Since the historical hiatus of its economic liberalisation in the early 1990s, India has witnessed an upward leap in its international standing. Three decades of impressive economic growth, a vast expansion of military capacity and an increase in diplomatic influence have delivered India into a position of new-found global prominence. Finally, India seems to be “arriving” – fulfilling, or reasserting, the great destiny that has long been written into its historical narratives.

Yet India’s recently acquired attributes of hard power stand in stark contrast to the characteristics and convictions of its earlier, newly independent self. After independence, India was a militarily weak state whose foreign policy was guided by a commitment to anti-colonialism, anti-racialism and a highly critical stance on what it saw as both the undemocratic and unequal distribution of international power, and the global insecurity that resulted from excessive military spending and nuclear weapons.

This course explores the forces which have led to India’s transformation into a country seemingly more interested in status symbols than moral posturing. On a journey through the history of India’s external relations since independence, the course examines the seismic shifts in both India’s strategic capacity and its status in the international realm, and explores and critiques the theories that help us to explain them.

In a course that encourages students to explore India’s global role through the theoretical lenses of International Relations while playing close attention to the cultural roots and changing ethos of India’s foreign policy, the following four key questions are addressed:

1)       Which tools can we use to understand India's changing global role?

2)       What historical forces have led to the transformations in India's strategic capacity and its status in international society since independence?

3)       What kind of a global role does India envisage for itself and how do current global challenges mediate India's hopes for major-power status?

4)       What might India’s ascendance mean for India, South Asia and the world?