{"id":5345,"date":"2020-01-02T15:23:50","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T09:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5345"},"modified":"2020-01-02T15:23:50","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T09:53:50","slug":"major-challenges-ahead-towards-indias-strategic-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/major-challenges-ahead-towards-indias-strategic-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Major challenges ahead towards India\u2019s strategic policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: International<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Domestic political climate affects external relations<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India will need some decisive domestic course-correction in the new year to prevent the crystallisation of serious external challenges.<br \/>\n\u2022 An India that turns on itself is weaker abroad and invites external meddling. And the combination of internal strife and a faltering economy could turn out to be a dangerous recipe for India\u2019s polity.<br \/>\n\u2022 Internal political accommodation and economic revival hold the key to India\u2019s diplomacy and foreign policy in the coming days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Factors boosted India\u2019s IR:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the 21st century, two important factors have boosted India\u2019s international relations.<br \/>\n\u2022 India\u2019s rapid economic growth stemming from the reforms of the 1990s. It put India on the course to join the league of major powers.<br \/>\n\u2022 The expanding size of the economy and the attractiveness of its market was reinforced by another important factor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Strategic and Economic importance:<br \/>\n\u2022 India\u2019s growing economic weight, many in the world believed, would translate sooner than later into military power and that, in turn, could make Delhi an important player in shaping the regional balance of power in Asia and the Indian Ocean.<br \/>\n\u2022 This would eventually reshape the structure of the international system.<br \/>\n\u2022 The rise of India\u2019s hard power capabilities was complemented by its soft power defined by India\u2019s democratic values, the spread of Indian culture and the positive influence of its diaspora.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Major challenges:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is easy to underestimate the weight of India\u2019s soft power that is both intangible and difficult to measure.<br \/>\n\u2022 The idea of shared political values with the West played a critical role in ending the decades-old high technology blockade against India and improving the country\u2019s standing in the West.<br \/>\n\u2022 India\u2019s democratic values were of little strategic consequence during the Cold War, but they helped cement India\u2019s strategic partnerships with the US, Europe, Japan and other Asian democracies in the new century.<br \/>\n\u2022 India\u2019s ability to live with religious, linguistic and ethnic differences highlighted its political exceptionalism amidst the proliferation of intra-national conflicts and civil wars around the world.<br \/>\n\u2022 The diaspora, once seen as an asset, is now becoming part of Delhi\u2019s foreign policy problem. India\u2019s internal divisions are inevitably transmitted to the diaspora that, in turn, feeds into the emerging negative sentiment towards Delhi.<br \/>\n\u2022 The sharpening religious divide within the country coupled with the renewed confrontation with Pakistan is generating major headaches for the conduct of India\u2019s external relations.<br \/>\n\u2022 Just when India seemed to be pulling away from Pakistan \u2014 in terms of economic performance, internal unity and international salience \u2014 and poised for a larger global role, Delhi appears to be sliding back into a regional conflict with Islamabad and, more dangerously, towards a Hindu-Muslim conflict at home.<br \/>\n\u2022 For most nations today, domestic economic policy and, increasingly, technology policy are shaped by a dynamic interaction between the internal and external.<br \/>\n\u2022 Few would contest the proposition that absolute economic sovereignty is unsustainable in a globalised world.<br \/>\n\u2022 While one can control the degree of exposure to the world, there is no room for absolute separation.<br \/>\n\u2022 The political sovereignty has never been absolute and is always constrained by size, economy, geography, demography and history. There is no country that does not have internal fault lines.<br \/>\n\u2022 Maximising political sovereignty necessarily involves limiting domestic conflict and strengthening internal political coherence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way ahead:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Few countries, however, have had to bear the kind of religious burden that independent India has. The partition of India along religious lines has left Delhi with extraordinary challenges about sustaining religious harmony at home and maintaining reasonable relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh.<br \/>\n\u2022 All governments in Delhi have struggled to cope with the bitter legacies of Partition.<br \/>\n\u2022 The very nature of these challenges inevitably produced much ambiguity, self-doubt and vacillation in India\u2019s engagement with Pakistan and Bangladesh.<br \/>\n\u2022 It will be a great tragedy if the NDA government\u2019s attempts to answer some of these challenges ends up exacerbating them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: International Context: Domestic political climate affects external relations India will need some decisive domestic course-correction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5346,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5345\/revisions\/5346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}