Would you concur with the view that of late, India’s foreign policy has been in a transition mode from Nehruvianism to Neoliberalism? Support your answer with the help of suitable examples. (2024, 20 Marks)
The terms come from Kanti Bajpai’s essay “Indian Strategic Culture” (in South Asia in 2020, 2002), which sorts Indian strategic thought into Nehruvianism, neoliberalism and hyperrealism. Neoliberalism here is a school of strategy, close to Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye’s complex interdependence (1977): growth and economic interconnection, not moral leadership or force, are the surest route to security and status. The transition thesis is right about means, but incomplete.
The Nehruvian baseline
Under Jawaharlal Nehru, India answered bipolarity with non-alignment, Panchsheel, solidarity with the decolonised world and a socialist, import-substituting economy. Nehruvians trace conflict to mistrust, so security lies in dialogue, institutions and normative leadership; economic self-reliance was itself a guarantee of autonomy, and foreign capital was suspect.
Evidence of a transition to neoliberalism
- The 1991 hinge: the Soviet collapse and a payments crisis that left reserves worth about two weeks of imports forced liberalisation under P. V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. C. Raja Mohan (Crossing the Rubicon, 2003) named the shift “from politics to economics” and from Third-Worldism to national interest.
- Partners chosen for markets: Look East (1992) became Act East (2014); the Gulf, the US and Europe became investment partners; economic diplomacy took the pole position.
- Courting capital: India climbed from 142nd to 63rd in the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business ranking (2014–19) before the index was dropped in 2021, and built GIFT City as an offshore financial hub.
- The FTA wave: the UAE CEPA and Australia ECTA (2022), EFTA’s TEPA (in force October 2025), the UK CETA (in force July 2026) and the India–EU agreement concluded in January 2026 treat trade as strategic alignment.
- Connectivity over solidarity: corridors such as IMEC, ports and digital payment links have replaced declarations; the BRICS New Delhi Declaration (September 2026) sought WTO and IMF reform and local-currency settlement, not a rival bloc.
Why the thesis is incomplete
- A parallel hyperrealist turn: the strikes after Uri (2016), Balakot (2019) and Operation Sindoor (May 2025), the “new normal” on terrorism and a sustained defence build-up are hyperrealist, not neoliberal, propositions.
- Economic nationalism persists: India left RCEP in 2019, launched Atmanirbhar Bharat in 2020 and shields agriculture and dairy in every negotiation. S. Jaishankar warned in November 2019 against “the new dogma of globalization without a cost-benefit analysis”.
- Interdependence has not pacified China: bilateral trade reached about $151bn in 2025–26 with a deficit of about $112bn, while the boundary stayed militarised after Galwan (2020). Curbs on Chinese investment since 2020 are a realist correction to neoliberal practice.
- The Nehruvian core survives: no formal alliance; Russian oil bought despite US tariffs that reached 50% in August 2025; Global South leadership through the Voice of the Global South summits and the African Union’s G20 seat. Manjari Chatterjee Miller finds Nehruvianism a remarkably durable frame.
| School | India today |
|---|---|
| Neoliberal | The means: trade, investment, supply chains |
| Hyperrealist | The reflexes: deterrence, retaliation, defence build-up |
| Nehruvian | The purpose: strategic autonomy, a Southern voice |
Conclusion
I concur in part. The transition is real in instruments: economics drives Indian diplomacy as it never did before 1991. But it is compositional, not linear: India runs on neoliberal means and hyperrealist reflexes, held together by a Nehruvian insistence on autonomy. That blend, not a clean replacement, is why no single label fits.