What does India mean by Strategic Autonomy, how does it work, what are the challenges this country faces in the pursuit of strategic autonomy? All these and many other questions posed to Pankaj Saran, Convenor of the NatStrat thinktank and one of the editors of a special feature titled India’s Strategic Autonomy.
Saran pointed out that a major push for a work of this kind researched and written by Indians was that a lot of the interpreting on India’s strategic autonomy was being done outside India, by scholars, diplomats and journalists.
“This was an industry by itself in the West and in Europe and Russia and China, and a lot of different interpretations bordering from bewilderment to some kind of, you know, not so palatable comments about what it means,” he told StratNews Global on The Gist.
“So I said, isn’t it high time that we got a body of Indian writers to explain to everyone, what, in their opinion, this thing means?”
Saran believes this is possibly the best time for a publication of this kind.
“People are surprised that India has not condemned the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei. And yet India continues to be in engagement and in discussions with Iran at the same time when the Prime Minister visited Israel just days before the war broke out or the war started.”
Strategic autonomy has been India’s ethos since 1947 and that over the last eight years, there’s been a consistent and continued strand of thinking and there’s been “merit, heft and logic to it.”
But each of the 19 scholars and writers who have contributed to this work have brought their own thinking and perspective. In terms of defining strategic autonomy, over the years it got different names starting from non-alignment to multi-alignment, multi- polarity and so on.
But the idea that India is within its entitlement to view itself as a certain actor on the global stage, that tends to come through, Saran said.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Pankaj Saran, Convenor NatStrat and former Deputy National Security Advisor.
