A case for classically conservative foreign policy based on realism

• ABHIJNAN REJ

Photolabs@ORF

• RAISINA 2017

At the second edition of the Raisina Dialogue — an annual international geopolitics conference ORF co-organises with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — in January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a comprehensive inaugural address. Modi spoke of the key drivers of his active foreign policy and, as expected from such a speech, touched on the major international relations achievements of his government. But it was a single line from his speech, amplified in a tweet of his, that has had the commentariat perplexed.

The Prime Minister, by way of enunciating the broad principles that drives the way his government looks at the world and India’s place in it, noted that “self interest alone is neither in our culture nor in our behaviour”. The implication was that there was more to his foreign policy than a selfish pursuit of material prosperity and national security. Even individuals who have applauded Modi’s vigorous pursuit of India’s interests abroad found themselves asking: What is there to pursue beyond national interest? And why does India find itself repeating the same liberal line that its foreign policy is also a force for greater global good?

This was not the first time that this government has professed a “national interest plus” orientation for Indian foreign policy. Soon after coming to power in 2014, the Modi government spoke of “enlightened national interest” as the driving principle of its foreign policy.

President Pranab Mukherjee, speaking on behalf of his new Cabinet in June 2014, described this concept as a combination of values and pragmatism, deployed towards “mutually beneficial” international relationships.

One way to explain such statements is to view them as rhetorical sugar coating the pursuit of self-interest for international consumption, much like the way the Chinese talk of “win-win relationships”—it sounds good but does not mean much. But taken at its face value, such assertions pose a special problem for those who had hoped that Modi’s principles and actions will serve as a template for conservative governance. And a conservative foreign policy differs significantly from that of a liberal orientation in that the pursuit of national interest is the sole objective of the same.

The conceptual underpinnings of such a foreign policy are provided by a body of theory and practice called realism. A realist orientation for Indian foreign policy will be premised on the fact that force and diplomacy go hand in hand and coercion is often a valuable instrument of statecraft. It will be premised by the fact that international law is of limited use when it comes to advancing national interests. It takes as a fact that peace can only be secured by balance-of-power arrangements. And above all, it suggests that national sovereignty—and the preponderance of sovereign power — is the only absolute in the international system, to be preserved at any cost.

This essay will examine the links between conservatism and various schools of realism. While I will sketch what such a putative conservative-realist foreign policy for India means in practice, this essay is primarily an exercise in highlighting intellectual history. The Indian Right, over the last few years, has set out to define itself in terms of ideas which will then provide policy directions. The economists among them have been quite successful in doing so, but foreign policy scholars have generally shied away from this exercise. This essay is a first pass at redressing this situation.