Revamping India’s Foreign Policy

It was in year 2019-20 when India started building its foreign policy at much faster rate but the arrival of COVID-19 pandemic stopped the futuristic growth of many emerging economies including India all over the world. India had very good relations with the middle east countries like Iran (investing money in Chabahar Port), Afghanistan, Iraq for importing oil, taking help of Israel in defence equipment etc. QUAD also played a very important role in the Indian ocean region to counter growing hegemonistic interests of China in the Indo pacific followed by the formation of AUKUS and “Middle East Quad” comprising India, USA, UAE and Israel then acquiring S-400 missiles despite US pressure and signing the contract of manufacturing nearly 6 lakh AK-203 rifles from Russia gives the edge to India for facing the changing geopolitics.

India has been a member of various International organizations like ASEAN, BRICS, G-20, IEA, ILO, IMF etc. and most importantly the founding member of International Solar Alliance. In mid of year 2020, India also started Mission “SAGAR” (Security and Growth for All Regions) initiative to deliver COVID 19 related assistance to the countries like Mauritius, Madagascar, Maldives etc. and later Vaccine diplomacy was also a reason to win the trust of underdeveloped countries so that these countries could understand the importance of bilateral ties in tough time. Revamping “Look East policy” into “Act East policy”, managing complex relationships with Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran was itself a challenge that was done by NDA government effectively.

Geopolitically, brinkmanship in South China sea by China, Russia on the Ukraine conflict and the need of de-hyphenation policy are now becoming the need of the hour to prove their respective interests and strong hold in the world so its mandatory for a country to have a powerful foreign policy just like these countries have. Its high time to follow multilateralism and plurilateralism for trade and negotiations and moreover after the outbreak of pandemic, depending on other developed/developing countries is itself a threat for our sovereignty as well so for that Indigenization, Make in India and a push towards Atmanirbhar Bharat i.e. self-reliant India are evident in the ongoing and coming decade.

Recently In a 2+2 dialogue which was held in USA our External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar replied to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with a hard hitting statement that “India’s monthly purchase of Russian oil is less than what Europe does in an afternoon” that means even developed countries are still dependent on Russia for their needs despite having a tussle & cold war with Russia. At last ending with a positive connotation “Our country is in a developing stage and it’s a matter of time when this word “developing” eventually turns up into “developed” sooner or later.