Much of the criticism as well as the endorsement of Indian foreign policy has been concentrated on issues of goal formulation rather than goal achievement – on what should be done with foreign policy, rather than on how the goals are best approached. Indian foreign policy discourse has a history of profound uneasiness and a long struggle with the concept of national interest. Authors who sought to explain this uneasiness from a realist point of view, have attributed it either to a superior strategic insight or to conscious smoke-screening. They would see the idealist inflection not as substantial in its own right, but as a residual consideration, subordinated to the national interest. Authors who believed the uneasiness to be substantial and pre-rational, on the other hand, have often looked for historical and cultural explanations.

Figure 2.1 shows four alternative approaches to understanding the idealist inflection in Indian foreign policy.

The Inflection as Chimera

Can the idealist element in Indian foreign policy be regarded as substantial? There are a number of arguments suggesting that it may not be. Looking beneath the surface of heated debate over the role and utility of idealist elements in Indian foreign policy, these arguments challenge the debate as such, suggesting that what appears as a duality or as an inflection is, in fact, normal (prudent or naïve) realpolitik. There are two main objections to the duality – one may be termed ‘superior insight’, and the second may be called ‘smoke-screening’.