INDIAN POLITICAL THOUGHT IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
About the Course
The course envisions giving students an introduction to the ideational currents from India
in international relations. In doing so, it would discuss core concepts propounded by some
of the major Indian thinkers. An exposition to the Indian contribution to international
relations not only departs from the dominant Anglo-Saxon bias in the discipline but also
offers students a better theoretical understanding of India in contemporary international
relations.
Course Outline
I: Ideational and Historical Anchors
II: Major Indian Thinkers
i.
ii.
iii.
Kautilya
Gandhi
Nehru
Course Evaluation
The course evaluation would be based on a written essay paper of a maximum of 4 pages
(15000 characters). The student will be required to submit this assignment three weeks
after the end of the course. The assignments must be submitted to the teacher’s digital
work environment on the Moodle website along with an e-mail to the course teacher.
Visiting Course Teacher
Prof. Jayati Srivastava
Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament
School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi-110067, India
Email: jayatis@jnu.ac.in
THEMATIC READINS
I: Ideational and Historical Anchors
Acharya, Amitav, ‘Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories
Beyond the West’ in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 39, no. 3, pp.
619–637.
Bajpai, Kanti, ‘India’s Strategic Culture’, Michael R Chambers, ed., South Asia in 2010:
Future Strategic Balances and Alliances, Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, US
Army
War
College,
2002,
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/00105.pdf, pp. 245303.
Bajpai, Kanti, ‘Indian Conceptions of Order and Justice: Nehruvian, Gandhian, Hindutva
and Neo-Liberal’, V R Mehta and Thomas Pantham, eds., Political Ideas in
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Modern India: Thematic Explorations, New Delhi: Sage, 2006, pp. 367-390.
Sarkar, Benoy Kumar, ‘Hindu Theory of International Relations’, The American Political
Science Review, vol. 13, no. 3, Aug, 1919, pp. 79-90.
Sarkar, Benoy Kumar, ‘The Hindu Theory of the State’, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 36,
no. 1, Mar, 1921, pp. 79-90.
Tanham, George K., Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretative Essay, RAND National
Defense
Research
Institute,
Santa
Monica,
CA,
1992,
www.rand.org/pubs/reports/2007/R4207.pdf
II: Major Indian Thinkers
i.
Kautilya
Gowen, Herbert H, ‘”The Indian Machiavelli” or Political Theory in India Two Thousand
Years Ago’, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2, Jan, 1929, pp. 173-192.
Liebig, Michael, Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra: A Classic Text of Statecraft and an Untapped Political
Science Resource, Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics,
Working
Paper
no.
74,
July
2014,
http://archiv.ub.uniheidelberg.de/volltextserver/17144/.
Modelski, George, ‘Kautilya: Foreign Policy and International System in the Ancient
Hindu World, The American Political Science Review, vol. 58, no. 3, Sept, 1964, pp.
549-560.
Zaman, Rashed Uz, ‘Kautilya: The Indian Strategic Thinker and Indian Strategic Culture’,
Comparative Strategy, vol. 25, no. 3, July-Sept 2006, pp. 231-247.
ii.
Gandhi
Pantham, Thomas, ‘Beyond Liberal Democracy: Thinking with Mahatma Gandhi’, Thomas
Pantham and Kenneth L Deutsch, eds, Political Thought in Modern India, New Delhi:
Sage, 1986, 325-346.
Parekh, Bhikhu, Gandhi: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997,
chapters 4 & 5.
Terchek, Ronald J, ‘Gandhi and Democratic Theory’, Thomas Pantham and Kenneth L
Deutsch, eds, Political Thought in Modern India, New Delhi: Sage, 1986, pp. 307-324.
Weber, Thomas, ‘Gandhi, Deep Ecology, Peace Research and Buddhist Economics’, Journal
of Peace Research, vol. 36, no. 3, May 1999, pp. 349-361.
iii.
Nehru
Misra, K P, ‘Towards Understanding Non-Alignment’, International Studies, vol. 20, no. 1-2,
Jan-June, 1981, pp. 23-37.
Nehru, Jawaharlal, The Discovery of India, New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial
Fund/Oxford University Press, 1983, chapters 9 & 10.
Rana, A P, ‘The Intellectual Dimensions of India’s Nonalignment’, The Journal of Asian
Studies, vol. 28, no. 2, Feb, 1969, pp. 299-312.
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Rana, A P, The Imperatives of Non-Alignment: A Conceptual Study of India’s Foreign Policy
Strategy in Nehru Period, New Delhi: Macmillan, 1979, chapter 9.
Further Readings
Abraham, Itty, ‘From Bandung to NAM: Non-alignment and Indian Foreign Policy, 194765’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, vol. 46, no. 2, 2008, pp. 195- 219.
Ahmed, Ali, ‘Strategic Culture and Indian Self-assurance’, Journal of Peace Studies, vol. 17,
no.
2&3,
April-September,
2010,
http://www.icpsnet.org/adm/pdf/1291710631.pdf
Ahmed, Imtiaz, State and Foreign Policy in India, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1993.
Appadorai, A, ‘Non-Alignment: Some Important Issues’, International Studies, vol. 20, no.
1-2, 1981, pp. 3-11.
Appadorai, A, India: Studies in Social and Political Development, 1947-1967, New Delhi: Asia
Publishing House, 1967.
Armour, W S, ‘Customs of Warfare in Ancient India’, Transactions of the Grotius Society, vol.
8, 1922, pp. 71-88.
Bajpai, Kanti and Amitabh Mattoo, eds., Securing India: Strategic Thought and Practice, New
Delhi: Manohar, 1996.
Bajpai, Kanti, ‘India: Modified Structuralism’, Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Asian Security
Practice: Material and Ideational Influences, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1998, pp. 157-197.
Bajpai, Kanti, Saira Basit, V Krishnappa, eds., India's Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases,
Oxon: Routledge, 2014.
Bandyopadhyaya, J, The Making of India’s Foreign Policy, New Delhi: Allied Publishers,
1980.
Barua, Sanjaya, The Strategic Consequences of India’s Economic Performance, New Delhi:
Academic Foundation, 2006.
Chandrasekaran, Pravin, Kautilya: Politics, Ethics and Statecraft, Munich Personal RePEc
Archive Paper 9962, August 2008, http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/9962/.
Chellaney, Brahma, Securing India’s Future in the New Millennium, New Delhi: Longman,
1999.
Cohen, Stephan, Emerging Power: India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2001.
Dellios, Rosita, Mandala-building in International Relations as a Paradigm for Peace, Bond
University
Social
Science
Papers,
1996
http://epublications.bond.edu.au/hss_pubs/99
Dixit, J N, Across Borders: Fifty Years of India's Foreign Policy, New Delhi: Picus, 1998.
Freeman, Harrop A, ‘An Introduction to Hindu Jurisprudence’, The American Journal of
Comparative Law, vol. 8, no. 1, Winter, 1959, pp. 29-43
Gandhi, Indira, ‘India and the World’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 51, no. 1, Oct 1972, pp. 65-77.
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, Indian Home Rule or Hind Swaraj, Ahmadabad: Navajivan
Trust, 1938.
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Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, The Story of My Experiments with Truth: A Biography,
translated in English by Mahadev Desai, Bombay: Gandhi Book Centre, n.d.
Gordon, Sandy & Ross Babbage, India’s Strategic Future, New York, St. Martin’s Press,
1992.
Hagerty, Devin, ‘India’s Regional Security Doctrine’, Asian Survey, vol. 31, no. 4, April,
1991, pp. 351-363.
Joseph, Sarah, ‘Modernity and its Critics: A Discussion of Some Contemporary Social and
Political Theories’, V R Mehta and Thomas Pantham, eds, Political Ideas in Modern
India: Thematic Explorations, New Delhi: Sage, 2006, pp 419-436.
Kautilya, Arthashastra, vol. 1-3 translated in English by R. P. Kangle, Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 2014.
Keenleyside, T A, ‘Prelude to Power: The Meaning of Non-Alignment Before Indian
Independence’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 53, no. 3, Autumn, 1980, pp. 461-483.
Kumar, Radha, India as a Foreign Policy Actor: Normative Redux, CEPS Working Document
No. 285/February 2008.
Mansingh, Surjit, India’s Search for Power, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1984.
Nehru, Jawaharlal, ‘Changing India’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 41, no. 3, Apr, 1963, pp. 453-465.
Nehru, Jawaharlal, India’s Foreign Policy: Selected Speeches, September 1946-April 1961, New
Delhi: Publications Division, Government of India, 1961.
Olivelle, Patrick, King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya's Arthasastra, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013.
Panikkar, K M, Asia and Western Dominance: A Survey of the Vasco Da Gama Epoch of Asian
History 1498-1945, London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1959.
Pardesi, Manjeet Singh, Deducing India’s Grand Strategy of Regional Hegemony from Historical
and Conceptual Perspectives, IDSS Working Paper, April 2005.
Parel, Anthony J, ed., Gandhi: Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009.
Perkovich, George, ‘Is India a Major Power?’, The Washington Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, pp.
129–144.
Pollock, Sheldon, ‘Ramayana and Political Imagination in India’, The Journal of Asian
Studies, vol. 52, no. 2, May, 1993, pp. 261-297.
Rajagopalan, Swarna, ed., Security and South Asia: Ideas, Institutions and Initiatives,
Routledge India, 2006.
Rajamohan, C, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India's New Foreign Policy, New Delhi:
Penguin, 2005.
Rajan, M S, ‘Institutionalisation of Non-Alignment: Widening Gulf between the Belief and
the Prospect’, International Studies, vol. 20, no. 1-2, Jan-June, 1981, pp. 39-55.
Sarma, Sunil Sen, ‘Contemporaneity of the Perception on Environment in Kautilya’s
Arthasastra’, Indian Journal of History of Science, vol. 33, no. 1, 1998, pp. 37-50.
Singh, Baljit, ‘The Sources of Contemporary Political Thought in India: A Reappraisal’,
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Ethics, vol. 75, no. 1, Oct, 1964, pp. 57-62.
Thomas, Raju G C, Indian Security Policy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986.
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