The notion that non-alignment was a single immutable grain of thought shaping India's foreign policy since its inception is a popular view. But it is not accurate. Using extensive including new archival material, this book recovers another layer of India's strategic culture that had been largely lost to history. The author not only reconstructs the worldviews and strategies that underlay geopolitics during the Nehru and Indira Gandhi years, he also illuminates the dramatic transformation in India's foreign policy and how policymakers redefined some of their most fundamental precepts on India's role in the subcontinent and extended Asian neighbourhood.
All the crises examined in this book will resonate with the present because they each also speak to contemporary questions regarding a specific facet of India's foreign policy. Whether it is about crafting a sustainable set of equations with competing great powers, formulating an intelligent policy towards Pakistan, finding the appropriate approach in managing India's special ties with its smaller neighbours, dealing with China's rise and the attendant power flux in Asia, responding to a Sino-American crisis, or developing a sustainable Indian role in Asia, this book aims to strike at the heart of today's policy conversations.