(a) Discuss the strategic implications of India's 'Look East Policy' transforming into 'Act East Policy'. (10 marks) (b) Explain…

(a) Strategic Implications of India’s 'Look East' to 'Act East' Policy

India’s transition from the 'Look East Policy' (launched under Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s) to the 'Act East Policy' (announced at the East Asia Summit in November 2014) marks a qualitative shift from predominantly economic integration with Southeast Asia to a comprehensive strategic, defence, and security partnership across the wider Indo-Pacific.

Strategically, the policy addresses the shifting balance of power driven by China’s maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea. India has expanded defence cooperation through bilateral and multilateral engagements, such as Australia's return to the Malabar exercises in 2020, mutual logistics support agreements with regional partners, the sale of BrahMos missiles to the Philippines (contract 2022, first deliveries 2024), and the elevation of ASEAN-India ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (2022).

Infrastructure and connectivity form the operational backbone of Act East, exemplified by cross-border initiatives like the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project and the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway. Furthermore, institutional partnerships like the India–Japan Act East Forum align India's outreach with Japan's Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision. Sub-regional mechanisms such as BIMSTEC and the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation provide alternative platforms for regional integration, while the BCIM corridor has stalled because of India's objections to its linkage with China's Belt and Road. Act East rests on the "3Cs" of commerce, culture and connectivity, with the North-East as its gateway, but Myanmar's civil war has stalled Kaladan and the Trilateral Highway, and India's trade deficit with ASEAN has prompted a review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement.

(b) Philosophical Foundations of India’s Foreign Policy

India’s foreign policy is rooted in its civilizational ethos, combining ancient normative traditions with modern constitutional principles. The core philosophical pillar is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family), which projects India’s civilizational soft power, tolerance, and multilateral worldview.

Alongside it runs a realist strand from Kautilya's Arthashastra, whose mandala theory (a neighbour is a natural enemy, a neighbour's neighbour a natural friend) still informs strategic thinking, and Tagore's cosmopolitan universalism. This ethos merged with Gandhian moralpolitik, emphasizing peaceful coexistence, non-violence, and ethical statecraft. In the post-independence era, Article 51 of the Constitution directed the state to promote international peace and respect for international law, and Nehruvian idealism translated these values into the Panchsheel (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, 1954) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), ensuring freedom of decision-making during the Cold War.

Over time, this philosophical foundation has adapted to global realpolitik. The post-Cold War era witnessed a pragmatic evolution from rigid non-alignment to 'strategic autonomy' and multi-alignment. S. Jaishankar's The India Way (2020) frames this as drawing on the Mahabharata's strategic culture to engage all powers while taking sides on issues. India balances moral universalism with realistic national interests, projecting itself as a responsible global power, a net security provider, and a voice for the Global South while maintaining continuity with its foundational civilizational values.

(c) India’s Position on TRIPS Waiver for COVID-19 Vaccines in WTO

In October 2020, India and South Africa jointly submitted a landmark proposal, later co-sponsored by more than 60 members, at the World Trade Organization (WTO) seeking a temporary waiver of key provisions of the TRIPS Agreement (patents, copyrights, industrial designs, and trade secrets) for COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics.

India’s position rested on treating pandemic countermeasures as global public goods. It argued that intellectual property (IP) maximalism created artificial scarcity, exorbitant pricing, and severe vaccine inequity between developed nations and the Global South. A TRIPS waiver was deemed essential to dismantle legal barriers, enable technology transfer, and allow developing nations to leverage their manufacturing capacity—such as India's generic pharmaceutical base—to scale up affordable production.

While developed countries advocated for voluntary licensing and the COVAX facility, India maintained that voluntary mechanisms were insufficient during a planetary crisis. The United States backed a vaccine waiver in May 2021, but the EU, UK and Switzerland opposed it. The outcome was a diluted compromise: the MC12 TRIPS Decision (June 2022) only clarified and eased compulsory licensing of vaccine patents for eligible developing countries for five years, and in 2023 members failed to extend it to diagnostics and therapeutics. India's campaign nonetheless shaped the global debate on health equity, visible in its Vaccine Maitri exports and in the WHO Pandemic Agreement adopted in May 2025, whose pathogen access and benefit-sharing annex is still under negotiation.

(d) Growing Significance of the QUAD

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD)—comprising India, the United States, Japan, and Australia—first formed after the 2004 tsunami response, launched as a dialogue in 2007, revived in 2017 and elevated to leaders' summits in 2021, has transformed from an ad-hoc diplomatic dialogue into a pivotal plurilateral grouping shaping Indo-Pacific geopolitics.

Its significance lies in its dual nature: maintaining a stable balance of power while delivering public goods. On the security front, the participation of all four members in the Malabar naval exercise since 2020 and the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (2022) demonstrate interoperability and deterrence against unilateral revisions of the rules-based maritime order.

Beyond security, the QUAD has diversified into functional, non-military domains to counter criticism of being an "Asian NATO." It operates through specialized working groups focusing on the QUAD Vaccine Partnership (whose one-billion-dose goal fell short because of production problems), the Cancer Moonshot (2024), the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative (2025), climate change mitigation, infrastructure financing, and securing critical technology and semiconductor supply chains against geopolitical vulnerabilities. As a flexible, issue-based partnership rather than a formal treaty alliance, the QUAD provides India with a strategic platform to preserve open sea lanes and multipolarity in the Indo-Pacific. Its momentum depends on India-US ties, however: the leaders' summit India was to host has been repeatedly deferred amid trade tensions, though the foreign ministers met in New Delhi in May 2026.

(e) Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan and India’s Strategic Interests

The Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021 fundamentally altered India’s regional security and geopolitical architecture.

First, India faces acute security vulnerabilities, notably the potential revival of cross-border terrorism through groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, alongside Pakistan gaining strategic depth on its western flank.

Second, India's substantial developmental investments exceeding $3 billion—including the Afghan Parliament building, the Salma Dam (India-Afghanistan Friendship Dam), and the Zaranj-Delaram highway—face operational uncertainty. The regime change also disrupts land-based connectivity to Central Asia, impairing the full commercial utility of the Chabahar port and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

Third, the resultant humanitarian crisis prompted swift emergency responses, including the evacuation of Indian nationals and Afghan minorities under Operation Devi Shakti. Navigating this environment presents an engagement dilemma: India has moved toward pragmatic engagement and humanitarian assistance (wheat, medicines and vaccines) without granting formal recognition: it sent a technical team to Kabul in June 2022, the Foreign Secretary met Taliban Foreign Minister Muttaqi in Dubai in January 2025, Muttaqi visited New Delhi in October 2025, and India upgraded its Kabul mission to an embassy that month. The Taliban's condemnation of the Pahalgam attack (April 2025) and its clashes with Pakistan in October 2025 show how the Taliban-Pakistan relationship has soured, opening space for India, even as the US withdrawal of India's Chabahar sanctions waiver in September 2025, followed by an extension only until April 2026, leaves connectivity through Chabahar uncertain.