ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the historiography of Nehruvian foreign policy and focuses on what this tells us about the nature of analysis of India’s international relations. Patterns of continuity from the external relations of the subcontinent in the centuries prior to the transfer of power hold the key to understanding much of the foreign policy of South Asia. Historians make a compelling case for the ownership of the study of India’s international relations. They point out that their works do not simply catalogue the circumstances of South Asia’s present security dilemmas, but rather highlight how contemporary dilemmas have frequently been rehearsed in the past, and show how their causes are inextricably linked with historical factors. The chapter describes how the attempt to bridge the divide between the analysis of ‘domestic’ political concerns and the making of decisions with regard to foreign policy is increasingly being carried out in a great deal of the literature on the Nehruvian period.
