People's Democracy

Ninan Koshy

India’s vote at the end of September 2005 against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was an ignominious display of the abject surrender of its strategic autonomy before the U.S. empire. Ninan Koshy traces the paradigm shift in India’s foreign policy to its nuclear weapon programme started in 1998. Endorsing fully all unilateralist actions of the Bush administration meant to destabilize the international order, the NDA government entered into a strategic and military alliance with the U.S. Koshy shows how the Congress-led UPA government went much further along the new policies of its predecessor on nuclear weapons, West Asia, and alliance with the U.S. Abandoning all principles of non-alignment and independence in foreign policy, and ignoring the relevant directives of the Common Minimum Programme, the Manmohan Singh government accepted all conditions dictated by the U.S., tantalized by its promise to ‘help India become a major world power in the 21st century’. The induction of India as a junior partner of the U.S., which meanwhile had transformed itself into an Empire, was celebrated in mid-July during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Washington. Ninan Koshy makes a lucidly argued and well-substantiated critique of the foreign policy of the UPA government, an issue that has become the focus of a stormy political debate in the country in the latter part of 2005.