India’s Strategic Partnership: A New Framework for Understanding Contemporary Foreign Policy

India is witnessing a paradigm shift in its foreign policy in the post-cold war era. This change has been caused due to changed structural and operational dynamics of the international level; and, India’s aspiration to play a more assertive and proactive foreign policy at this juncture. Consequently, old tools, techniques and approaches followed by India during the cold war period became outdated. Hence to cope up with the new challenges of contemporary non-polar world order and to attain the status of a major power for itself, India has shifted its foreign policy orientations from earlier non-alignment to multi-alignment. This kind of alignment is not limited to build relations with major power centres, rather due importance has also been given to new regional organizations emerging in the post-cold war era. Through its pro-active and assertive foreign policy outlook, India is at present engaged to work with multiple partners to ensure the creation of multi-polar Asia and multi-polar world. Besides, it is not limiting itself to follow defensive foreign policy, rather busy in the pursuit of more aggressive policy so that India can work as leading power in global politics. To operationalize such a policy key tool applied for this purpose has been the concept of strategic partnership. Such partnerships are utilised not only in a limited manner, rather these involve comprehensive bilateral relationships without targeting any third country. Such initiatives have both merit and demerits, but their success depends upon how India attains strong hard power capabilities at domestic level, on the one hand; and, enhanced demonstrative capabilities at external level, on the other hand.