Realism and Its Lookalike in India’s IR: Mind the Gap!

Students of contemporary Indian foreign and security policy have observed that there has been a turn towards realism in recent times. Eschewing a moralistic, non-aligned, restrained stance of yesteryears, India is more comfortable with the use of hard power and adopting a firmer approach towards adversaries. This article adopts a theoretical lens to critically assess the realist turn in India’s policies. It builds on scholarship that has theoretically compared and contrasted realism with Hindu nationalist thinking on IR. Given that contemporary Indian foreign and security policies draw inspiration from the latter, how much of contemporary policy can be traced back to it? What does that say about the realist orientation that many point towards? The article argues that while there exist marked realist aspects to contemporary policies and stance adopted by India, overall, India’s policies cannot be fully labelled ‘realist’. There are aspects of policy that undercut a realist orientation. To that end, one needs to appreciate the gap that exists between realism and the policies inspired by Hindu nationalist thinking on IR.