In managing national security, how Realist is India in terms of cultivating and using power and especially military power? A conventional view of India is that it has been uncomfortable with realism or ‘power politics’ as a guide to policy. This volume shows that it has been more realist than is generally recognized and that it has increasingly become comfortable with power in the service of its interests.
The essays in this volume
- Examine the different aspects and types of realism in India’s national security policy
- Include a range of perspectives from academics as well as former military officers and diplomats
- Focus on India’s military and foreign policy in dealing with China, Pakistan, the United States, Southeast Asia, and West Asia.
This key volume will be indispensable to scholars and researchers of politics and international relations, defence and strategic studies, and South Asian studies and to government officials, journalists, and general readers interested in the external dimensions of India’s national security.
Introduction: Is India a Realist Power?
Kanti Bajpai
1. Deconstructing Indian Realism
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
2. Is India Realist?
Shivshankar Menon
3. Indian Realisms and Grand Strategic Choices
Kanti Bajpai
4. A Journey Without a Destination: The Cultural-Economy of a Great Power
D. Shyam Babu
5. India’s Realist Nuclear Posture for the 21st Century
Balraj Singh Nagal
6. Tactical Realism of India’s Conventional Military
Harish Masand
7. The Real Tension Between Industrialisation and Indigenisation: How Realistic Is India’s Approach to Self-Reliance in Armaments?
Ajai Shukla
8. Indian Foreign Policy Realism and India’s West Asia Policy
Rajendra M. Abhyankar
9. Look East, Act East: How Realist are Indian Policies Towards the ASEAN States?
Gurjit Singh
10. India's Moderated Realism vs. China's Hard Realism
Srikanth Kondapalli
11. India and the United States: Clashing Interests and Geopolitics
Jon Dorschner
12. Costs to India, Pakistan of Confrontational Policies: Regional Challenges and Opportunities
Shuja Nawaz
Biography
Kanti Bajpai is Wilmar Professor of Asian Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His research interests are strategic culture studies, India’s foreign policy and national security, and South Asia. His most recent books are India Versus China: Why They Are Not Friends (2021) and the co-edited volume Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations (2020).
