It is time for India to redesign her foreign policy

A foreign policy should cater to the national interest and at the same time establish a rightful place among other nations of the world. More importantly it should lead to friendly relationships with neighbouring nations. With the recent developments with our neighbouring nations like Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and SriLanka, I strongly feel that India needs to redesign her foreign policy. There were many instances where, as a good neighbouring country we were not able to help these nations, and our adversary China took advantage of this, pushing their claims and disrupting our relations with these countries. In this context, India's traditional foreign policy doctrines based on ideals of Non-Aligned Movement and Panchsheel would not help attain our strategic goals. India needs to change their approach within the neighbourhood to be more flexible, and willing to give more with a long-term strategic vision to gain greater advantage. At the same time India should have strong allies, like the US and European Union to counter China and Pakistan. Another pressing reason for India to redefine her foreign policy is us, the youth which can be also called youth dividend. This human resource cannot be bound or tagged down with narrow political rivalries and reservation to make the maximum out of its youth population and also to offer its younger generation a magnitude of opportunities, it is requisite for India to redefine and redesign her foreign policy. 

This does not mean being submissive; it actually means playing a vital role in global politics, empowering its existing relationships, strengthening bilateral relations and also finding new ways to reach out to nations.

Now is the time to 'reinvent', 'improvise' and cooperate with maximum possible nations in the world without hesitating on older ideas of ideological differences.