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History of foreign relations of India (pre-1947)

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Much of ancient Asia was influenced by India during the spread of Buddhism

India has maintained ties to the world for thousands of years, with periods of being invaded (generally through the northwest)[1] increasing contact with the outside world toward the modern era.[2]

In 1947, India became independent from British rule, and began executing its own foreign policy.

Ancient era

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The 300s BCE Seleucid–Mauryan War, driving the Greeks out of the newly consolidated subcontinent

Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire, unifying most of India for the first time, in the aftermath of Alexander the Great's 4th century BCE conquests in northwest India. According to certain Greek sources, Maurya may have interacted with or at least been inspired by Alexander.[3] Maurya's adviser, Chanakya, wrote the Arthashastra, a treatise expounding concepts of statecraft such as the Rajamandala which were employed to deal with Indian and foreign affairs.[4]

In South India, the Cholas maintained relations with China and had maritime influence around the eastern Indian Ocean.[5] Indian influence in Southeast Asia gradually took shape in the form of religious and commercial ties.[6]

Indo-Muslim era

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The three major Islamic gunpowder empires (Mughal India in orange) of the early modern era

The Delhi Sultanate's conquest of India at the turn of the 13th century unified most of India under Islamic rule for the first time, and thus created new ties between India and the Muslim world. For example, several Central Asian elites came to India to escape Mongol attacks in the early 13th century, contributing to the rise of a unique yet cosmopolitan culture in Delhi.[7]

Under the Mughal Empire, various regions of India began to focus on their relations with each other, rather than on neighbouring Afro-Eurasian regions.[8]

India's relations with Africa saw several Africans come to India initially as slaves and traders; they often went on to play a significant role as bodyguards and political players in shaping Indian history. Malik Ambar was one such person who became a regional king and offered significant resistance to the Mughals.[9] Western Europeans began coming to India in greater numbers after the 1490s and the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India (see also: Britons in India).[10]

Colonial era

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India (red) within the British Empire (pink) in 1909

From the early days of the British East India Company's rise, they began the introduction of the European structure of maintaining civil supremacy over the military into South Asia.[11] Colonial officials in British India, faced with an unprecedented task in governing an unfamiliar and vast land, often referred back to their own European history to adjudge how to leave a positive legacy behind in India. In deciding and justifying policy, they often made references to the impact of the Roman Empire in ancient Britain.[12] British efforts in India also served as inspiration for administering other areas; for example, the Indian Penal Code went on to serve as the foundation for legal codes passed in several other British colonies,[13] and dealings with the princely states served to inform later indirect rule over other parts of Africa and Asia.[14]

India's centrality to the British Empire (comprising over 70% of its population even at its peak) shaped much of British foreign policy.[15] The British Raj sought to guard the frontiers of India, annexing territory and maintaining peripheral buffer states which were important in shielding against rivals such as France early on, and during the Great Game, the Russian Empire;[16][17] this elevated the concept of buffer states to international vogue in the 1880s,[18] and led to concerns and interventions in places such as Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.[19] The 1869 opening of the Suez Canal also saw faster transit between Europe and India, which led to further colonialism,[20] along with anxieties around defending the new route.[21]

Though concessions were made to the princely states in other areas, their foreign policy was handled entirely by the British.[22] However, they were granted sovereignty over their airspace in 1931,[23] and in general, their rulers often found ways to participate in intellectual or anticolonial networks outside of the subcontinent.[24] For example, the American YMCA offered them an alternative vision to British programmes of physical fitness and sport (see also: Sport in British India and History of India–United States relations).[25]

After World War I, Indians began to take on a larger role in the colony's foreign policy.[22] They also began to author scholarship, inspired by nascent Western ideas of the time, around the Indian take on international relations.[26] The contemporary Khilafat Movement also shaped the role of various Indian communities in engaging with the world, as it nurtured anticolonial sentiment but also increased the strength of South Asian Muslim nationalism.[27] The resulting 1947 Partition of India, cleaving the Muslim- and non-Muslim-majority regions of British India, resulted in 15 million people migrating between the newly independent nations of India and Pakistan, which is the largest mass migration in human history.[28]

Economy and technology

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1882 map of the railways, which facilitated British resource extraction and military intervention[29]

Revenues from British trade with India played a significant role in funding the Industrial Revolution.[30]

The British-built railways transformed Indian society in a number of ways, allowing for new forms of transregional and international commerce to emerge. By the turn of the 20th century, they had contributed to India becoming the ninth-largest exporter in the world.[31] However, Indians were banned from manufacturing their own locomotive technology in 1912; this meant that the craft had to be re-learned after independence in 1947.[32]

Legacy

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The Indian diaspora is substantially based in former British colonies;[33] this influenced India to maintain ties to them through Commonwealth membership[34]

Upon India's 1947 independence, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee dubbed India the "Light of Asia", implying that it would act as a model of liberal democracy.[35]

European ideas around race, which were used in the colonial era to explain the vast European empires and the apparent centuries-long downfall of India, factored into the martial race theory and similar social hierarchies.[36] Islamic legacies in India also came to be perceived more negatively, as the British, who were influenced by their European Christian history of conflict with Muslims and also seeking to justify their control of India, portrayed the Indo-Muslim period in a more negative light and made themselves out to be the saviours of the Hindu community.[37] In the aftermath of Partition, independent India's historians sought to downplay atrocities in the Indo-Muslim period to maintain communal harmony, though this has been reversed in the 21st century due to the rise of Hindu nationalism.[38][39]

British India was important to the overall British Empire;[40] its record of helping the British Empire expand played a role in the deterioration of modern China–India relations, as postcolonial Chinese strategists were wary of India attempting to maintain an outsized role in Asia (see also: Himalayan Rim#History).[41] Negative Afghanistan–Pakistan relations also trace back to the extension of British India's borders into Pashtunistan.[42]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Malone, David M. (2011-04-07), Malone, David M. (ed.), "History: A Vital Foundation of India's International Relations", Does the Elephant Dance?: Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy, Oxford University Press, p. 0, ISBN 978-0-19-955202-3, retrieved 2025-03-11
  2. ^ Sagar, Krishna Chandra (1992). Foreign Influence on Ancient India. Northern Book Centre. ISBN 978-81-7211-028-4.
  3. ^ "Alexander and Chandragupta Maurya: A short history of war, empire, and greatness". The Indian Express. 2023-02-22. Retrieved 2025-03-10.
  4. ^ Modelski, George (1964). "Kautilya: Foreign Policy and International System in the Ancient Hindu World". The American Political Science Review. 58 (3): 549–560. doi:10.2307/1953131. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1953131.
  5. ^ Gangopadhyay, Aaloy (2023-05-05). "Threads of Indian Foreign Policy Down The Ages". Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities. 3 (3): 1–7. doi:10.55544/ijrah.3.3.1. ISSN 2583-1712.
  6. ^ "India's cultural and civilisational influence on Southeast Asia". orfonline.org. Retrieved 2025-03-24.
  7. ^ Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006-03-16). India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7.
  8. ^ "Mughal empire and the making of a region: Locating South Asia in early modern international order". Brookings. Retrieved 2024-12-19.
  9. ^ "Africans in India: From slaves to reformers and rulers". BBC News. 2014-12-19. Retrieved 2025-03-11.
  10. ^ Richards, John F. (1997). "Early Modern India and World History". Journal of World History. 8 (2): 197–209. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20068593.
  11. ^ Bryant, G. J. (2005). "Civil-Military Relations in Early British India, 1750-85". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 83 (334): 131–151. ISSN 0037-9700. JSTOR 44231169.
  12. ^ "In India, the British empire saw a future for the Greco-Roman civilisation". Quartz. 2017-08-14. Retrieved 2025-02-18.
  13. ^ "377: The British colonial law that left an anti-LGBTQ legacy in Asia". 2021-06-28. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
  14. ^ Fisher, Michael H. (1984). "Indirect Rule in the British Empire: The Foundations of the Residency System in India (1764–1858)". Modern Asian Studies. 18 (3): 393–428. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00009033. ISSN 1469-8099.
  15. ^ Mahajan, Sneh (2003-08-27). British Foreign Policy 1874–1914: The role of India (1 ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203167328. ISBN 978-0-203-16732-8.
  16. ^ Das, Amita; Das, Aditya (2016). Defending British India Against Napoleon: The Foreign Policy of Governor-General Lord Minto, 1807-13. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-78327-129-0.
  17. ^ Mahajan, Sneh (2015-07-23), Malone, David M.; Mohan, C. Raja; Raghavan, Srinath (eds.), "The Foreign Policy of the Raj and Its Legacy", The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, Oxford University Press, p. 0, ISBN 978-0-19-874353-8, retrieved 2025-03-11
  18. ^ Malone, David M.; Mohan, C. Raja; Raghavan, Srinath (2015-07-23). The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-106118-9.
  19. ^ Prasad, Bisheshwar (1955). The Foundations Of Indias Foreign Policy 1860-1882. Ranjit Printers and Publishers, Delhi.
  20. ^ "Behind the Enduring Relevance of the Suez Canal Is the Long Shadow of European Colonialism". The Wire. Retrieved 2025-03-13.
  21. ^ Parry, Jonathan (2021-03-31). "Suez canal: what the 'ditch' meant to the British empire in the 19th century". The Conversation. Retrieved 2025-03-11.
  22. ^ a b Thakur, Vineet (2014). "The Colonial Origins of Indian Foreign Policymaking". Economic and Political Weekly. 49 (32): 58–64. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 24480792.
  23. ^ Mirza, Priya (2022-01-02). "'Sovereignty of the air': The Indian princely states, the British Empire and carving out of air-space (1911–1933)". History and Technology. 38 (1): 62–83. doi:10.1080/07341512.2022.2079370. ISSN 0734-1512.
  24. ^ Segura-Garcia, Teresa (2022). "The Indian Princely States in the Global Nineteenth Century". Global Nineteenth-Century Studies. 1 (1): 101–107. doi:10.3828/gncs.2022.14.
  25. ^ Fischer-Tiné, Harald (2019). "Fitness for Modernity? The YMCA and physical-education schemes in late-colonial South Asia (circa 1900–40)". Modern Asian Studies. 53 (2): 512–559. doi:10.1017/S0026749X17000300. ISSN 0026-749X.
  26. ^ "The forgotten history of Indian international relations". orfonline.org. Retrieved 2025-03-13.
  27. ^ Niemeijer, A. C. (1972). The Khilafat Movement in India 1919-1924. Brill. JSTOR 10.1163/j.ctt1w76v5c.
  28. ^ "Partition of 1947 continues to haunt India, Pakistan". news.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
  29. ^ "Spread of Railways, part of British strategy after 1857". The Economic Times. 2007-05-13. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 2025-03-11.
  30. ^ "British colonialism in India - The British Empire - KS3 History - homework help for year 7, 8 and 9". BBC Bitesize. Retrieved 2025-02-12.
  31. ^ Kuehlwein, Michael (2021-03-25), "Railroads and Trade in 19th-Century India", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.603, ISBN 978-0-19-027772-7, retrieved 2025-03-11
  32. ^ JC, Anand (2023-08-14). "The truth about colonial railways: Did the British infrastructure really benefit India?". The Economic Times. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
  33. ^ Haitao, Jia (2020-01-01). "British colonial expansion with Indian diaspora: the pattern of Indian overseas migration". Cappadocia Journal of Area Studies (CJAS), Cappadocia University. 2 (1): 56–81. doi:10.38154/cjas.27. ISSN 2717-7254.
  34. ^ Banerji, Arun Kumar (1981-10-01). "The Nehru-Menon legacy that still survives". The Round Table. 71 (284): 346–352. doi:10.1080/00358538108453543.
  35. ^ Misra, Maria (2003). "Lessons of Empire: Britain and India". SAIS Review. 23 (2): 133–153. ISSN 1945-4724.
  36. ^ Mohan, Jyoti (2024), Vemsani, Lavanya (ed.), "Legacies of Colonial Rule in India: How Race and Caste Continue to Divide Modern India", Handbook of Indian History, Singapore: Springer Nature, pp. 363–383, doi:10.1007/978-981-97-6207-1_16, ISBN 978-981-97-6207-1, retrieved 2025-02-19
  37. ^ Banerjee, Prathama (2020-03-03). "Are communal riots a new thing in India? Yes, and it started with the British". ThePrint. Retrieved 2024-12-19.
  38. ^ "Did Islam Become More Syncretic in India? An Interview With William Dalrymple". The Wire. Retrieved 2025-02-19.
  39. ^ Dalrymple, William (2004-03-20). "Trapped in the ruins". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-02-19.
  40. ^ Mahajan, Sneh (2018-03-20). Foreign Policy of Colonial India: 1900–1947 (1 ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351186957. ISBN 978-1-351-18695-7.
  41. ^ "GMF – The New Great Game: Why the Bush administration has embraced India". 2008-12-16. Archived from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 2025-02-19.
  42. ^ Ali, Mudasar. "Pakistan -Afghan Relations: Historic Mirror". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Further reading

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