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New Indian Express
7 hours ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Book review : Power and Purpose India's Roadmap to the Global Stage
India's foreign policy and the major events through history that shaped it are examined by Harsh V Pant and Anant Singh Mann in their recent book Power and Purpose: Rediscovering Indian Foreign Policy in Amrit Kaal. The book highlights the country's development since gaining independence in 1947 within the framework of the international system. The writers have provided this analysis through four sections or waves in the book: Wave 1: 1947-64: State-building and the Nehruvian Outlook Wave 2: 1964-85: Regional Consolidation and Antagonisms Wave 3: 1985-2004: Opening up to the World Wave 4: 2004-Present: On the Path to Global Leadership. The first wave in the book is a deep dive into Prime Minister Nehru's strategy of building India's foreign policy. A time that was also historically turbulent with partition made the need for a foreign policy in place all the more important. A closer look at the role India played in negotiating a resolution in the Korean War also paved the way for the country to understand the need for a foreign policy. The resolution led to India figuring out how its own peace and security are also dependent on regional and international relations. 'India's willingness to rise to the occasion and engage internationally barely three years post-independence has remained representative of its awareness of the duty towards the global community,' says the book.
Asharq Al-Awsat
17-05-2025
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
India and US at Odds on Kashmir Truce
A week since Trump announced a surprise truce between India and Pakistan to end a brief but intense conflict, New Delhi and Washington differ about the way it was achieved. The US administration thought "an intervention at this stage might give them some basic benefit in terms of highlighting Trump's role," Indian foreign policy expert Harsh V. Pant told AFP. "That... became the driver and in a sense the hurry which with Trump announced the ceasefire," said Pant from the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank. Fighting began when India launched strikes on May 7 against what it called "terrorist camps" in Pakistan following an April militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people. New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing the militants it claimed were behind the attack, which Pakistan denies. Trump announced the truce after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks from both sides, killing about 70 people, including dozens of civilians, and sent thousands fleeing. He later boasted about bringing India and Pakistan "back from the brink", telling Fox News on Friday it was "a bigger success than I'll ever be given credit for". New Delhi however shrugs off these claims, which go against decades-long Indian policy that opposes foreign mediation in conflicts with Islamabad. India and Pakistan claim the currently divided Kashmir in full. New Delhi considers the Himalayan region an internal matter, with politicians long viewing external mediation as a sign of weakness. Modi's first speech since the ceasefire did not mention US involvement and his government has since insisted that talks with Pakistan are "strictly bilateral". India was also quick to dismiss Trump's suggestion that trade pressures hastened a truce. "The issue of trade did not come up" in discussions with US officials, the Indian foreign ministry said this week. According to ORF fellow Manoj Joshi, Trump's rhetoric is "irritating" for India -- whose strategic location and massive market size have made the country an important ally for the United States. But India is being "very cautious" because it is in negotiations for a trade deal with Washington to avoid steep tarriffs, he said. "We (India) would like the agenda to go in a different direction," said Joshi. It is also a thorny matter domestically. Main opposition Congress party said Trump's announcement had "upstaged" the Hindu nationalist leader's "much-delayed address". It also demanded an all-party meeting to ask whether India is changing its policy on "third-party mediation" for Kashmir, disputed between Pakistan and India. The two South Asian rivals had in the 1970s agreed to settle "differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations". Modi has previously poked fun at former Congress governments for "weak" responses against Pakistan in various skirmishes. "So India would obviously respond to that and deny that... about as politely as they feel they can get away with," said South Asia researcher Pramit Pal Chaudhuri of political consultancy Eurasia Group. Trump's claimed mediation was welcomed by Islamabad, which "needed an American intervention to give them the off-ramp they needed to get out of a conflict", Chaudhuri added. On Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reaffirmed that "where Pakistan is concerned, our relations, our dealings with them will be bilateral, and strictly bilateral." But the same day, speaking from Qatar, Trump repeated claims of brokering a ceasefire and using trade as a tool. "(I said) let's do trade instead of war. And Pakistan was very happy with that, and India was very happy with that," Trump said in his speech. It has been a decade since Modi last met a Pakistani leader. Since then, relations have deteriorated, coming to a head when India unilaterally revoked Kashmir's limited autonomy in 2019. According to Joshi, "the hyphenation of India and Pakistan" is also "irritating" for New Delhi, which has tried to carve out a separate identity on the global stage. "The optics of Trump hammering it day after day... is politically damaging for Modi," Sushant Singh, a former Indian soldier and South Asian studies lecturer at Yale University, wrote on X. "(Modi) can't personally counter Trump, and despite attempts by India's big media to play it down, social media amplifies Trump," Singh said.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
India boosts domestic arms industry and looks West to pare back Russia reliance
India's efforts to pare back a longstanding reliance on Russian military hardware is bearing fruit after the courting of new Western allies and a rapidly growing domestic arms industry, analysts say. At a time when Moscow's military-industrial complex is occupied with the ongoing war in Ukraine, India has made the modernisation of its armed forces a top priority. That urgency has risen in tandem with tensions between the world's most populous nation and its northern neighbour China, especially since a deadly 2020 clash between their troops. "India's perception of its security environment vis-a-vis China has been dramatically altered," Harsh V Pant, of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think-tank, told AFP. Relations between the two neighbours went into freefall after the clash on their shared frontier, which killed 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers. "It has sort of shaken the system and there's a realisation that we have to do whatever is best now, and very fast," Pant said of the incident. India has become the world's largest arms importer with purchases steadily rising to account for nearly 10 percent of all imports globally in 2019-23, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said last year. More is in the pipeline, with orders worth tens of billions of dollars from the United States, France, Israel and Germany in coming years. Modi will be in France next month where he is expected to sign deals worth about $10 billion for Rafale fighter jets and Scorpene-class submarines, Indian media reports say. - 'Not easy to switch' - Defence minister Rajnath Singh has also promised at least $100 billion in fresh domestic military hardware contracts by 2033 to spur local arms production. "India has been traditionally an importer for decades and only switched to emphasising on indigenous manufacturing... in the last decade," strategic affairs analyst Nitin Gokhale told AFP. "It is not easy to switch, not everything can be manufactured or produced here," he said, saying the country lacked the ability to manufacture "high-end technology" weapons systems. But its efforts have still seen numerous impressive milestones. This decade India has opened an expansive new helicopter factory, launched its first homemade aircraft carrier, and conducted a successful long-range hypersonic missile test. That in turn has fostered a growing arms export market which saw sales last year worth $2.63 billion -- still a tiny amount compared to established players, but a 30-fold increase in a decade. India is expected in the coming weeks to announce a landmark deal to supply Indonesia's military with supersonic cruise missiles in a deal worth nearly $450 million. The government aims to triple this figure by 2029, with a significant chunk of the $75 billion it spent on defence last year aimed at boosting local production. - 'Spread risks' - India has deepened defence cooperation with Western countries in recent years, including in the much-feted Quad alliance with the United States, Japan and Australia. This reorientation has helped India sign various deals to import and locally co-produce military drones, naval ships, fighter jets and other hardware with suppliers from Western countries. It has also led to a precipitous drop in India's share of arms from longstanding ally Russia, which supplied 76 percent of its military imports in 2009-13 but only 36 percent in 2019-23, according to SIPRI data. New Delhi has nonetheless sought to maintain the delicate balance between India's historically warm ties with Moscow while courting closer partnerships with Western nations. Modi's government has resisted pressure from Washington and elsewhere to explicitly condemn Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, instead urging both sides to the negotiating table. Gokhale said that India was not in the position to abandon its relationship with Russia, which still plays an important role as a supplier of advanced weaponry including cruise missiles and nuclear submarine technology. "India has certainly spread its risks by sourcing from other countries," he said. "But Russia remains a very important and dependable partner." bb/gle/fox
