Critical Reappraisal of Indian Domestic and Foreign policy Decision Making

Abstract

At the time of its inception India’s Jawaharlal Nehru – the country’s first prime minister and the architect of its foreign policy –proclaimed to follow a “non-aligned”posture as an actor in the bipolar world order alongside keeping a “secular” face domestically. Sincethenall Indian leaders, think-tanks and policymakers have been claiming“non-alignment”and “secularism” as foundation stones of their foreign and domestic policies respectively.Today India is neither secular nor non-aligned. The growing Hindutva movement has brutally tarnished Indian domestic character. Similarly in September 2001, quite opposite to India nonaligned claim, Vajpayee rendered full operational support to the US including its military basis for its operation against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. The startling, imprudent and abrupt decision from a state’s decision-maker generated many questions amongst analysts related to Indian decision-making mechanism. This also warrants an academic inquiry under the realm of IR theories on the rationality of strategic decision-making in India, formulation of its foreign policy with its New Delhi’s historic claims. This research is inductive in nature and meant to dig out the reasons of systematic demise of secularism and non-alignment in India.