India - From Regional to World Power

by Kapur; Ashok

• ISBN13: 9780415328043
• ISBN10: 0415328047
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-16
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Kapur provides an in-depth account of India's role in world politics at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He shows how the approach laid down by Nehru and followed by his successors (an approach that included nuclear self-restraint, the search for friendly relations with Pakistan and China, seeking the high ground in moral and diplomatic spheres, and giving a lead to the non-aligned Third World) has been replaced. The new, more self-confident and assertive approach is based on India's growing economic strength and has a more strategic and pro-Western orientation. Meticulous in approach, this book discusses this change, shows how it has come about, and explores how India's role in world politics might develop going forward.

Author Biography

Ashok Kapur is Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
1 Introduction: India as a catalyst	1	(16)
2 Shifts in Indian diplomatic history	17	(25)
3 Strategic triangles and the Indian subcontinent	42	(20)
4 Indian strategic debates and dilemmas: analytical constructs	62	(12)
5 The nature of India's foreign policy: utopia, compromise peace or engagement?	74	(10)
6 The build-up of the suzerain states' system in the subcontinent, 1947-90's	84	(13)
7 The typology of threats to India and the Nehruvian record, 1964-98	97	(18)
8 Nehru's innovations and their problems	115	(14)
9 Nehruvians and the rise of anti-India trends in foreign affairs	129	(16)
10 The external determinants of change in Indian foreign affairs, 1960's-90's	145	(18)
11 India's antagonists re-group, 1971-80's	163	(17)
12 Liberating India and its nuclear policy from the Nehruvian shackles	180	(17)
13 India's rise as a major power, 1990's	197	(12)
14 The BJP's geopolitics and building strategic triangularities	209	(15)
Epilogue	224	(9)
Notes	233	(12)
Index	245