ONE day India will be a great power. Its demography, nukes and growing economy make that almost inevitable. Outsiders, especially in the West, promote its heft so it can serve as an emerging rival to China.
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Yet, as David Malone clearly sets out in his brisk survey of its foreign policy, there is a long way to go before the Indian elephant is really dancing. Its international policy is still mostly reactive, incremental and without any grand vision. Its few diplomats are good, but terribly overstretched. The world’s biggest democracy is coy to the point of feebleness in promoting its values abroad. And its big but ill-equipped armed forces, perhaps the navy aside, trouble no military planners outside of South Asia.
It is easy to see why. India’s long history of being invaded, and its preoccupation with holding itself together as a viable, democratic state, have left it little scope for acting overseas. Indians, like Americans, can be insular, believing that their huge country is the centre of the world. Its few leaders who bothered seriously with foreign matters, notably Jawaharlal Nehru, the brilliant and charismatic first prime minister, fell into moralising about others’ wicked deeds and tried to avoid being embroiled in the cold war, but he did little to promote national interests.
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