Impact of British Rule on India’s Foreign Policy

There is a widespread perception that India’s foreign policy began in 1947. The above discussion makes it clear that India’s foreign policy evolved in the colonial yoke much before 1947. But, there is no doubt that 1947 marked the watershed moment for India’s foreign policy too. Hitherto, the decisions on foreign and defense policies were taken in London and were designed to serve the interests of British. After 1947, the foreign policy decisions were taken by elected government in New Delhi in the interest of people of India. Secondly, after 1947, India’s foreign policy was guided by third world radicalism and socialist orientation.

At the same time, the legacy of 150 years of British rule could not discarded immediately by the leaders of free India. India inherited a territory from the British and accepted those inherited boundaries as legal and sacrosanct. Both India and Pakistan accepted the obligations of as many as 627 treaties, agreements and conventions signed by the British with various countries. India also inherited the Foreign Policy establishment and administrative structure from British. Government of India tried to continue the same style of diplomacy for some years. It adopted the British notions of neighbourhood relations.

At the same time, the perception in neighbours that India is determined to play role of big brother in South Asia is also a British legacy, though India’s weight in South Asia cannot be undermined. Further, some of the Border tensions which India faces today are also British legacies. Though Himalayas was seen as natural and most formidable line of defense, yet the frontiers of India drawn whether on the basis of surveys or hastily have become long pending issues, not solved even after so many decades of end of Raj. During partition and drawing boundaries with China, geography, ethnicity, desire of people or economic viability of the region were totally ignored. It is evident from the fact that both India and China have different maps of Aksai Chin, while both these maps were drawn by British in 1900!. In North-East, India does accept McMahan Line; and this is the reason that India-China remains a heavily militarized boundary in the world.