0:04 August 15, 1947. For Indians, this is a
0:07 sacred date. After centuries of foreign
0:10 rule, we were free. Free to make our own
0:12 decisions. Free to make our own
0:15 mistakes. Free to chart our own destiny.
0:17 But for the outside world, this was a
0:19 day of suspicion. Here was a country, a
0:23 new country, a broken economy, a bruised
0:26 people, and a partition geography. Would
0:29 it be able to survive, let alone thrive?
0:32 Decades later, I think we have a clear
0:35 answer. And yes, it took time. We had to
0:38 tweak our economic policy. We had to
0:41 rethink our social justice platform. But
0:44 in one area, we hit the ground running
0:46 and that is diplomacy. On the world
0:49 stage, India walked in with purpose and principles.
0:50 principles.
0:53 Right after independence, we got a knock
0:55 on our door. On the other side was the
0:57 Cold War, the cutthroat ideological
1:00 battle of the 20th century, the US-led
1:03 capitalist block and the Sovietled
1:05 communist block. Countries around the
1:07 world were picking sides, but India's
1:10 response, thanks for the invite, but
1:13 we'll stay out of it. Thus was born the
1:17 nonaligned movement or NAM,
1:20 India's RSVP to the cold war. You can
1:22 trace its roots to before independence.
1:25 In March 1947, Javahar Lal Nehu hosted a
1:28 conference in New Delhi, the Asian
1:30 Relations Conference. It was attended by
1:33 28 Asian countries. The idea was to
1:36 foster unity within the continent. After
1:38 becoming prime minister, Nu continued
1:40 this mission, but he added one more
1:43 goal. Along with unity, he wanted
1:46 neutrality. He wanted to keep Asia out
1:48 of the cold war.
1:50 In 1955, another conference was held to
1:52 this end, the Bandong Conference in
1:55 Indonesia. India played a key role in
1:58 organizing this gathering. And this
1:59 time, it wasn't just Asia. Countries
2:02 from Africa attended as well 29
2:05 countries representing more than half of
2:07 the global population.
2:09 Such conferences led to the
2:11 establishment of NAM.
2:14 Of course, this policy had many critics.
2:16 Some called it fence sitting, others
2:18 called it isolationist. But the Indian
2:21 leadership was very clear in its mind.
2:25 They wanted to be players not pawns.
2:27 This thinking dominated Indian diplomacy
2:30 in the 1950s.
2:32 But this thinking also had a problem. It
2:35 was based on principles, not pragmatism.
2:38 In the 1950s, India tried to become a
2:41 peacemaker. We brokered talks during the
2:43 Korean War. We advocated for communist
2:45 China. We spoke out against the
2:49 tripartite aggression on Egypt.
2:51 All of this gave India the moral high
2:53 ground. We were seen as the voice of justice.
2:55 justice.
2:58 But like I said, pragmatism was missing.
3:00 And the 1960s gave us a rude reality
3:03 check. India's neighborhood policy
3:05 collapsed in this decade. Two of our
3:08 neighbors attacked us. China in 1962 and
3:11 Pakistan in 1965. All that neighborly
3:14 cooperation came to not
3:17 against China. We suffered a humiliating
3:19 defeat. But against Pakistan, we
3:22 prevailed. Those two wars had an impact
3:25 on Indian diplomacy. We realized that
3:28 principles earn you praise but not
3:31 protection. And India was still reeling
3:33 from the impact of colonization. Our
3:35 economy had been de-industrialized. Our
3:37 agriculture was in tatters. So
3:39 naturally, we were dependent on others.
3:42 In the 1960s, India used to import food.
3:44 Every year, we bought 10 to 11 million
3:47 tons of wheat. We also depended on
3:51 foreign aid. The period from 1955 to
3:54 1965 is considered the peak. Millions of
3:57 dollars flowed into India for health
3:59 programs, for rural education, for
4:01 family planning, a whole lot of things.
4:04 And this foreign dependence challenged
4:06 our non-alignment.
4:10 The 1960s is proof of that. The Vietnam
4:12 war was heating up in this decade. India
4:15 was a staunch critic of that war. But we
4:17 also needed US aid. So Washington
4:20 leveraged it. They pressured New Delhi
4:22 to scale down our criticism.
4:25 So the 1960s was a decade of
4:27 realization, a sort of reality check for
4:29 Indian diplomacy. And we learned our
4:32 lessons because in the 1970s we injected
4:34 a dose of realism.
4:37 First came the green revolution. India
4:39 upped its agricultural productivity. By
4:40 the end of the decade, we became
4:43 self-sufficient in food grains. No more
4:46 foreign dependence. In 1971, we also
4:48 signed a treaty of friendship with the
4:50 Soviet Union. It was arguably India's
4:52 most significant diplomatic agreement of
4:55 the last century and it was rooted in
4:58 realism. That same year, the US was
5:00 cozying up to China. Secretary of State
5:02 Henry Kissinger secretly traveled to
5:05 Beijing. At our eastern border, a crisis
5:07 was brewing. Pakistan was cracking down
5:09 on ethnic Bengalies. Thousands were
5:12 flooding into India as refugees.
5:14 Neutrality and non-alignment would not
5:16 have solved these crises. So, India
5:19 chose realism. The treaty with Moscow
5:21 did dilute our non-alignment. It gave us
5:23 victory in 1971.
5:27 It helped India liberate Bangladesh.
5:29 And that whole decade was marked by
5:32 Delhi Moscow warmth. We bought all kinds
5:34 of weapons from them. Fighter jets,
5:36 support ships, tanks, and surfaceto-air
5:40 missiles. Our trade nearly double. It
5:44 was $460 million in 1973. It reached 830
5:47 million by 1975.
5:49 This decade also saw the rise of space
5:51 cooperation. We launched our first
5:53 satellite in 1975. It was launched
5:57 aboard a Russian rocket by the Soviets.
5:59 In many ways, the stars align for this
6:01 partnership. The Soviets were fighting
6:03 with China. China was warming up to
6:05 America. America wanted nothing to do
6:07 with India. So India and the Soviets
6:10 banded up. This worked in our favor in
6:13 the 1970s. It established India as the
6:16 most powerful country in South Asia. In
6:19 the next decade, the 1980s, we exercised
6:22 that power. India played a key role in
6:24 setting up SARKC. SARKC is the South
6:26 Asian Association for Regional
6:29 Cooperation. Think of it as ASEAN for
6:31 South Asia. This group was set up in
6:34 1985. The idea was to foster unity in
6:38 the region. Of course, India anchored
6:40 this group. It confirmed our central
6:43 role in South Asia.
6:44 But something happened in the second
6:46 half of that decade that challenged
6:49 Indian centrality down south in Sri
6:51 Lanka. The country was gripped by a
6:53 bloody civil war. Sri Lankan Tamils were
6:55 fighting for a separate country. India
6:57 did have a stake in this fight. We had
7:00 millions of ethnic Tamils in the south.
7:02 Many of them sympathized with their
7:05 peers in Sri Lanka. So New Delhi decided
7:07 to intervene.
7:10 In 1987, the Indo Sri Lankan Accord was
7:12 signed. Its main goal was to end the
7:15 civil war. And to this end, India
7:18 deployed soldiers to the island. The IPKF,
7:19 IPKF,
7:21 the Indian peacekeeping force was
7:24 deployed. As the name suggests, our job
7:26 was to keep the peace, not to engage
7:29 either side. But the IPKF eventually got
7:32 dragged into fighting Tamil separatists.
7:34 We fought numerous bloody battles with
7:37 them. And eventually in 1990, we pulled
7:39 out. It remains one of India's biggest
7:42 diplomatic blunders.
7:45 The 1980s was marked by another event
7:48 too. A rediscovery of non-alignment.
7:49 After decades, our ties with China were
7:51 improving. The Cold War seemed to be
7:52 ending. The Russians were stuck in
7:54 Afghanistan. So, New Delhi began
7:57 exploring its options. We began warming
7:59 up to the Americans again. And this
8:02 reset was led by then Prime Minister
8:04 Rajiv Gandhi. He visited the US in 1985.
8:07 Then he visited China in 1988. Both
8:10 trips set the stage for a new chapter in
8:13 Indian diplomacy, a postcold war
8:16 strategy for the 1990s.
8:18 This decade was marked by uncharted
8:19 territories, both for our economy and
8:22 our diplomacy. In some ways they were
8:25 linked. The reforms of 1991 tried to
8:27 integrate India with the global economy
8:29 and for that you had to talk to more
8:32 countries. You needed more partnerships.
8:34 Plus the Soviet Union was gone. India
8:37 had lost a very powerful partner. So we
8:39 needed alternatives.
8:42 Enter the look east policy of 1992.
8:44 Southeast Asia was growing rapidly at
8:47 that time. Some of those countries were
8:49 called Asian tigers. That's how fast
8:52 they were growing. So in 1992, India
8:55 became a dialogue partner of ASEAN. The
8:58 same year, we did something unthinkable.
9:01 We opened an embassy in Tel Aviv. For
9:03 decades, New Delhi had championed the
9:06 Palestinian cause. Yes, secret ties with
9:09 Israel did exist, but in 1992, they came
9:11 out in the open, and since then, there's
9:13 been no looking back. Our ties with the
9:15 US were also improving, but that reset
9:17 was threatened by the nuclear test of 1998.
9:19 1998.
9:22 India exploded nuclear bombs in the
9:24 state of Rajasthan. The US responded
9:27 with sanctions. Months later, Pakistan
9:30 exploded their own bombs, thus taking us
9:33 to dangerous threat levels. As India
9:35 entered the 2000s, the region was
9:37 becoming a dangerous place. Two nuclear
9:39 armed neighbors, no superpower to back
9:42 us, and an economy under sanctions. But
9:45 as always, we found a way. India's
9:47 diplomacy in the 2000s was dominated by
9:49 two goals. The first was a reset with
9:51 America. I mean, we had no choice. The
9:54 US was the unquestionable superpower.
9:56 You had to play nice with them. The
9:58 second goal was investing in
10:01 multilateral forums. The US reset went
10:03 along nicely. Most of the sanctions were
10:06 lifted by 2001. After that, we chased a
10:07 nuclear deal with the Americans.
10:10 Counterterrorism was a big factor in
10:12 this reset. Both countries had suffered
10:13 terror attacks. The US had suffered on
10:16 9/11. India had suffered on 2611. The
10:18 shared trauma made both countries
10:20 realize something. They were fighting
10:23 the same enemy. But even as the US ties
10:27 deepened, India was not going allin. The
10:30 legacy of non-alignment remained.
10:32 Of course, Russia was a shadow of its
10:35 former self. So we looked elsewhere at
10:38 blocks. In 2006, the foreign ministers
10:41 of Brazil, Russia, India, and China met
10:43 in New York. This laid the foundation of
10:47 bricks. Their first official summit came
10:48 in 2009.
10:51 So as we entered the 2010s, India was
10:54 well placed. Our economy was booming.
10:56 Our diplomacy was diversified. Clearly,
10:59 it was India's time to shine. The
11:03 question was, would we seize the moment?
11:05 And the last decade answered that
11:07 question. We most definitely did. India
11:09 signs strategic partnerships and
11:12 agreements with some 14 countries with
11:14 Israel and the UAE with Japan and South
11:17 Korea with Usbekistan and Tajikistan. It
11:19 tells you how wide the engagement has
11:22 been. The last decade also sharpened the
11:24 rivalry with China. Xi Jinping took over
11:28 as president in 2013. He is relentlessly
11:31 chasing Chinese supremacy and this puts
11:34 China on a collision path with India. We
11:36 saw that in 2017.
11:38 Indian and Chinese soldiers faced off in
11:41 Dhlam. The standoff lasted over 70 days.
11:44 Which brings us to the ongoing decade,
11:45 the 2020s.
11:47 We are seeing India take its rightful
11:49 place in the world. The vision is to
11:52 become a Vishwa Bandhu, meaning a friend
11:55 to all. We have moved from non-alignment
11:57 to multi-alignment. We are in the Quad
11:59 with America. We are also a founding
12:02 member of bricks with China. We are
12:04 invited to the G7 every year. Yet we
12:06 lead the global south. We are building
12:08 port infrastructure in Iran. But we are
12:09 also buying weapons from Israel. We
12:11 acquire warships from Russia. Yet we can
12:14 visit Ukraine and call for peace.
12:16 This has been the feature of India's new
12:20 diplomacy. Be in every room but only in
12:22 your corner.
12:24 And this is a big shift from the past.
12:26 Earlier India's diplomacy was a
12:29 balancing act. Now we are the balance.
12:31 And to achieve that India has changed
12:34 one crucial thing. We have reduced
12:37 foreign dependence. That's the mistake
12:39 that we made in the 20th century. We
12:41 wanted an independent foreign policy,
12:43 but our economy could not support it.
12:45 Decades later, we are in a position to
12:48 correct that. Today, we don't depend on
12:50 foreign aid. On the contrary, we are a
12:53 global donor. Since the year 2000, India
12:56 has donated to 65 countries. The amount
12:59 is more than 48 billion. During the
13:01 pandemic, India became a pharmacy to the
13:03 world. We sent vaccines to 160
13:06 countries. In the neighborhood, we are a
13:08 first responder. Whether it's
13:10 earthquakes or tsunamis or a pirate
13:12 attack, India is the first to respond.
13:15 In 1947, the world looked at us with
13:18 doubt. Today, they look at us with hope.
13:25 because it is wise.
13:27 I'm sure more chapters will be written
13:30 in India's diplomatic books, but the
13:33 story so far has been riveting. [Music]
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