(a) Critically analyze the different phases of India's foreign policy since independence. How justified, do you think, is S…

(a) Phases of India's foreign policy and the 'energetic diplomacy' thesis

S. Jaishankar himself, in The India Way (2020), divides India's diplomatic trajectory into six phases: optimistic non-alignment (1946–62), focused on Afro-Asian solidarity and Panchsheel and ending with the 1962 war; realism and recovery (1962–71), marked by defence modernisation and the 1965 war; greater regional assertion (1971–91), shaped by the 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty, the creation of Bangladesh and Pokhran-I, but also by the Sri Lanka intervention; safeguarding strategic autonomy (1991–98), when India adjusted to a unipolar world through liberalisation and the 'Look East' policy; India as a balancing power (1998–2013), from the Pokhran-II tests to the 2008 Indo-US civil nuclear agreement; and energetic diplomacy (2014 onwards). Each phase was also a response to a failure or shock in the previous one - 1962, the 1991 balance-of-payments crisis, the end of the Soviet Union.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s classification of the current era as 'energetic diplomacy' is justified. It marks a shift from cautious non-alignment to issue-based alignments (Quad, I2U2, expanded BRICS) and proactive global governance, exemplified by India's G20 Presidency and the Voice of Global South Summits. Furthermore, operational agility during crises—such as Vaccine Maitri, Operation Ganga in Ukraine, and Operation Kaveri in Sudan—demonstrates a willingness to shoulder global responsibilities. While critics argue this phase represents an accelerated continuation of post-1991 structural shifts rather than a clean break, the unprecedented appetite for geopolitical risk, institutional rule-shaping, and simultaneous management of major-power rivalries warrants its distinction as a fundamentally energetic phase. The label is justified as a description of style and ambition, but its results are uneven: the 2020 Galwan clash and the long LAC standoff, strains with neighbours such as Maldives, Nepal and Bangladesh, and the 2025 US tariffs showed the limits of activism when material power and economic leverage lag behind. Energetic diplomacy is therefore best read as an intensification of multi-alignment rather than a proven transformation of outcomes.

(b) Indo-Pacific partnerships and connectivity

India’s Indo-Pacific posture operationalizes the SAGAR doctrine (Security and Growth for All in the Region, 2015), broadened in March 2025 into MAHASAGAR for the Global South, and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (2019), to secure a free, open, and inclusive maritime domain governed by international law (UNCLOS), explicitly hedging against a coercive, Sino-centric regional order. India anchors this strategy through plurilateral frameworks like the Quad (with the US, Japan, and Australia), which drives public goods provision, such as the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative.

Bilateral anchors complement this architecture, including a Strategic Partnership with France in the Western Indian Ocean, Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships with Vietnam (2016) and Indonesia (2018) to secure critical chokepoints like the Malacca Strait, and a strategic partnership with the Philippines (2025), which operates Indian BrahMos missiles. Simultaneously, India bridges security with geoeconomics by prioritizing ASEAN centrality via the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and advancing transnational connectivity through the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), ensuring resilient alternative supply networks.

(c) The India–EU partnership amid tariff pressures

Global tariff disruptions and rising protectionism, above all the sweeping United States tariffs of 2025 that hit both India and the EU, have functioned as structural catalysts, impelling New Delhi and Brussels to deepen their strategic partnership. Negotiations for the India-EU Free Trade Agreement, relaunched in 2022, were concluded at the 16th EU-India Summit on 27 January 2026, which also produced a Security and Defence Partnership; legal scrubbing and signature were still pending in 2026, and ratification by the European Parliament and member states will decide when it takes effect. The Trade and Technology Council (TTC), agreed in 2022 with its first ministerial meeting in May 2023, provides an institutional framework for cooperation on green hydrogen, digital public infrastructure (DPI), and supply chain de-risking.

Nonetheless, critical divergences temper the partnership. Structural friction persists over European regulatory demands such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the EU Deforestation Regulation, asymmetric market access in agriculture and automobiles, and stringent EU data protection (GDPR) mandates. Geopolitical friction also surfaces regarding European scrutiny of Indian domestic affairs and divergent approaches toward sanctions on Russia. However, shared democratic values and the pressing necessity to diversify away from over-concentrated supply chains outweigh these constraints, making the EU an indispensable partner for India's technological and green industrial modernization.