The Practice of International Relations Discipline in India: Obstacles and Challenges

The practice of International Relations (IR) in India dates back to the 1950s and the establishment of the Indian School of International Studies (ISIS). Despite an early start, IR in India struggled to establish itself as a discipline due to domestic and institutional issues. Prominent criticisms of Indian IR include a lack of methodological rigour, an absence of theory, and low contributions to high-ranking journals. While engagement with questions of post-colonialism and decolonization is not new to IR, its impact on India continues to be limited. This essay explores the issues and challenges associated with the practice of IR in India by taking a de-parochial and decolonial outlook. I argue that IR in India developed as a received discourse from the West with little to no engagement with India’s past, statist assumptions, and imperial underpinnings of the discipline.