policy ( - ) Independence and Partition In the pre-independence era India’s foreign policy was the responsibility of the British Raj. India contributed to the British victory in the second world war by providing necessary man power and materials. With the end of the Second World War in and the subsequent independence of India in August from the British Raj, India had to deal with the outside world by herself and have to build her own foreign policy. The post-war global political events and India’s own political climate shaped India’s foreign policy.
The world was polarised into two military blocs and each bloc tried to overcome the other which was known as the Cold War. Though a major war was averted, each bloc was spending enormous money in military buildups due to which tense condition prevailed. The newly liberated countries were not in a position to squander their resources in conflicts between two military blocs. They had to divert all their reources for nation building.
An ideological battle known as the Cold War happened between the two superpowers of that time – the United States of America and the Soviet Union. These were also extraordinary global circumstances with the emergence of newer nations from the clutches of colonisation with new boundaries. There was large scale human migration taking place across continents while the war-tired Western powers were working on framing a new world order. The world also witnessed the formation of the United Nations Organisation on October , through the Atlantic Charter.
Jawaharlal Nehru was the architec of India’s foreign policy. India’s ideological alignment, its role in the U.N and its commitment to a peaceful world were at stake. Nehru’s foreign policy took in to consideration, independent India’s priorities such as nation’s socio-economic development, modernization, global peace, avoidance of war, peaceful and ( constructive relationship with other nations, decolonization of Afro-Asian countries, strengthening the UN and economic cooperation with other countries. Pakistan was formed after the partition of the Indian sub-continent in .
This event witnessed the largest transporation of refugees across the boundary in human history. The Kashmir issue continues to be one of the fundamental aspects that drives India’s foreign policy causing three wars since . Panchsheel and Non-Aligned Movement ( - ) Non-Aligned Movement Nehru also firmly believed that India must develop and maintain a close friendship with its neighbours, especially with China as both countries have a long history of civilizational and cultural ties. This led to the signing of the Panchsheel Treaty between India and China in between Nehru and the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.
The Panchsheel consists of five principles with which the two nations would conduct relations between them. This included;