Nehru’s Vision of Foreign Policy Assumes Greater Relevance in Wake of the Modi Regime’s Abject Failures

The abject failure of India’s foreign policy and its collapse under the Modi regime, especially after the launch of Operation Sindoor against Pakistan, has been a cause of national concern. Such disastrous performance was never witnessed during the tenure of any other Prime Minister of our country.

While Operation Sindoor’s military success in targeting Pak bases following the brutal killing of tourists by terrorists in Pahalgam in Kashmir has been acknowledged, its devastating fallout in the diplomatic and foreign policy front is very embarrassing.

Trump announcing ceasefire

Instead of India first announcing the ceasefire, it was US President Donald Trump who did so and repeated that claim several times on different occasions. He asserted that it was he who brokered it and claimed that both the countries ceased fire after he threatened to stop trade and commercial engagements with them.

Its denial by the spokesperson of External Affairs Ministry and Prime Minister Modi’s deafening silence on it unambiguously  affirms  that Trump’s claims are credible. A few days back Russian President Putin’s aide Ushakov corroborated Trumps claim saying that that the armed conflict between India and Pakistan was halted with the personal involvement of the American President.

Indira Gandhi’s Leadership

It is tragic that the country is witnessing such a sorry spectacle when India is reckoned with as a major player in international affairs and its military and economic might is globally acclaimed. Way back in 1971, neither the economic and military strength of India was anywhere near what we have in 2025.

And yet, under the leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, country’s foreign policy and diplomatic orientation formed a crucial part of formidable military strategy in the war of 1971 when Pakistan was dismembered, its soldiers surrendered before Indian Army and Bangladesh emerged as a new country.

She set an example of a remarkable leader providing leadership to India in shaping  her own independent path by defying the intimidations and pressures from the then US President Richard Nixon who despatched seventh fleet to the Indian Ocean to threaten India.

In 2025, no country with the exception of Israel supported Operation Sindoor even as China, Turkey and Azerbaijan stood in solidarity with Pakistan.

Nehru’s vision

In 1927, when India’s independence was a distant goal and freedom struggle was gaining momentum under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, thirty-eight-year old Jawaharlal Nehru, while attending an anti-imperialism conference in Brussels wrote for the first time an article titled “A Foreign Policy for India.”

He outlined in it the crucial necessity of safeguarding our autonomy and independence to formulate and implement such a policy.

“We,” he thoughtfully wrote, “must understand world movements and politics and fashion our own movement accordingly”. “This cannot,” Nehru forcefully asserted, “mean that we have to subordinate our interests or our methods of work to those of any other country or organisation”.

“Nor does it,” he added, “mean that we should expect any help from outside or slacken our efforts at home”. “It simply means that we must educate ourselves in problems of world polity so that we may be able to serve our country better,” he stated.

Those words uttered ninety-eight years back deeply resonate when India’s foreign policy is in tatters and there is deafening silence of Modi regime on this grave issue.

It is educative that nineteen years after Nehru wrote that aforementioned article on India’s foreign policy, he very presciently talked about the capability of India to frame an independent foreign policy in his book, Discovery of India, published in 1946.

Also Read: Gandhi’s and Modi’s Reflections on ‘Sindoor’ Are Poles Apart

He wrote that in the future, India along with USA, erstwhile Soviet Union and China would matter in world affairs. With rare far sightedness, he could foresee the rise of India, in his words, “… as a strong united state, a federation of free units, intimately connected with her neighbours and playing an important part in world affairs”.

He then remarked with emphasis, “She is one of the very few countries which have the resources and capacity to stand on their own feet.”

After Nehru, successive Prime Ministers right up to Manmohan Singh – which of course include the tenure of BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee – conducted India’s foreign policy in a manner affirming India’s capacity to stand on its own feet.

Nehru and Austria

In the middle of 1950s, eight years after India’s independence, with hardly any economic and military capability, India under the leadership of Prime Minister Nehru was requested by Austria to restore its freedom and sovereignty from the subjugation of the erstwhile occupation forces of the Soviet Union, Britain, France and the US, following the defeat of Germany in World War II.

Nehru took up the matter with the authorities of the erstwhile Soviet Union and requested them to sign the treaty so that all occupation forces would withdraw from Austria and it could get back its status as a free country. Indeed, Austria could recover its dignity as an independent nation wedded to the ideal of neutrality which remained central to Nehru’s non-aligned foreign policy eschewing alliances with military blocks and pursuing active engagement with all countries with a spirit of friendship, equality and reciprocity.

Vajpayee and Kargil Conflict

During the Kargil conflict, even Vajpayee did not visit the USA when President Clinton asked him to join the then Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Washington to discuss the military disengagement and put an end to the ongoing conflict. Pakistan eventually withdrew from the Kargil heights occupied by its army personnel.

Failure of India’s Foreign Policy Under Modi

Tragically, now in 2025, after Operation Sindoor, the Modi regime's approach to India’s foreign policy is demolishing its very foundation anchored in the ideals of independence.

As stated earlier, it was sadly reflected in the announcement of ceasefire by President Trump even before India did so.

Additionally, the dehyphenation of India with Pakistan so arduously achieved before 2014 has been reversed by the utter failure of our foreign policy under Modi regime and rest of the world has rehyphenated both the countries.

Failure of the all paty delegation to meet top functionaries of the 30 odd countries they visited to explain our position vis-a-vis Pakistan is yet again proves the sorry state of affairs of our foreign policy establishment.

Pakistan continues to get loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Asian Development Bank in spite of indulging in cross boarder terrorism against India, while the Modi administration is failing to get global public opinion mobilised against that country.

Besides, it is now set to chair the United Nations Security Council's Taliban Sanctions Committee in 2025, and will also be a vice-chair of the Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee. All such developments taking place in the backdrop of cease fire following Operation Sindoor is reflective of the failure of foreign policy architecture set by Modi Government to isolate Pakistan.

Nehru’s Legacy Endures

Modi, who boosted up his image domestically on the strength of his much hyped narrative that India’s stature has been considerably heightened globally under his leadership needs to introspect and assess the dismal failure of the foreign policy followed by his regime.

He should be mindful that during Nehru and Indira Gandhi's period, the stature of India at the global level was very high because of the excellent personality traits and attributes of those leaders even as India was not militarily and economically all that strong. It is in this context that Nehru’s vision articulated in 1927 and in 1946 assumes greater significance to restore India’s credibility at the national and global level.

S N Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K R Narayanan.

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