India and the ‘great powers’: from the Indian Ocean to the Indo-Pacific region

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to explain how India has adapted over time to changing power dynamics at various times in its history, including at Independence, during the Cold War and currently at a time of systemic instability and uncertainty. Noting that foreign policy is always a combination of both interests and values, the article argues that India’s great power strategy is characterised by a prudent mix of both realpolitik and moralpolitik. In the author’s view, India’s maritime geography and history have shaped the interests and values underpinning the country’s foreign policy decision-making, providing the basis for a sense of pre-eminence as well as leadership in the region.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• great power strategy
• realpolitik
• moralpolitik
• Indian Ocean
• Indo-Pacific region

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their very helpful comments and suggestions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Lord Curzon was viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905.

2. For a discussion of Jawaharlal Nehru’s views on foreign policy see Jivanta Schottli (2012), Vision and Strategy in Indian Politics Jawaharlal Nehru’s Policy Choices and the Designing of Political Institutions.

3. The full report can be accessed here: https://www.constitutionofindia.net/historical_constitutions/nehru_report__motilal_nehru_1928__1st%20January%201928 Last Accessed on 4 October 2021.

4. For full text see, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/Independence.aspx Last Accessed on 4 October 2021.

5. To date countries with varying forms of an Indo-Pacific strategy include the United States, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, ASEAN, the European Union,

6. Earlier references include a 2007 article by an Indian analyst, Gurpreet Khurana (2007), and, later that year, in a speech by the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe (2007), to the Indian Parliament, in which he raised the prospect of a ‘broader Asia’ fashioned out of the confluence of the Pacific and Indian Oceans

7. https://www.oliverstuenkel.com/2013/10/03/book-review-samudra-mathan-sino-indian-rivalry-in-the-indo-pacific-by-c-raja-mohan/

8. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/galwan-violence-army-navy-air-force-raise-alert-level-1690111-2020-06-17

9. Phrase used recently by Prime Minister Modi at the 2021 G7 meeting in Cornwall to which India was invited as a guest.

10. EEZ is the area of sea/sea bed that a nation administers and exercises sovereignty. In other words, it can control/monetise the extraction of resources (such as Fish, Gas, Gold or Manganese), and which are becoming increasingly important to national economies.