India's External Relations | Class 12 Political Science

13 September 2022 · 11 min read

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Quick overview. This chapter looks at how newly independent India dealt with the rest of the world. It covers India's foreign policy, the policy of Non-Alignment, Afro-Asian unity, the 1962 war with China, the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, the birth of Bangladesh, and India's first nuclear test. These notes are part of our Class 12 Political Science notes, and you can see how the same ideas play out today on the Learnacy Hub.

International Context

India was born and grew up in a very challenging global environment. Many countries came into the world picture as colonialism ended, and most of these new nations were trying to balance the twin challenges of welfare and democracy.

After gaining independence, the foreign policy of free India reflected these concerns. At the same time, India was dealing with serious internal problems, especially the challenge of reducing poverty.

India's entry into international affairs

As a nation born in the middle of a world war, India decided to conduct its foreign relations with the goal of respecting other nations' sovereignty and maintaining peace. This goal was echoed by the Directive Principles of State Policy.

Many newly independent nations lacked the resources to represent their interests effectively in international forums, so they set more limited goals. Many of them simply valued peace and progress in their immediate neighbourhood.

One key factor was that a nation's reliance on more powerful states for economic and security support also shaped its foreign policy. Many post-war developing countries chose to back the foreign policy preferences of the powerful countries that aided or financed them.

This split the world into two camps. The United States and its allies influenced one, while the Soviet Union influenced the other. At the time of India's independence, the Cold War was just beginning, and the world was divided into these two blocs. The end of the Cold War, decades later, would change everything in international relations.

Policy of Non-Alignment

The Indian national movement was part of the global anti-colonial movement, and it influenced many Asian and African liberation movements. Several nationalist leaders admired India's approach and wanted to align themselves with a common struggle against colonialism and imperialism.

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose established the Indian National Army (INA), a clear sign of India's links with overseas Indians during the freedom struggle.

Both internal and external factors shape a country's foreign policy. India's foreign policy was strongly influenced by the ideals that had motivated its independence struggle.

India's independence coincided with the outbreak of the Cold War. This period was marked by global political, economic and military confrontation between two superpower blocs, the United States and the Soviet Union. During this time the United Nations was established, nuclear weapons were developed, China became communist, and decolonisation began. India's leaders had to strike a balance between national interests and global realities.

What role did Nehru play in India's foreign policy?

Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, was central to setting the national agenda. As both Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, he had a major impact on the making and running of India's foreign policy from 1946 to 1964.

Nehru's foreign policy had three major goals: to preserve hard-earned sovereignty, to protect territorial integrity, and to promote rapid economic development.

He hoped to achieve these goals through a strategy of non-alignment. Not everyone agreed. Some people and groups wanted India to join the bloc led by the United States, which described itself as pro-democracy. Leaders such as Dr Ambedkar thought along these lines. Some anti-communist political parties, such as the Swatantra Party, also wanted India to pursue a pro-US foreign policy.

Why did India keep a safe buffer between the two camps?

By promoting non-alignment, lowering Cold War tensions, and contributing personnel to UN peacekeeping missions, independent India actively pursued the dream of a more peaceful world.

During the Cold War, India was not a member of either camp. It wanted to avoid the military alliances that pitted the United States and the Soviet Union against each other, such as NATO led by the United States and the Warsaw Pact led by the Soviet Union.

India stuck to the policy of non-alignment as its ideal approach. Even so, non-alignment was a difficult balancing act, and it was not always perfect. When Britain attacked Egypt over the Suez Canal in 1956, India was among the first to condemn the invasion. Yet the following year, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, India did not join the international condemnation.

Despite this, India generally took an independent stand on international issues and received aid and assistance from members of both blocs. While India tried to persuade other developing countries to follow the same path, Pakistan joined military alliances led by the United States.

The United States was unhappy with India's independent initiatives and its non-alignment policy, so tensions between the two ran high during the 1950s. The United States also disliked India's growing ties with the Soviet Union. At home, India's economic strategy stressed import substitution and building up a domestic resource base. This limited export-oriented growth and reduced India's economic interaction with the rest of the world.

Afro-Asian Unity

Nehru believed India could play a significant role in world affairs, especially in Asia, because of its size, location and potential power.

This period saw India build contacts with other newly independent states in Asia and Africa. Nehru was a strong supporter of Asian unity throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Under his leadership, India convened the Asian Relations Conference in March 1947, five months before independence.

India also made serious efforts to help Indonesia win independence from Dutch colonial rule, convening an international conference in 1949 to support Indonesia's freedom struggle. India was a firm supporter of decolonisation and a vocal opponent of racism, especially apartheid in South Africa.

The Bandung Conference, held in the Indonesian city of Bandung in 1955, was the high point of India's engagement with newly independent Asian and African nations. It laid the ground for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), whose first summit was held in Belgrade in September 1961. Nehru was one of the founders of NAM.

India's relations with China

Unlike its relationship with Pakistan, independent India began with a positive relationship with China. Following the Chinese revolution in 1949, India was one of the first countries to recognise the communist government, and Nehru backed the new government in international forums.

Several of his colleagues, including Vallabhbhai Patel, worried about possible Chinese aggression in the future. Nehru, however, believed a Chinese attack on India was extremely unlikely. For a long time, paramilitary forces, rather than the army, patrolled the Chinese border.

On 29 April 1954, Prime Minister Nehru of India and Premier Zhou Enlai of China jointly announced Panchsheel, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, meant to build a stronger relationship between the two countries. When Indian and Chinese leaders visited each other's countries, large and friendly crowds greeted them.

The Chinese invasion of 1962

Two developments strained the India China relationship. In 1950, China took control of Tibet, removing a historical buffer between the two countries. At first the Indian government did not publicly oppose this, but as more news emerged about the suppression of Tibetan culture, it grew uneasy.

In 1959, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, sought and was granted political asylum in India. China claimed that India was allowing anti-China activities from within its territory. Around the same time, India and China were caught in a boundary dispute. India held that the border had been settled in colonial times, while China argued that any colonial-era decision was irrelevant.

The main points of contention were the western and eastern ends of the long border. China claimed two areas of Indian territory: the Aksai Chin area in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, and a large part of Arunachal Pradesh, then known as NEFA (North Eastern Frontier Agency). China occupied the Aksai Chin area between 1957 and 1959 and built a strategic road there. Despite long correspondence and talks between top leaders, these disagreements were not resolved, and many small border skirmishes broke out between the two armies.

Amid the Cuban Missile Crisis

In October 1962, while the world was focused on the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States over Cuba, China invaded both disputed regions quickly and in large numbers. Chinese forces captured several strategic areas in Arunachal Pradesh in the first assault. In a second wave, Indian forces held off Chinese advances in Ladakh, but the Chinese pushed towards the Assam plains from the east. China then declared a one-sided ceasefire and pulled back its troops.

The war damaged India's image at home and abroad, and India needed military help from the United States and the United Kingdom to get through the crisis. Throughout the conflict, the Soviet Union stayed neutral. The war caused both national humiliation and a surge of patriotism.

Several senior army officers resigned or retired. V. Krishna Menon, the Defence Minister and a close associate of Nehru, was forced out. Nehru's reputation suffered because he had misjudged China's intentions and left India militarily unprepared. A motion of no confidence in his government was debated in the Lok Sabha, and the Congress lost several important by-elections.

The country's political mood was changing. The Sino-Indian conflict, together with the growing rift between China and the Soviet Union, split the Communist Party of India (CPI). One faction wanted better ties with the Congress, while the other wanted closer ties with China. After the party split in 1964, the second faction formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M). Several CPI(M) leaders were later arrested on charges of being pro-China.

The war also made India's leaders aware of the tense situation in the Northeast, an isolated and underdeveloped region that mattered for national unity. Soon after, the area was reorganised, and Manipur and Tripura, though Union Territories, gained the right to elect their own legislatures.

Wars and Peace with Pakistan

Pakistan's conflict with India began shortly after Partition, over the Kashmir dispute. In 1947, a proxy war between Indian and Pakistani forces broke out in Kashmir, though it did not turn into a full-scale war. The matter was then referred to the United Nations. Pakistan quickly became a key factor in India's relations with the United States and, later, with China.

The Kashmir conflict did not stop the two governments from cooperating in other areas. Both worked together to reunite women abducted during Partition with their families. The World Bank helped mediate a long-standing dispute over sharing river waters, and in 1960, Nehru and General Ayub Khan signed the Indus Waters Treaty. Despite the ups and downs in Indo-Pakistan relations, this treaty worked well for a long time.

In 1965, the two countries fought a more serious war. By then, Lal Bahadur Shastri had become Prime Minister. In April 1965, Pakistan launched attacks in the Rann of Kutch region of Gujarat, and in August and September a larger offensive was launched in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan's rulers had hoped for support from local people, but this did not happen.

Shastri ordered Indian troops to launch a counter-offensive along the Punjab border to relieve pressure on the Kashmir front. After heavy fighting, the Indian army got close to Lahore, and United Nations intervention brought the fighting to an end. In January 1966, Shastri and Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Agreement, mediated by the Soviet Union. While India was able to inflict serious military losses on Pakistan, the 1965 war made India's already difficult economic situation worse.

The Bangladesh War of 1971

In 1970, Pakistan faced its worst internal crisis. In the country's first general election, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's party won in West Pakistan, while Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman's Awami League won in East Pakistan. The Bengali population of East Pakistan had voted in protest against years of being treated as second-class citizens by the rulers in West Pakistan.

Pakistan's rulers refused to accept the democratic result and were hostile to the Awami League's demand for a federation. Instead, in early 1971, the Pakistani army arrested Sheikh Mujib and unleashed terror on the people of East Pakistan, and a struggle to liberate 'Bangladesh' began.

In 1971, about 80 lakh refugees fled from East Pakistan into neighbouring parts of India. India gave moral and material support to the struggle for Bangladesh's independence. Pakistan accused India of trying to break up the country, and it received support from both the United States and China.

The improving relationship between the United States and China, which began in the late 1960s, reshaped alliances in Asia. In July 1971, Henry Kissinger, a close adviser to US President Richard Nixon, travelled secretly to China through Pakistan. In response to this United States, Pakistan and China axis, India and the Soviet Union signed a 20-year Treaty of Peace and Friendship in August 1971. The treaty assured India of Soviet help in the event of an attack.

India and Pakistan fought a full-scale war in December 1971, after months of tension and military build-up. Pakistani planes bombed Punjab and Rajasthan, while the Indian army advanced into Jammu and Kashmir. India responded with a combined air force, navy and army attack on both the Western and Eastern fronts.

Indian forces advanced rapidly in East Pakistan, helped by the local population. Within ten days, the Indian army surrounded Dhaka on three sides, and Pakistan's army of about 90,000 soldiers surrendered. After Bangladesh became independent, India declared a one-sided ceasefire.

Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto later signed the Shimla Agreement on 3 July 1972, formally ending the war. The decisive victory led to national celebration and was seen by most Indians as a source of pride and a sign of India's growing military strength. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister at the time, had been elected to the Lok Sabha in 1971, and her popularity rose sharply after the war. Most states then held assembly elections, and the Congress won large majorities in many of them.

How the wars affected India's development

India had begun planning for development despite its limited resources, but conflicts with neighbours put the Five Year Plans under strain. In 1962, India was forced to modernise its military, and scarce resources were moved to the defence sector. The Department of Defence Production and the Department of Defence Supplies were set up in November 1962 and November 1965. The Third Plan (1961 to 1966) and three Annual Plans were affected, and the Fourth Plan began only in 1969. After the wars, India's defence spending rose sharply.

India's Nuclear Policy

What was India's nuclear policy?

Another important event of this period was India's first nuclear explosion in May 1974, also known as Operation Smiling Buddha. Nehru had always placed his faith in science and technology for the rapid development of modern India.

The nuclear programme, which began in the late 1940s under the direction of Homi J. Bhabha, was an important part of his industrialisation plans. India wanted to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and Nehru was an outspoken opponent of nuclear weapons, calling on the superpowers for total nuclear disarmament.

Even so, the world's nuclear arsenals kept growing. After communist China conducted nuclear tests in October 1964, the five nuclear weapon powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China, tried to impose the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 on the rest of the world. India has always seen the NPT as discriminatory and has refused to sign it. It described its first nuclear test as a peaceful explosion and said it was committed to using nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.

Domestic politics were stormy during this period. Because Arab nations sharply raised oil prices after the Arab-Israel War of 1973, the whole world felt the Oil Shock. It hit India's economy hard and caused high inflation, and there were many protests at the time, including a nationwide railway strike.

Although political parties differ on the details of foreign policy, Indian politics shows broad agreement on national integration, protecting international borders, and defending the national interest. This is why foreign policy played only a minor role in party politics during the decade from 1962 to 1972, when India faced three wars, and even later when different parties came to power.

Why it still matters

The ideas in this chapter are not just history. They still shape the news you read today.

Non-alignment never really died. India now calls its approach strategic autonomy, or multi-alignment. It sits inside Western-facing groups like the Quad, alongside the United States, Japan and Australia, while also buying large amounts of discounted Russian oil after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. By 2024, Russia had become India's biggest oil supplier. The instinct is the same as Nehru's: keep your options open and do not get locked into one camp. The Non-Aligned Movement itself is still going, with around 120 member countries as of its 2024 summit in Kampala, Uganda.

The 1962 border with China is still unsettled. In June 2020, Indian and Chinese soldiers fought with clubs and stones in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, very close to the same Aksai Chin area from 1962, and soldiers died on both sides. After a four-year standoff, in October 2024 the two sides agreed to pull back and resume patrolling at Depsang and Demchok. The border problem Nehru faced is a live problem today.

The Indus Waters Treaty is back in the headlines. The 1960 treaty signed by Nehru and Ayub Khan, which these notes describe, made news again in April 2025. After a terror attack at Pahalgam in Kashmir killed 26 people, India announced it would hold the treaty "in abeyance", meaning paused, until Pakistan stopped supporting cross-border terrorism. A water-sharing deal that had survived several wars became a pressure point 65 years later.

To see how these threads connect to geography, economics and current affairs, explore the Learnacy Hub, or browse more study notes for your other chapters.

Sources

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