“India’s Foreign Policy could have matched with the fast-changing international system.” Discuss it. (2006, 20 Marks)
The statement asks whether Indian foreign policy kept pace with a system that moved from bipolarity to unipolarity and then towards multipolarity within two decades. James N. Rosenau’s theory of political adaptation (The Study of Political Adaptation, 1981) supplies the test: a state adapts when it reconciles changing external demands with its own essential structures. On that test, India adapted well at the major turning points, but often late and under duress.
Where India matched the change
- The end of bipolarity: after the Soviet collapse and the 1991 crisis, India liberalised, launched Look East (1992), opened full relations with Israel and engaged the United States. This was its most successful adaptation, precisely because it was forced.
- The nuclear order: as the NPT was extended indefinitely (1995) and the CTBT concluded (1996), India preserved its option and tested in 1998, then converted confrontation into the civil nuclear agreement and an NSG waiver (2008).
- Emerging multipolarity: India helped found IBSA (2003) and BRIC (2006) and took a seat at the leader-level G20 (2008), where the post-crisis order was renegotiated.
- Later shifts: as Sino-American rivalry sharpened, India embraced the Indo-Pacific and the revived Quad while staying in BRICS and the SCO; as the trade order fragmented, it concluded agreements with the UAE, Australia, EFTA and the UK, and the EU deal in January 2026, and hosted the BRICS summit in New Delhi in September 2026.
- Kenneth N. Waltz’s expectation that the system socialises states which wish to survive is broadly met.
Where it lagged
- Reading change late: the misjudgement of China before 1962 and the long Soviet dependence, which cost India standing over Afghanistan (1979), show the system moving faster than Delhi’s assumptions.
- Economic opening came late: China reformed from 1978, India only in 1991 and under crisis; India stayed wary of trade agreements for a decade and left RCEP in 2019.
- Neighbourhood and connectivity: China’s economic presence in South Asia grew faster than India’s delivery, and SAARC has not met at summit level since 2014.
- Institutional capacity: an Indian Foreign Service of 954 officers in position (December 2025) and a Chief of Defence Staff created only in 2020 limit how quickly policy can respond.
- A reactive pattern: most turns followed shocks (1962, 1971, 1991, 2020). S. Jaishankar (Ramnath Goenka Lecture, 2019) concedes that reverses drove the big changes of course and that “many competitors have done much better”.
Which mode of adaptation?
Rosenau distinguishes acquiescent adaptation (yielding to the environment), intransigent (forcing it to conform), promotive (reshaping both) and preservative (balancing external demands against internal structures). India’s record is chiefly preservative: it accepted globalisation and American primacy without surrendering autonomy, its nuclear option or its non-aligned identity. Its promotive moments, the G20 presidency of 2023 and the International Solar Alliance, are recent.
Assessment
The record as of 2006 supports a qualified “yes”: India had adapted to unipolarity without surrendering autonomy. The years since confirm a faster learner. US tariffs that reached 50% in August 2025, cut to 18% by an interim deal in February 2026, and the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of September 2026 were met with diversification, not alignment or defiance; when Hormuz was disrupted in 2026, India drew on a wide supplier base. The gaps lie in anticipation and capacity, not direction.
Conclusion
Indian foreign policy has matched the international system in direction but often trailed it in timing. It preserved the constant of strategic autonomy while changing instruments. Matching a fast-changing system now depends less on doctrine than on economic weight, diplomatic capacity and the ability to anticipate rather than react.