JOURNEY OF A NATION: 75 YEARS OF INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Category Politics
Format Hardback
Imprint Rupa
Price 395

ISBN: 978-93-5520-391-5
Pages: 184 pages
Date: 5th August 2022

ABOUT THIS BOOK

‘M.D. Nalapat’s book 75 Years of Indian Foreign Policy: War, Peace and a World Realigned is riveting, erudite and provocative. He does not shy away from candour and unequivocalness.’
—K. Natwar Singh, Former Minister of External Affairs

In early 2020, Covid-19 ravaged the globe, affecting every single nation and its population. In 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan even as the US troops made a hasty exit. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to a severe political and economic backlash. In recent years, such transformational events have disrupted the world order and brought to the limelight the interplay of dynamics between nations. The global scene is characterized by changes that often erupt with very little warning and which require major adjustments in outlook and policy.

The world has to be studied in terms of what it is, rather than what it should have been, or would be, were conditions to remain unchanged or ideal. As a potential superpower, India’s foreign policy framework requires a foundation built on an admixture of present-day realities as well as long-term trend lines. It requires resilience and flexibility, so as to overcome geopolitical storms and strategic setbacks, not to mention taking advantage of opportunities.

75 Years of Indian Foreign Policy, a part of the series Journey of a Nation, describes such a framework for Indian foreign policy, even as it traces past decisions and errors that have had a lasting impact on the nation and its relations with neighbours and global superpowers. Further, it charts a path for the future of the nation and forecasts the potential impacts of decisions made today. A must-read for those in policy circles as well as anyone interested in the place of the nation in the emerging world order.

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK

Madhav Das Nalapat was appointed India’s first professor of geopolitics and subsequently the UNESCO Peace Chair by Manipal University in 1999, positions he still holds. Professor Nalapat previously edited The Times of India, and before that the Mathrubhumi. Among the concepts originated by him are Asian NATO, the constrainment of China, the phenomenon of the proxy nuclear state, the danger of the Arab Spring morphing into a Wahhabi winter, the use of social media by hostile lobbies to widen societal faultlines in the US and India, as well as the concept of the twenty-first century Anglosphere based not on ‘blood of the body’ but of the mind.

Professor Nalapat divides his time between Delhi, where he is Editorial Director of ITV Network, Manipal and his home in Trivandrum where he lives with his wife Lakshmi Bayi, XII Princess of the erstwhile state of Travancore. He has authored nine books and contributed to the Asian Wall Street Journal, The Diplomat, The Beijing Review, Japan Forward, Taipei Times, CNN and numerous other media platforms in India and abroad.

The son of poetess Kamala Das, Professor Nalapat comes from a family that has, among others, contributed satirist Aubrey Menen (uncle), Poetess Laureate of Kerala Balamani Amma (grandmother), chronicler of philosophy Narayana Menon (grand-uncle), founder of the first English-language journal in Malabar, C.V. Subramanya Iyer (paternal grandfather) and former chairman of the Press Trust of India, V.M. Nair (maternal grandfather).