Question

What India’s Foreign Policy means to Young India/ India’s Foreign Policy Priorities for the Youth

Please answer in 500+ words

Answer 1

Indian Economic Reforms that were propelled in 1991, now in their third decade, have demonstrated to us that our fundamental objectives, enhanced expectations for everyday comforts for our kin, social value, and accomplishment of essential advancement objectives, requests an outside approach that adds to this national objective. This implies extended exchange, outside ventures both into and out of India, getting key contributions of innovation, utilizing our remote guide program all the more successfully, in a "shrewd" way, and working with colleges, logical organizations and research organizations in growing their universal associations, and helping common society foundations for comparable purposes. In this manner, worldwide issues enter our everyday lives.

In many fields of movement, remote participation fits firmly with local activities. Take instruction for instance. Numerous a greater number of understudies study abroad than sometime recently, on the grounds that this extends their points of view and gives them various types of preparing and experience. In our nation, getting outside understudies enhances our own models, and creates collaborations amongst home and remote understudies that are to the upside of both gatherings. Advantageous interaction International University is a remarkable illustration. That same circumstance is rehashed in different fields of movement. In this manner, worldwide exchanges serve our establishments and advantage our kin. This is particularly valid for a nation, for example, India, which is a characteristic pioneer in data innovation; we have to utilize worldwide associations with the build up that level of Indian engagement and administration in different branches of the information industry.


Relations with remote nations are enhanced by such local worldwide associations, on the grounds that in those nations as well, a comparative procedure works. The more we interface with them, in differing fields, the more profound are the underlying foundations of peace and universal steadiness. This is especially valid for nations with which we have unsolved issues or ties that are commonly aggressive, or even antagonistic. For India, this applies to our relations with Pakistan and China. It bodes well to create between such nations differentiated associations, which help to stay relations in commonly valuable collaboration. That prompts the development of trust in each other, and step by step changes the setting in which these nations take a gander at each other. This has been Europe's involvement in the improvement of the European Union.

Indian students are respected the world over as extension developers, those that blend effectively in any general public or nation and improve it. You know that an expanding number of Indians now head worldwide companies, and our nation has turned into a worldwide asset, a sort of human ability bank in business as well as in the scholarly world, enterprise and in many fields of action. Stop for a moment and ask yourselves, why this is so? What are our qualities that appear to draw in a significant part of the world? Some will indicate our family values, which gives us a firm introduction in our lives. Others will talk about India's legacy and culture, which are accommodative, with resilience as a fundamental component of our lives. Some will indicate the way that we esteem training in an exceptionally significant way; even those that originated from the weakest segments of our general public work day and night to guarantee that their kids get an ideal instruction. Every one of these elements is pertinent, however in my view what appears to number most is the way that we are a plural society, as far as religion, dialect, ethnicity, district, culture and all the rest. This gives us a natural capacity to manage a multi-tinted world and to work crosswise over various types of diversities. We underestimate this, yet I am certain those that have voyage abroad, or your remote companions, will reveal to you this is not the standard everywhere throughout the world.

Along these lines in net terms, today's subjects require not just a feeling of patriotism and consciousness of national issues additionally advantage by interfacing their activity skyline with the outside provincial and worldwide condition in which our nation is found. Like never before some time recently, this remote arrangement process is open and progressively straightforward. It additionally profits by educated investment by individuals in all kinds of different backgrounds.

Answer 2

Two years ago today, Narendra Modi took the oath of office as India’s 14th prime minister. Among his first decisions as head of government – in fact, it was set in motion even before the formal start of his tenure – was an unconventional act of diplomacy: inviting eight foreign leaders of neighbouring countries to attend his inauguration. While many commentators claimed before his election that Modi would be a nationalist hardliner, a foreign affairs novice, or simply more of the same on external affairs, the prime minister instead proved more active and (perhaps less surprisingly) more pragmatic than many had expected. In two years, Modi has displayed an instinctive understanding of power in the conduct of world affairs, and he has also benefited from being less politically hamstrung than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, with whose worldview he in fact shares much in common.

A highlight of Modi’s first year was his outreach to the United States. In September 2014, Washington rolled out the red carpet for a leader it had once publicly shunned, and Modi reciprocated by inviting Barack Obama to India’s Republic Day celebrations, a first for a U.S. president. But beyond normalising and enhancing relations with the US, Modi’s international priorities were quickly made evident. Within his first year, he embarked upon state visits to India’s immediate neighbourhood, three crucial Indian Ocean island countries, important Asia-Pacific powers (China, Japan, and Australia), and eventually Western Europe.

Modi’s second year followed in much the same fashion, with a ground-breaking visit to Bangladesh, a swing through Central Asia, a long overdue visit to Afghanistan, and a renewed focus on the Middle East or West Asia. It also included a surprise stopover in Pakistan, a trip no Indian prime minister had managed since 2004. In addition, Modi has in his first two years played host in India to most of the world’s top leaders, including those of the United States, China, Russia, France, Japan, and Germany. He also hosted a landmark India-Africa Forum Summit last November that involved 41 heads of state and government.

Despite this flurry of activity, several commentators have been left disappointed by Modi’s – and India’s – handling of international relations. My Brookings India colleague W.P.S. Sidhu has pointed to a lack of strategic vision, and describes Modi’s various foreign policy initiatives – such as Neighbourhood First and Act East – as “vacuous.” While commending the prime minister’s sound instincts, initiative, and energy, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran has lamented the lack of an overall national security strategy and criticised the priority granted showmanship over substance. Meanwhile, Rajesh Rajagopalan of Jawaharlal Nehru University has expressed disappointment with the lack of new ideas and synergy and his colleague Happymon Jacob has faulted New Delhi’s bullying and poor imagination for bad relations with its neighbours.

Much of this criticism is perplexing. Ambiguity and deniability have value in foreign affairs. As a consequence, neither this Indian government nor any of its predecessors have ever explicitly spelled out their strategic intentions in a single document, although there are plenty of public statements that offer a good indication of the government’s outlook. These public articulations, combined with the nature, outcomes, and timings of Modi’s diplomatic activities, offer a clear picture of India’s priorities and strategic objectives. They are essentially five-fold:

Prioritizing an integrated neighbourhood; “Neighbourhood First.”
Leveraging international partnerships to promote India’s domestic development.
Ensuring a stable and multipolar balance of power in the Indo-Pacific; “Act East.”
Dissuading Pakistan from supporting terrorism.
Advancing Indian representation and leadership on matters of global governance.