India’s increasing economic and population growth rates point towards a future as a major world power. Recently this has given special salience to the question of the development of its foreign policy strategy. One perspective assumes a paradigm change in India after the end of the Cold War. Accordingly, under pressure of an increasingly neo liberal world economy it diverged from its ideal, i.e. a nonalignment strategy.
In PRIF Report No. 85 Farewell Non-Alignment? Constancy and change of foreign policy in post-colonial India, Carsten Rauch proposes a different point of view. He shows how India’s foreign policy deviated constantly from the principles of non-alignment. To prove this, Rauch analyses Indian foreign policy since 1947 and shows its non-consistency with principles of nonalignment not only after the end of the Cold War. India’s aspirations will therefore critically affect the future course of its foreign policy. Its turn towards the west is thus not compulsory even though a future western orientation is probable. The report therefore concludes by recommending Germany and Europe to keep track of India’s development and possibly improve their cooperative connections with it.