4.3 The limits of idealism

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From the course by The University of Melbourne

Contemporary India

29 ratings

The University of Melbourne

Contemporary India

29 ratings

This course presents some important vignettes of a complex, highly diverse India that is also witnessing unprecedented changes since its formal independence in 1947 from Great Britain. The lectures revolve around social dimensions of change, the continuing influence of ancient texts on contemporary India, political democracy, economic transition from the state to the market, gender relations, India's economic globalisation and changing world view. While one of the objectives is to capture the multifaceted process of change, the course also critically examines some of the tensions inherent in these changes. For example, how does gender inequality play itself out in a changing Indian society, how do the modernist conceptions of art entailing market valuation challenge the more socio-centric values found in South India, what are the politics linguistic identities, and how might India address its myriad development challenges such as poverty and unemployment. No specific prior knowledge is required. However, it would be helpful if students are aware of the socio political dynamics at play in contemporary India and keep themselves abreast with current affairs and debates in the country to fully appreciate the various dimensions and contours if the subject matter in the course. This course is taught in English. View the MOOC promotional video here: http://tinyurl.com/hx8mhxb

From the lesson

India's foreign policy

As India's influence increases in the international system, understanding its foreign policy and its engagement with the rest of the world is critical for students of international relations. This section is designed as a comprehensive review of some of the key issues related to India's word view and its behaviour towards the external world. Apart from taking stock of contemporary thinking and policies of the country, the major thrust would be on India's relations with its neighbours and great powers, its nuclear weapons policy and the ideological foundations of its foreign policy after independence.

4.1 Why study India’s foreign policy?9:48

4.2 The seven phases of India foreign policy8:12

4.3 The limits of idealism7:08

4.4 The fractured years, 1962-19708:21

4.5 The idea of power, 1971-19895:54

4.6 The years of reflection, 1990-19988:32

4.7 Consolidation of U.S – India relations4:39

4.8 Back to the future, 2011-20147:31

Meet the Instructors

Anthony D'Costa
Professor
School of Social and Political Sciences

Welcome back.

Earlier I spoke to you about the face of idealism where India,

fresh after independence believed that ideas could change the world.

The United Nations had been created, and

India thought that its ideas could help shape a better world order.

And there were a large number of new ideas which India articulated.

Especially ideas led by India's first prime minister,

who was also India's foreign minister and someone who the world respected.

However, even within that phase,

you could see that there were limits to this idealism.

And those limits to those idealism were in three related areas.

Pakistan and the legacy of Partition, Kashmir, and

India's relations with the Western Bloc.

India and India's Freedom Movement did not believe that Hindus and

Muslims could not live together in one nation.

The profoundly believed in secularism.

That a state, unlike in the west, could not completely disconnect from religion,

but a state could respect all religions and that all these religious faiths,

and people who believed in this state could live

in a multi-religious nation state, and

that this was part of the Indian tradition where different influences,

different faiths, different religions, different languages, could coexist.

In contrast there was the Muslim League which believed that Hindus and Muslims

were two different nationalities and deserved to have two different states.

The congress which led the freedom movement continued to oppose, and

particularly Gandhi, but ultimately, practical politics

meant that they compromised on one of their most fundamentally held beliefs

that partition and the two nation theory were an anathema to India and the spirit of India.

They agreed to partitioning India

into India a secular India and a Muslim Pakistan.

But those who believe that the British solution of partition would,

would create stability weren’t completely mistaken

because the partition itself created more problems than it solved.

And in addressing those problems from a sharing of resources

to addressing issues of different states wanting to join India and

Pakistan reflected most acutely in the problems of Junagadh and

Hyderabad, and Jammu and Kashmir, though many compromises made.

So in many ways India's relationship with Pakistan and with the idea of Pakistan,

which really was a Manichean contrast to India's own idea.

But that itself limited India's idealism

because the problems with Pakistan remained and remain till today unsettled.

There are no ideas which Nehru championed which were found

itself in policies that could create the condition of peace of Pakistan.

And this was particularly clear in the whole Kashmir issue, or

the whole issue of Jammu and Kashmir, which was one of

the several hundred princely states of India with the Muslim

majority, a Hindu king, and with borders,

which are contiguous to both India and what was to be Pakistan.

The choice before the Maharaja was to join either India or Pakistan.

Instead, he stalled, he refused

to take a decision even as independents arrived in India and Pakistan.

And then Pakistan inspired

raided Kashmir, were about to take over the state of Kashmir when the Maharaja

exceeded to India in October 1947.

The circumstances are that annexation, and

the fact that the Maharaja made that decision so

late meant that India decided also to take the issue

to the United Nations particularly because Pakistan inspired and supported armed

raiders had invaded Jammu and Kashmir, and which the Indian army was repelling.

Now, the Kashmir story, or what happened there is, was clearly another indication

where ideas and idealism and everyone belief that perhaps, even India and

Pakistan would be able to live in peace after partition was undermined.

And simultaneously,

you could see that when the Kashmir issue was taken to the United Nations by India,

I repeat, under not chapter 8, which dealt with aggression,

which many argue would have been the rightful place to take it since

Kashmir had been invaded by Pakistan.

India took it again it's an inside idealism to chapter 7,

for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes.

The chapter that deals with Pacific Settlement of Disputes.

But quickly India realised that, the UN Security Council

was not an idealistic group of people wanting to create peace,

but countries driven by Machiavellian realpolitik.

And that became evident to India in the dealings of the Western Bloc on the issue

of Jammu and Kashmir which India perceived from day one, that the Western Bloc,

the United States, and the United Kingdom were clearly pro-Pakistan.

So India's faith in the United Nations system was deeply eroded

by the way it saw the Western Bloc deal with the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

In addition, as I said, in an earlier part, John Foster Dulles

had declared as deeply troubling and immoral.

So on issues like Pakistan on Kashmir and the UN Security Counsel and

it's functioning, especially related to the issue of Jammu and

Kashmir, Indian idealism was deeply eroded and

you could see that nehruvian idealism on these three issues

begin to recognise that, perhaps,

in many critical issues, it was realism and the realist

ways in which the great powers dealt with which was the order of the day.

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