
Indian Express, 4 December 2007, [Link]
[Link].
25 Perlez J, 'Vast Rally for Democracy Opens in a Polish Castle', New York Times, 26
June 2000; see also US Department of State, 'Final Warsaw Declaration: Toward a
Community of Democracies', 27 June 2000, [Link]
[Link].
26 This leads to the reflection (with apologies to Leo Tolstoy and Anna Karenina) that
while all dictatorships are essentially alike, every democracy is a democracy in its
own special way.
27 See Hamid M, The Unholy Alliance: Indo-lsraeli Conspiracy against the Muslim World.
Lahore: Islamic Book Centre, 1978; Jafar G, '"Soul mates" come together: The
Brahmanic-Talmudist alliance', Regional Studies, 20, 2, 2002, pp.3-65.
28 See Barnett TPM, 'India's 12 steps to a world-class Navy', United States Naval Institute
Proceedings, July 2001, pp.41-45; also see Prakash A (Admiral), 'A Vision of India's
Maritime Power in the 21st Century', USI Journal, CXXXV1, 566, October-December
2006, pp. 555-564.

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 Sahni: India's Foreign Policy 35

29 See 'Fifty Years of Tata', Time, 30 September 1957, [Link]

time/magazine/article/0,9171,891398,[Link].
30 See 'Have money, will buy', DNA Daily News & Analysis (Mumbai), 4 April 2006,
[Link]
31 See Johnson J, Marsh P & R Minder, 'Racism alleged over Mittal's Arcelor bid',
Financial Times (London), 11 February 2006, [Link]
32 Johnson J, 'Indian anger at US business snub to Tata', Financial Times (London), 14
December 2007, [Link]
33 'Profile', [Link]
34 See Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020
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Project. Washington, DC: National Intelligence Council, 2004, pp.38-40.

35 See Chouvy P, Les territoires de I'opium: conflits et trafics du Triangle d'Or et du
Croissant d'Or. Geneva: Editions Olizane, 2002.
36 See Jacob H, 'India's HIV/Aids Crisis: Securitizing Disease', South Asian Survey, 12,
1, 2005, pp. 119-141.
37 On this, see Sethi JD (ed.), Trusteeship: The Gandhian Alternative. New Delhi: Gandhi
Peace Foundation, 1986.

Volume 14, Issue 2, Winter/Spring 2007