Stepping up to the world

Context:

India’s proximity with the west and its ties with other powers is giving an advantage to its foreign policy and positions. India is successfully emerging as a balancer and a leader.

Changing perceptions of India:

• Effective growth: India has experienced the painful trauma of partition and the economic challenges of feeding its population until the 1960s. Now India has emerged as the fifth largest economy.
• Major stakeholder in the comity of nations: Presently, India’s ties with countries across the globe show it to be an aspiring, as well as a major player on the world stage.
  • India is a leading member of the UN
  • an oft-invitee to the G7
  • a founding member of the BRICS
  • a pivotal part of the G20 now ready to take over as its chair

Stakes involved in India’s foreign policy:

• National security is always the key driver in India’s proposition. External relationships accelerate with the desire to enhance the nation’s standing externally and the impulse to do good for the world. In the past too, it has accorded the highest priority to India’s immediate neighbors.
• In the post-Cold War period, India has moved more time and resources to careful nurturing of relations with the major powers — the US, EU, especially France and Germany, the UK, Japan, Russia, and China.