Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), known for his contribution to turning mass mobilization against British imperial rule into non-violent movements for Indian independence, also used non-violence as a tool to fight social injustices such as racial discrimination and untouchability (the practice associated with the Indian hierarchical caste order).
The Gandhian idea and practice of non-violence were inspired by the principle of ahimsa (doing no harm), a creed integral to the Indian spiritual tradition enriched by Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. Gandhi called his non-violent movement “satyagraha,” implying the use of the force of truth as a way to convert the opponent by winning over his mind and heart and persuading him to accept and adopt the moral and right course of action.
Satyagraha necessitated patience, fasting, prayer and peaceful persuasion (it admitted no violence under any circumstance whatever) and certainly could not be adopted by weak persons who are provoked by the actions of their opponents and take recourse to violence. Non-violence did not mean passivity, but rather implied active, creative and powerful alternative ways of dealing with injustice, conflicts and opponents.
Gandhi’s non-violent struggle against Britain’s colonial dominance had a decisive impact on the Nehruvian idea of Non-Alignment. While Gandhian satyagraha could challenge the stereotypes such as “weak,” “feminine” and “savage” that the British colonial power used to define India in order to sustain its rule, the persistence and success of the Non-Aligned Movement in providing an alternative to power politics of the Cold War era challenged the standard expectations of the British colonial power and led many Westerners to rethink the pejorative cultural categories they used to define India. The innovative non-aligned foreign policy of the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, challenged the dominant Western theoretical paradigms as it steered clear of idealism and realism.
Indian strategic practices were also shaped by the ancient statesman and philosopher Kautilya’s pragmatic ideas contained in his magnum opus Arthashastra and practices of ancient kings and medieval rulers. However, the doctrines of non-violence inherent in the philosophy of Buddhism and Gandhian satyagraha exerted a decisive impact on India’s strategic thinking.
The philosophical undercurrents of non-violence tempered Indian notions of pragmatism and helped engender a doctrine of strategic self-restraint. While the late George Tanham, a specialist on South Asian security affairs working for the RAND Corporation, based on his findings from a study of the impacts of historical and cultural factors on India’s strategic thinking, asserted that India lacked formal and systematic strategic planning and therefore a strategic culture, his conceptualization of strategic culture predominantly represented a Western perspective on security and was more defined in terms of proactive military engagements and systematic long-term strategic planning, which not only stood at variance with Indian strategic thinking, the doctrine of strategic restraint laid bare his narrow perspective on strategic culture.
India’s Strategic Restraint
While its strategic culture restrained India from adopting a militaristically adventurist foreign policy, it allowed necessary measures to address its defense concerns. Nehru argued: “No government of any country dare allow its country to be unprepared for contingencies”.
Because of its practice of military restraint on many occasions, India was able to be one of the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement for long, which was also a major source of India’s soft power. Indian assistance was crucial to the John F Kennedy administration’s efforts at stabilizing Congo and its significant contribution to defusing the Korean crisis led to its appointment as chair of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission.
India was also asked to chair the International Control Commission set up under the Geneva Accords for its contribution to peace in Indochina. India and other Afro-Asian countries received massive aid from both superpowers for their moral and numerical strength. The impact of Indian soft power on the Western powers was palpable when Nehru rejected American attempts at tying Western aid to the settlement of the Kashmir dispute after India’s request for US military assistance in the wake of the border war with China in 1962. Subsequently, the materially powerful US backed down and continued to provide aid without any conditionality.
Evidently, India was able to receive development aid and military support for its defense even if it categorically expressed its unwillingness to join any of the Cold War military alliances sponsored by either of the superpowers. India had also to face harsh criticisms whenever it was perceived as being involved in power politics. Therefore, it had to move cautiously, specifically in the neighborhood where it perceived most of the security threats coming from.
After the liberation of East Pakistan from West Pakistan with Indian military intervention, Indian forces did not move further in the western direction to assert dominance on the areas belonging to Pakistan. India did not even use the 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war, captured in liberated Bangladesh, to control the bilateral relationship and coerce Pakistan into abandoning its claim over Kashmir. This restrained action from India has made a subtle and gradual addition to its soft-power resources.
While India tested its first nuclear device in 1974, it called it a peaceful nuclear explosion in order to avert fuss and chaos in the neighborhood. Despite rising security concerns expressed through nuclear power China’s increasing footprints in India’s neighborhood and continuous supply of arms, ammunition and nuclear material and technology to Pakistan, it was only after 24 years that India conducted another test making its military purpose clear in 1998.
Following closely on the heels of India’s test, Pakistan conducted its own nuclear test later the same year. It reflected Chinese nuclear assistance to Pakistan over a period of time making it well equipped with the necessary nuclear technology and material. Although its nuclear test invited criticism from many major actors in international politics and US sanctions, India undertook efforts to mitigate unusual responses from the neighborhood and pacify members of the international community.
India developed a nuclear doctrine combining the principles of “no first use” and “credible minimum deterrence.” It seems that it is India’s belief and practice of military restraint in many instances that was instrumental in pushing the US to clinch the civil nuclear deal even though India is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
American leaders did not hesitate to praise Indian restraint vis-a-vis Pakistan on many occasions after allegedly Pakistani-sponsored terrorist attacks on Indian soil. The Bill Clinton administration prevailed upon Pakistan during the Kargil War in 1999 and asked it to withdraw its forces sent across the Line of Control. The changing gesture of the US toward India, India’s diplomatic efforts to normalize relations with China in the 1990s, and the visit by India’s then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh to China in the midst of Kargil War led Beijing to maintain neutrality during the war.
Although Indians have usually expressed anger immediately after major terrorist attacks and supported coercive measures against Pakistan, simmering sentiments gradually cooled down and fell in place with India’s traditional craving for soft power.
It has been noted that the people of India have rarely been swayed by militaristic impulses in the long term. This was observed when the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came back to power for a second term in 2009 even though India observed military restraint after the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008.
Similarly, polls conducted to rate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity after India maintained restraint after the Pathankot and Uri attacks indicated only marginal changes in this attitude. Modi chose to invigorate his campaign against terror at international platforms and became successful in dissuading other South Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan from joining the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit hosted by Islamabad in November 2016. The United Nations decision to declare Masood Azhar a global terrorist also bears testimony to India’s persistent diplomatic efforts at voicing its concerns related to cross-border terrorism at international forums.
Post-Cold War Developments
Post-Independence India considered global peace and economic development as two sides of the same coin. It was based on the premise that India’s ability to deliver on non-conventional threats such as poverty, diseases and unemployment largely depended on peace in neighborhood and beyond. However, the changing strategic mindset aligned with India’s growing economic and military power and its rising power status in the post-Cold War era has led it to get involved in balance of power politics, for instance, in its Great Game with China in the Indo-Pacific region. This is likely to drag India into a never-ending arms-race which will not only corrode its capabilities to address other imminent threats; it will undercut the country’s traditional soft-power base and diplomatic potential of working with other developing countries. While India continues to carry the attributes of a developing country, its changing strategic approach ignores post-Independence strategic understanding that emerged out of dialectics between security and development. Further, the approach ignores several cases demonstrating the futility of hard power in fulfilling the country’s strategic objectives. India’s move toward enhanced military preparedness geared toward tackling threats from Pakistan’s as well as Beijing’s suspicious strategic moves in the Indian Ocean and South Asian region has turned it into the world’s second largest arms importer for the period between 2016 and 2020 according to data on arms transfers released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
In the post-Cold War era, the Indian strategists and foreign policy makers imbued with the country’s newfound economic and military power buried most of the ideas underpinning the Non-Alignment Movement except ‘strategic autonomy’. For instance, the strategic document ‘Non-Alignment 2.O’ stressed on the relevance of this single idea inherent to the movement and stayed away from endorsing practices such as third world solidarity and non-involvement in balance of power politics and arms-race as recipes for future strategic choices for India.
Prime Minister Modi’s prescription for the practice of ‘multi-alignment’ implied similar shifts in India’s strategic understanding. The idea of strategic autonomy basically implies a hedging strategy for security where balance of power is maintained through strategic partnerships and not through alliance formations. Such a pragmatic approach allows India to secure arms and defence technologies from all major powers not only without ideological constraints but also by obviating the imperative to submit foreign policy autonomy to them.
Of late, India has signed many fresh defense deals with great powers. For instance, India’s S-400 missile system procurement from Russia is aimed at expanding its air-defense capacity along its 4,000km border with China. The country has made strategic moves to enhance its profile in the Indo-Pacific region by entering deep into the strategic ambit of the US and both signed Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016, the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in 2018 and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) in 2020, which provides India with real-time access to US geospatial intelligence. Both countries are co-developing air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative. While India has its own nuclear-propelled submarine programme with two ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), namely, the Arihant and INS Arighat, it is planning to build six nuclear-propelled attack submarines (SSN) to deter China. India needs to be aware of the nuclear nightmare that the region is entering into. US, France, Britain and China are not only key players in the region with their nuclear capabilities, concerns are rising with the potential rise of new nuclear powers such as North Korea as evidenced from its tests of hypersonic missiles in September 2021 and January 2022 which could be fitted with nuclear warheads.
India must revisit its increasing hard-power inputs into its strategic policies and make attempts at enhancing its soft-power component. The Indian culture of restraint, deeply held since ancient times, must continue despite provocations from across its borders.
[Photo by Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain]
Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra is a Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, SVM Autonomous College, Odisha, India. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
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