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A country relation with other countries of the world is known as her external relations. The external relations of a country are based on certain principles and policies. They are collectively called foreign policy. Thus foreign policy is the totality of actions of a state in dealing with external environment consisting of national, international and regional actors. In other words, foreign policy is the sum total of a country's relationship with these actors; while pursuing its received goals and objectives through the process of foreign policy a state translates its goals and interests into specific courses of action. India's foreign policy is shaped by several factors including its history, culture, geography and economy. Our PM, Jawaharlal Nehru gave a definite shape to the country's foreign policy. Indian ideology in the international affairs is based on the five principles of India's foreign Policy under leaders like Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. These are a belief in friendly relations with all countries of the world. The resolution of conflicts by peaceful means, the sovereign equality of all states, independent of through and action as manifested in the principles of non – alignment and equity in the conduct of international relations. Promotion of democratic values is high on India's international relations. Another bench mark of India's official ideology is secular nationalism. India is the home for peoples from various religions and cultures. India promotes secular values and freedom to follow any religion or culture. India's Foreign Policy after se became independent in 1947. It was in September 1946 that Jawaharlal Nehru formulated the independent policy which has been followed ever since. Successive Prime Ministers have endorsed that policy and parliament has approved it. The essence of the independent foreign policy is non-alignment i.e., India refused to join either the communist bloc or the Western bloc into which most of the nations were grouped during the days of the cold war. She preferred to remain outside the contest. Two other features of this policy have been (1) an emphasis on peaceful negotiation as a means to resolving conflicts, the temper of peace as Nehru put it and (2) a deliberate effort to seek the friendship of all nations including the nations of the communist bloc as well as the western bloc. In formulation of a foreign policy, both domestic and external factors are taken into account. If we look at the way the formulation of foreign policy in democratic and non-democratic countries, they mobilize national power, define their national interests, and peruse effective policies play military strategy in the light of balance of power – which is one of the basic principles of power politics game that acts to control interstate relations. However, the formulation of foreign policy is the result of its leaders' capacity which gains people's support in implementing that foreign policy .
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in D. Suba Chandran and Jabin T. Jacob (eds), India’s Foreign Policy: Old Problems, New Challenges (New Delhi: Macmillan, 2011), pp. 1-22.
Current Indian foreign policy is informed by a realization that a combination of economic reforms and the end of the Cold War has steered India into a position of some influence in the post-9/11 world. This is influence of a kind that India did not have in the years following Independence. What India had then was a moral standing which it could make little use of, boxed in as it was by the contingencies of a Cold War division of the world. This division allowed very little leeway for the Indian policy of non-alignment, which ended up being not so much an alternative as a means of holding the line, until India could find itself in a more favourable geopolitical situation. Further, unlike in the post-Independence phase, India today often appears reluctant to exercise what influence it has outside South Asia and sometimes even within the region, keenly aware of the several continuing limits on its capabilities and having suffered from blowback on the few occasions it did. Even as some old problems continue to keep India off-balance in international affairs, the world has also not stood still and new problems – both traditional and non-traditional – have emerged that have required India to step up and take a position on. And all this, even as the Indian foreign policy establishment remains woefully ill-equipped and understaffed to meet these challenges. What then are the patterns of Indian foreign policy behavior in the new century?
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