Domestic political climate affects external relations. India must recognise this urgently (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Major challenges ahead towards India’s strategic policy

Context:

• India will need some decisive domestic course-correction in the new year to prevent the crystallisation of serious external challenges.
• 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’s polity.
• Internal political accommodation and economic revival hold the key to India’s diplomacy and foreign policy in the coming days.

Factors boosted India’s IR:

• In the 21st century, two important factors have boosted India’s international relations.
• India’s rapid economic growth stemming from the reforms of the 1990s. It put India on the course to join the league of major powers.
• The expanding size of the economy and the attractiveness of its market was reinforced by another important factor.

Strategic and Economic importance:

• India’s 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.
• This would eventually reshape the structure of the international system.
• The rise of India’s hard power capabilities was complemented by its soft power defined by India’s democratic values, the spread of Indian culture and the positive influence of its diaspora.

Major challenges:

• It is easy to underestimate the weight of India’s soft power that is both intangible and difficult to measure.
• 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’s standing in the West.
• India’s democratic values were of little strategic consequence during the Cold War, but they helped cement India’s strategic partnerships with the US, Europe, Japan and other Asian democracies in the new century.
• India’s 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.
• The diaspora, once seen as an asset, is now becoming part of Delhi’s foreign policy problem. India’s internal divisions are inevitably transmitted to the diaspora that, in turn, feeds into the emerging negative sentiment towards Delhi.
• The sharpening religious divide within the country coupled with the renewed confrontation with Pakistan is generating major headaches for the conduct of India’s external relations.
• Just when India seemed to be pulling away from Pakistan — in terms of economic performance, internal unity and international salience — 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.
• For most nations today, domestic economic policy and, increasingly, technology policy are shaped by a dynamic interaction between the internal and external.
• Few would contest the proposition that absolute economic sovereignty is unsustainable in a globalised world.
• While one can control the degree of exposure to the world, there is no room for absolute separation.
• 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.
• Maximising political sovereignty necessarily involves limiting domestic conflict and strengthening internal political coherence.

Way ahead:

• 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.
• All governments in Delhi have struggled to cope with the bitter legacies of Partition.
• The very nature of these challenges inevitably produced much ambiguity, self-doubt and vacillation in India’s engagement with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• It will be a great tragedy if the NDA government’s attempts to answer some of these challenges ends up exacerbating them.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), consider the following statements:
1. It is defined as the nutrient present in the diet which satisfies the daily requirement of nearly all individuals in a population.
2. It is based on scientific consensus and has been agreed upon by expert bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad.

Which of the statements given above are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) None

Ans: C
Mains Questions:
Q.1) To what extent domestic political climate that affects India’s external relations. Critically comment.