The focus of India’s foreign policy should not be limited to seeking a permanent seat in Security Council or revenge for historical wrongs and welfare and peace should be given more importance, Shivshankar Menon, former National Security Adviser, felt.
He said India needs the world for energy and other resource endowments. Finding partners who share a common interest in terms of energy security, climate change, cyber security etc is the way forward, he said while discussing learnings from the experience of 75 years of foreign policy and the prospects for India in the years to come.
Mr. Menon was sharing his thoughts at a lecture on “Indian Foreign Policy @75 Challenges and the Way Forward,” organised by the Centre for Economics and Social Studies (CESS) as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM) celebrations.
The former NSA said that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a unipolar movement started across the globe leading to rise of new authoritarian populist demagogues. In addition to the changes that globalisation has brought to the global economy, it had a great impact on the internal politics of the countries and politics eventually became ‘politics of emotions and resentment’ leading to hyper-nationalist tendencies.
Looking at different situations that India has faced since independence, and at some of the most significant relationships, particularly with its neighbours and the major powers, he said until 1971, India had space with respect to the foreign relations with China. But, with the Sino-Soviet split followed by the Sino-US alliance, India was left with limited options.
He said earlier China described disputes with India as ‘disputes leftover from history’, which stemmed from the British era. But now, China considers this a threat to its sovereignty, projecting its hyper-nationalist attitude. Mr. Menon believes that the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) was not neutrality, but in fact a strategic choice of India. However, after the world moved to unipolar model the limitations of NAM also became apparent.
Prof. Rajen Harshe, Founding and Former Vice-Chancellor, Central University of Allahabad (Prayagraj) chaired the meeting.
