NonAlignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the 21st Century

The paperback edition of
NonAlignment 2.0
is published at a particularly opportune time: a moment when the epochal political transition
underway in India coincides with a renewed opportunity to set a coherent national agenda, one that
can achieve India’s transformation into a great power, based on the principles of democracy
and inclusive development.

NonAlignment 2.0
is intended by its
authors to generate an informed debate about the challenges India confronts, both domestic and
external, as well as the considerable assets this country possesses to face those challenges. Our
title, unfortunately, has proved something of a distraction—sometimes leading to more
discussion than the actual substance of our arguments. While the title is of secondary importance,
we believe that the substantive options set out in the book are based on analytic realism about our
current predicament as well as optimism about our extraordinary potential. We remain encouraged by
the lively debate the text has stimulated, and we hope that the appearance of the paperback edition
will broaden that circle of debate in our country, precisely at a time when there is a sense of
transformational change in the air and hope prevails about India’s prospects both at home and
abroad. It’s a moment that demands to be seized. In the first instance, key and long-overdue
reforms can now be implemented by an electorally empowered leadership. Beyond that, we also need an
intellectual map to guide the pursuit of our values and interests.
NonAlignment 2.0
has
identified the choices that confront India in its quest for greatness and it outlines a
comprehensive national strategy which leverages the country’s strengths even as it seeks to
overcome its vulnerabilities.

For example, India has a potential demographic
dividend in its young and growing population, but needs to provide expanding employment
opportunities to reap that dividend. This, in turn, implies an ability to sustain a high rate of
economic growth, in particular, accelerated growth in manufacturing, and this demands an educated
and skilled work force. India’s development prospects are also linked to its ability to ensure
domestic peace and security while creating an external environment that is supportive of
India’s development and welcomes its emergence as a great power. This translates into a need
for urgent governance reforms, a recognition that many of the country’s internal security
challenges draw their energy from long-standing economic and social grievances, that there are
serious shortcomings in the justice and policing system and that the state is often seen as an
instrument of oppression rather than an assurance of redressal. Bringing about change in the
domestic domain will be difficult because there are powerful and entrenched interests that will need
to be confronted and neutralized. But such domestic reforms are the essential first step to India
achieving its external goals. The political mandate delivered to the new government gives it a rare
opportunity to succeed in this regard.

There is another compelling reality requiring
urgent address. Most of the challenges the world confronts today are cross-cutting and
multi-sectoral in nature—they do not observe disciplinary or ministerial boundaries. This is
as true in the domestic domain as it is in the external domain. For example, the challenges of
ensuring water, energy and food security are integrally interlinked and require interdisciplinary
and institutionally coherent responses. Even within the domain of energy, which is a major
constraint on India’s ability to sustain accelerated economic growth, there is policy
fragmentation with multiple agencies, often pursuing contradictory policies, involved. We must
overcome our preference for compartmentalized bureaucratic structures and make inter-agency
policymaking and implementation the norm rather than the exception.

The authors of
NonAlignment 2.0
have
identified a strategy in the external domain that is appropriate to India’s overall national
objectives and transcends partisan political affiliations. To begin with, they point out that the
lines of division between domestic and external are becoming increasingly blurred in today’s
globalized world. The external environment impacts relentlessly on domestic developments but
equally, given India’s size and potential, what happens in our country impacts significantly
on regional and global developments. This is why there is keen interest across the world in the
dramatic political change that has taken place in India. The leaders of all major countries wish to
engage their counterparts in India because India’s decisions will impact upon them as much as
on India. India must, therefore, remain fully engaged with its external environment, constantly
endeavour to shape it to serve India’s interests and above all, recognize that the ultimate
test of the success or failure of India’s foreign policy will lie in its contribution to the
welfare of its people.

In shaping the external environment, the authors
attach the highest priority to India’s neighbourhood. The country cannot really aspire to a
significant regional, let alone, global role, if it is unable to manage its own neighbourhood. The
authors of
NonAlignment 2.0
recognize the emergence of China as the most significant
challenge for India, since it is the one country which impinges directly on India’s overall
interests. There is a growing asymmetry between India and China but there is no reason why this
asymmetry should be regarded as a permanent condition. In fact, if there is any one country that has
the potential to level with China and to surpass it, it is India. If India adopts the right
strategies and pursues them with consistency there is no reason why it cannot join the ranks of the
world’s great powers. However, India as a great power will be different from China, given its
embrace of democracy and internal diversity. An economically vibrant, pluralist and democratic India
has the opportunity to lead the world by the power of its example.

The China challenge requires a ‘walking on
two legs’ strategy, which China itself has pursued over the years: namely, finding the right
mix of engagement and ‘constrainment’—that is, engaging with China even while
being able to countervail those of its policies that impinge on our interests. This approach is
likely to be maintained across changes in national government—as it needs to be. The same
appears true for relations with Pakistan.
NonAlignment 2.0
recommends a series of positive
and negative levers available for use to try to change the strategic calculus in Islamabad and
convince Pakistan that the use of cross-border terrorism as an instrument of state policy carries
huge risks for the country’s own security interests.

In coming years, India is likely to be far more
active and visible both on the regional and economic stage with an accent on the eastern
neighbourhood, including South-East Asia and Japan. Relationships which enhance India’s
security and economic interests are also likely to be given priority.
NonAlignment 2.0
covers a wide spectrum of India’s national security challenges: it shows their analytic
integration and argues for an equally integrated policy and institutional approach to confronting
these challenges.

Finally, communicating the message about
India’s distinctive identity and its pursuit of power will be an important instrument in
shaping how the world responds to India. Indeed, as the authors argue, the need for strategic
communications or the ability to anticipate and interactively respond to perceptions of domestic as
well as global public opinion are essential to a national strategy.

We hope the paperback edition of this book will
find a new readership, stimulate further constructive debate across the political and party
spectrum, and contribute to the challenging but essential national endeavour of navigating India to
its rightful place in a transformed global landscape—a journey we now have the opportunity of
pursuing with renewed energy and ambition.

June 2014