The Oxford handbook of Indian foreign policy. Edited by David M. Malone, C. Raja Mohan and Srinath Raghavan (Book review)

Abstract

The study of Indian foreign policy is slowly but surely changing, at the same time as Indian foreign policy is itself being transformed. Too long the preserve of the urbane and eloquent diplomats India specializes in cultivating, the field was until recently dominated by reminiscence and self-justification—by thorough but dry country-by-country assessments of the evolution of India's various bilateral relationships or post hoc polemics about past policy decisions. This is no longer the case. As India has emerged as a ‘rising power’, and as dissatisfaction has grown with those inherited ways of explaining its behaviour, established and emerging scholars have taken a fresh interest in its foreign affairs and have taken different approaches to understanding them.