Whither Non-Alignment? Indian Ocean Zone of Peace and New Delhi’s Selective Alignment with Great Powers during the Cold War, 1964–1979

Joshi, Yogesh

doi:10.1080/09592296.2019.1557414

Cited by 9 publications

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“…In 1971, India supported the proposal, initially made by Sri Lanka at the 1964 NAM Summit in Cairo, of declaring the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (IOZP). The proposal, passed by the UNGA as Resolution 2832 (1971), called for denuclearising and eliminating foreign military bases in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) (Joshi, 2019, p. 28; United Nations, 1971). In 1972, India joined the Ad Hoc Committee of littoral states, established through Resolution 2992 of the UNGA, which was tasked with carrying out the consultations required to implement the proposal (Joshi, 2019, p. 34).…”

Section: Status Without Power: India’s Status-seeking In the Middle E...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The proposal, passed by the UNGA as Resolution 2832 (1971), called for denuclearising and eliminating foreign military bases in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) (Joshi, 2019, p. 28; United Nations, 1971). In 1972, India joined the Ad Hoc Committee of littoral states, established through Resolution 2992 of the UNGA, which was tasked with carrying out the consultations required to implement the proposal (Joshi, 2019, p. 34). Yet again, India’s advocacy for Third Worldist principles such as the opposition to great power intervention earned it greater visibility at the UN.…”

Section: Status Without Power: India’s Status-seeking In the Middle E...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4.One example is India’s demand for a nuclear umbrella from the two great powers following China’s nuclear tests of 1964 (see Joshi, 2019, pp. 28–30).…”

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The Middle East in India’s Quest for Status

Alhasan

2022

India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs

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The temptation to explain India’s foreign policy behaviour in the Middle East through the lens of power alone has obscured a rich history of Indian diplomacy in the region that escapes power-centric explanations. India’s relentless advocacy for Palestinian statehood, its diplomatic support for the weaker Arab states against Israel and Western powers and its role in UN mediation and peacekeeping missions in the region are difficult to explain using a structural realist framework that privileges power alone. Challenging the dominant historiographies, this article introduces the concept of status into the study of India’s behaviour in the Middle East. Based on a re-reading of secondary sources, it argues that status and power have been articulated in various ways in India’s behaviour in the Middle East. Under prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, India pursued status without power, following a primarily normative strategy of status-seeking in the region that afforded India considerable deference at the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement. Following India’s nuclear tests of 1998 and a decade of economic growth, however, power and status converged in India’s behaviour in the Middle East through further alignment with US interests in the region and greater use of naval power projection. By shedding light on the various possible ways in which status and power articulate, this article attempts to step away from the artificial opposition between morals and self-interest as guiding principles of foreign policy. The inquiry into status challenges the prevalent historiographies and analytical frameworks that have dominated the discussion on India’s foreign policy in the Middle East, generating productive openings for reconceptualising and reimagining the field.

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Section: Status Without Power: India’s Status-seeking In the Middle E...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Status Without Power: India’s Status-seeking In the Middle E...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Middle East in India’s Quest for Status

Alhasan

2022

India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs

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“…Intending to maximise security, India played its diplomatic cards with dexterity vis-à-vis the crucial external actors, the USSR and the USA (Joshi, 2019). Eventually, India carved out space for itself to perform the role of the subcontinental power.…”

Section: Mid-1960s To Late 1980s: Subcontinental Power and Security-s...mentioning

confidence: 99%

India in the Indo-Pacific

Malhotra¹

2022

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In view of the fast-changing world order, emerging countries are increasingly influencing the dynamics of regional securities. This timely and in-depth book examines India’s reorienting strategic posture and describes how New Delhi’s security policy in the Indo-Pacific region has evolved and expanded over the past two decades. The author argues that India’s quest to leverage its geostrategic location to emerge as an Indo-Pacific actor faces multiple challenges, which create a clear divide between the country’s political rhetoric and action on the ground. The author critically examines these contradictions to better situate India's security role in an increasingly fluid Indo-Pacific region.

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“…25 For New Delhi, therefore, Great Power détente and the continuing isolation of China was a major goal. 26 Lastly, though India faced both technological and financial hurdles, the political costs of an indigenous bomb were far more debilitating. An Indian dash to build the bomb, without the necessary capability to obtain strategic deterrence, would have focused Chinese nuclear resources on New Delhi rather than on the Great Powers.…”

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confidence: 99%

Perceptions and purpose of the bomb: Explaining India's nuclear restraint against China

Joshi

2021

Mod. Asian Stud.

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Much of the literature on India's nuclear programme assumes that China's nuclear capability drove New Delhi, the strategically weaker actor, to pursue a nuclear weapons capability. China's nuclear tests not only rendered New Delhi militarily insecure and dented its claim for the leadership of the Third World but they also polarized the domestic debate over the utility of the bomb. In the global scheme of nuclear proliferation, therefore, India was just another fallen nuclear domino. Marshalling recently declassified documents, this article revisits India's nuclear behaviour during the crucial decade between 1964 and 1974. By focusing on threat assessments made at the highest levels and internal deliberations of the Indian Government, this article shows how, contrary to the claims made in the literature, Indian decision-makers did not make much of the Chinese nuclear threat. This conviction emanated out of their distinct reading of the purpose of nuclear weapons in China's foreign and military policy; their perceptions of how India could achieve nuclear deterrence against China by using the bipolar international politics of the Cold War; and, finally, their understanding of the political costs of developing an indigenous nuclear response to China's nuclear threat. New Delhi's nuclear restraint resulted from its perceptions of Chinese nuclear intentions and its beliefs about the purpose of the bomb in Sino-Indian relations. India's perceptions of China as a nuclear adversary and its decision-makers’ views on the purpose of nuclear weapons in this rivalry were fundamentally different from the expectations set out by the domino theory of nuclear proliferation.

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Whither Non-Alignment? Indian Ocean Zone of Peace and New Delhi’s Selective Alignment with Great Powers during the Cold War, 1964–1979

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

The Middle East in India’s Quest for Status

The Middle East in India’s Quest for Status

India in the Indo-Pacific

Perceptions and purpose of the bomb: Explaining India's nuclear restraint against China

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