ABSTRACT
An independent foreign policy depends upon the sound economic health of a country, and the requirements of economic development of a country have always determined the nature of a country’s foreign policy, ranging from independent to dependent. The relationship between India's foreign policy and economic development started taking shape immediately after its independence. Economic nationalism, at the core of India’s national interests during the Nehru and post-Nehru period, became insignificant in globalised India. Import substitution and inward oriented strategy of economic development and the policy of non-alignment were used as tools to consolidate economic nationalism. In the 1990s India initiated a root-and-branch overhaul of its economy to facilitate globalisation, and the imperatives of India's foreign policy dramatically changed. Under the influence of neo-liberal philosophy of globalisation, India abandoned the cause of New International Economic Order, throughout the 1990s on the one hand, and made economic diplomacy as a major instrument of India's foreign policy on the other.
