Opinion | From Nehru's Blunder to Bharat's Redemption: Standing By Tibet |
A nation’s foreign policy is ultimately judged by how well it serves its national interest. History bears testimony that when a country ignores this principle, disaster follows. India’s own experience with Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy stands as a cautionary tale.
Nehru’s approach, often idealistic and detached from hard realities, led to a series of strategic blunders — the most glaring being his miscalculation on Tibet and China.
However, pursuing national interest does not mean abandoning ethics or dharma. As history also shows, the absence of moral anchors often boomerangs. The amoral opportunism of US foreign policy in the 1970s and 1980s — whether it was opening the doors to Communist China that eventually facilitated China’s rise or fuelling fundamentalism in Afghanistan to counter the Soviet Union that ended in the horrors of 9/11 — offers sobering lessons.
For Bharat, a civilisational state steeped in dharmic consciousness, foreign policy has always been more than transactional. The Bharatiya outlook traditionally views the world not through the narrow prism of power blocs but through the wider lens of dharma. Nehru’s concept of non-alignment stemmed from this civilisational discomfort with power-centric alliances.
Unfortunately, while he refused to align with any bloc, he also failed to align with all — a more authentic Bharatiya approach that balances relationships based on dharmic considerations.
Bharatiya statecraft has never been naive about the ways of the world. The Mahabharata makes it abundantly clear when it quotes Bhishma as exhorting Yudhishthira:........