As India rises to great power status in the emerging multipolar world order, what influence will its rich and ancient culture have on the country’s foreign policy? This book reveals that cultural values have greater explanatory power than previously thought and describes the nature of their influence. Excavating thousands of years of history, the monograph identifies enduring values that are relevant to contemporary foreign policy. It examines three critical areas of Indian foreign policy – nuclear policy, humanitarian intervention and relations with the Middle East. Major decisions were shaped by cultural values – sometimes at the expense of strategic interests. India’s choice to test nuclear weapons was not purely because of China or Pakistan: hierarchy also played a role. From a hierarchical worldview shaping Delhi’s approach to international law on arms control to pluralism facilitating simultaneous friendships with America and Iran, values thread their way throughout India’s foreign relations. Non-violence underpins Delhi’s soft power in both the West and the Middle East, while having spurred India’s opposition to Western intervention in Iraq. Analyzing state behavior and interviewing diplomats, the book charts culture’s evolving influence from Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi.

As two Asian giants and rising power, the interactions between India and China have global significance. This book analyses the multifaceted and multi-layered character of Sino-Indian relations since the beginning of the 21st century in a period marked by cooperation and competition. Positioned in a social constructivist framework that emphasizes mutual perceptions and socialization, the book draws analytical leverage from two core concepts – national identity and national interest – to form the basis of the research inquiry. The author argues that the dynamics of national identity and national interest play an important role in determining their relations and shows how and why in the current international structure, including a context of accelerated globalization, their national identities as rising power and emerging power coupled with national interest of economic development have defined and directed their international positions and foreign policy-making. A unique approach to analysing Sino-Indian relations, this book is of interest to academics in the fields of Asian Politics and International Relations.

By the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, the government by the direct descendant of the Nehru Dynasty under the Indian National Congress (INC) came to an end. His widow, an uneducated Italian Christian, continued the Dynasty Rule under a Congress-led hotchpotch coalition called UPA, which was voted out of power in early 2014. During the decade-long UPA government, the Indian economy was in a shambles, mired in massive corruption indulged in by all its Ministers - each one vying with one another in looting the National Exchequer. In retrospect, looking back over the Dynasty Rule of nearly seven decades since independence under the INC Party, India could gain the status of only 10th place in the world economic progress rating, although the neighboring China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could become 2nd most powerful nation in the world despite the fact that INC was established four decades prior to the establishment of CCP Then the year 2014 heralded. In a spectacular festival of democracy, the world's largest political party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won the election with absolute majority, and its Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, became the 14th P.M. of India on 26th May 2014. Since then the country witnessed remarkable growth and progress, aided by his corruption-free government, attaining the status of fifth largest economy in the world. It is during the inexorable passage of time since the "Modi-Era" began in 2014 that the essays included in this book were all penned by the Author, touching upon various aspects of the turn of events and of the friends and fous of Modi. By paraphrasing the sayings of Swami Vivekananda: "friends and foes are all instruments in the hands of PM Modi to help India work out its own karma" and lead the nation to greater heights in the years to come.

Though considerable research literature is now available on China–India relations, most of it still follows a conventional narrative, viewing the relationship through the narrow conflictual prism limited to South Asia than in the new, larger perspective, especially in the context of emerging East Asian dynamics. This book offers comprehensive analyses of some of these issues in papers addressing two broad themes. One, significant trends in the relationship between China and India on a range of issues, including economic development models, their military strategies, and the boundary dispute; and two, how others are responding to the rise of India and China and their impact on East Asia. Together, the chapters constitute a comprehensive study on both China–India relations and their concurrent rise, including a variety of perspectives and methodologies. Written by some of the top experts on the subject from India, China, Japan, and Taiwan and covering a broad range of issues, the book will generate considerable interest in understanding this relatively neglected dimension of today’s East Asia.

This collection brings together an unusually distinguished and diverse group of theorists of global politics, political geography, and international political economy who reflect on the concept of political space. Already familiar to political geographers, the concept of political space has lately received increased attention, arising out of the need for new ways of thinking about and describing the actors, structures, and processes that shape politics and patterns of governance in today's complex, post-Cold War world. The essays explore the frontiers of the field of global politics, and each deals imaginatively with some aspect of political space. Although the participants may be loosely classified as realists, neo-realists, constructivists, and postinternationalists, the essays are not fitted to the usual theoretical pigeonholes. What they do share is a continued faith in empirical research, and a collective sense of discovery.

This is an in-depth examination of India's role in world politics at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The Routledge Handbook of Indian Defence Policy brings together the most eminent scholarship in South Asia on India’s defence policy and contemporary military history. It maps India’s political and military profile in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, and analyses its emergence as a global player. This edition of the handbook: Canvasses over 60 years of Indian defence policy, its relation to India’s rising global economic profile, as well as foreign policy shifts; Discusses several key debates that have shaped defence strategies through the years: military doctrine and policy, internal and external security challenges, terrorism and insurgencies; Explores the origins of the modern armed forces in India; evolution of the army, navy and air forces; investments in professional military education, intelligence and net-centric warfare, reforms in paramilitary forces and the Indian police; Comments on India’s contemporary strategic interests, focusing on the rise of China, nuclearisation of India and Pakistan’s security establishments, and developments in space security and missile defence. Taking stock of India’s defence planning architecture over the past decade, this accessibly written handbook will be an indispensable resource for scholars and researchers of security and defence studies, international relations and political science, as well as for government thinktanks and policymakers.