The Indian prime minister has returned from China after signing some extravagantly titled documents. The British prime minister has come and gone after making some equally grandiose noises. And India has hosted the French president on its Republic Day celebrations. The world, it seems, is India’s oyster. India is being touted as the next great power on the horizon by one and all (even by the Chinese) but the Indian foreign policy continues to drift without any real sense of direction. The seemingly never-ending debate on the US-India nuclear deal had made it clear that today Indian policy stands divided on fundamental foreign policy choices facing the nation.

What Walter Lipmann wrote for US foreign policy in 1943 applies equally to the Indian landscape of today. He had warned that the divisive partisanship that prevents the finding of a settled and generally accepted foreign policy is a grave threat to the nation. “For when a people is divided within itself about the conduct of its foreign relations, it is unable to agree on the determination of its true interest. It is unable to prepare adequately for war or to safeguard successfully its peace.” In the absence of a coherent national grand strategy, India is in the danger of losing its ability to safeguard its long-term peace and prosperity.

As India’s weight has grown in the international system in recent years, there is a perception that India is on the cusp of achieving ‘great power’ status. There is just one problem: Indian policymakers themselves are not clear as to what this status of a great power entails. At a time when the Indian foreign policy establishment should be vigorously debating the nature and scope of India’s engagement with the world, it is disappointingly silent.

... contd.