Spectrum Summary: The Evolution of Nationalist Foreign Policy

Introduction

By the time India gained independence in 1947 there already existed a substantial body of international engagement and a discernible framework of ideas that shaped its external relations. India was a member of about 51 international organisations and a signatory to roughly 600 treaties. Earlier participations included signature to the Versailles Treaty after the First World War, membership of the League of Nations, and early association with the International Labour Organization and the International Court of Justice. India took part in the Washington Conference on Naval Armaments (1921-22). From 1920 there was an Indian High Commissioner in London and, even before the First World War, Indians staffed some diplomatic posts. These continuities explain why, soon after 1947, Indians formed one of the largest non-Western contingents in the United Nations and its specialised agencies.

1880-First World War: Anti-Imperialism and Pan-Asian Feeling

Between the late nineteenth century and the First World War Indian nationalists developed a foreign-policy outlook marked by opposition to imperial expansion, solidarity with other colonised peoples, and admiration for non-European examples of modernisation. The following British military and political interventions provoked nationalist opposition:

• The Second Afghan War (1878-80).
• British expedition to Egypt (1882) to suppress the nationalist uprising led by Colonel ʻArabi.
• Annexation of Burma (1885).
• Invasion of Tibet (1903) conducted during Lord Curzon's tenure.
• Series of annexations and frontier campaigns in the 1890s in the north-west to counter perceived Russian advance; nationalists supported local and tribal resistance to these moves.
• Nationalist leaders advocated a policy of peace rather than aggressive imperialism; C. Sankaran Nair, Congress president in 1897, declared that "Our true policy is a peaceful policy".

Pan-Asianism and its expressions

• Condemnation of the annexation of Burma (1885).
• Inspiration drawn from Japan as an example of rapid industrialisation and national revival.
• Condemnation of Japan's participation in the suppression of the I-Ho-Tuan (Boxer) uprising (1895).
• Opposition to imperialist attempts to divide and dominate China.
• The Japanese victory over Czarist Russia (1905) undermined the myth of inherent European superiority in some nationalist minds.
• Congress expressed support for Burma's aspirations for freedom.

World War I and the Interwar Period

World War I and immediate aftermath

• Many Indian nationalists initially supported the British war effort in the belief that Britain would apply the democratic principles it claimed to defend and that India would receive political concessions after the war.
• After the war, the Indian National Congress insisted on being represented at the Paris Peace Conference.
• In the early post-war years the Congress's stance changed at times: in 1920 it urged people not to enlist to fight in the West, and by 1925 it condemned sending Indian troops to suppress Chinese nationalist forces under Sun Yat-sen.

1920s: Contacts with socialists and international radical networks

• Jawaharlal Nehru spent time in Europe during 1926-27 and came into contact with socialists and leftist leaders.
• Dadabhai Naoroji attended the Hague session of an International Socialist Congress and had close links with British socialists such as H.M. Hyndman.
• Lala Lajpat Rai made contacts with American socialists during his stay in the United States (1914-18).
• Mahatma Gandhi developed relationships with international moral and reformist figures such as Leo Tolstoy and the French writer Romain Rolland.
• In 1927, Nehru represented the Congress at the Congress of Oppressed Nationalists held at Brussels.

1930s: Anti-Fascism and international solidarity

• The rise of Fascism in Europe during the 1930s brought a new dimension to nationalist foreign-policy thinking. Many Indian nationalists identified imperialism and fascism as allied threats tied to aggressive capitalist expansion.
• Indian opinion and nationalists often expressed solidarity with struggles against fascism in places such as Ethiopia, Spain, China and concerned European territories like Czechoslovakia.
• At the Tripuri session of the Congress (1939) the party dissociated itself from British policies that were seen as implicitly supporting fascist interests in Europe.
• The nationalists condemned Japan's attack on China (1937-39) and the Congress organised relief efforts, including a medical mission to China under Dr Atal.

Post-1947: Foundations of Independent India's Foreign Policy

Jawaharlal Nehru is widely regarded as the principal architect of India's foreign policy in the immediate post-independence period. In his address to the Constituent Assembly on 4 December 1947 he outlined the foundations of external policy that followed from the country's domestic priorities and historical experience.

• The principal challenge, as Nehru saw it, was to create the economic, social and technological base that would enable India to stand on its own feet at a time of intensifying global rivalry.
• Nehru's objective was to pursue rapid socio-economic modernisation while avoiding dependence on any single great power or bloc that might compromise India's independence of thought or action.
• Two key pillars of India's early foreign policy were the doctrine of Panchsheel (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence) and the policy of Non-Alignment.

Panchsheel (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence)

The term Panchsheel was first formally enunciated on 29 April 1954 in the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India. The preamble stated that the two governments resolved to enter into the agreement on the basis of five principles:

1. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
2. Mutual non-aggression.
3. Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs.
4. Equality and mutual benefit.
5. Peaceful coexistence.

These principles were intended to provide normative guidance for relations between newly independent and established states alike, emphasising sovereignty, equality and peaceful dispute settlement.

Non-Alignment

• The onset of the Cold War created a bipolar international order dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. Many newly independent countries were pressured to align with one bloc or the other.
• Non-Alignment was India's chosen strategy for navigating this bipolarity: it meant refusing formal alignment with either superpower bloc while retaining the freedom to cooperate with both on issues of mutual interest.
• Non-alignment sought to protect newly independent states from becoming economically and strategically dependent on a single power, thus preserving policy autonomy and space for independent development strategies.
• Non-alignment is distinct from neutrality: neutrality implies passivity and the absence of opinions during conflict; non-alignment involves active engagement in international affairs and the ability to critique or support policies in ways that reflect national interest and values, both in peace and in war.
• Important milestones and expressions of non-aligned solidarity included the Bandung Conference (1955), which brought together Asian and African states to discuss cooperation and decolonisation, and the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), of which India was a founder-member (the first NAM Summit took place in Belgrade, 1961).

The evolution of nationalist foreign policy in India shows a clear intellectual and practical continuity from the late nineteenth century to the post-independence period. Anti-imperialist sentiment, solidarity with other colonised and newly independent peoples, interest in alternative models of development, and a preference for peaceful methods of resolving disputes together informed both the Congress's pre-1947 positions and the foreign policy of independent India. Panchsheel and Non-Alignment emerged as succinct expressions of those continuities, providing normative principles and strategic options that guided India's diplomacy during the Cold War and beyond.