Abstract
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Criticisms of international relations (IR) in India often highlight its limitations, such as the lack of methodological rigour, shortage of resources, and absence of theory. Despite the depth of these critiques, a majority of them suffer from parochialism because of their dependence on the West. The dependency on the West has stunted the growth of discipline by limiting the Indian practice to the canon, namely realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Another consequence of Indian dependency on Western IR is its neglect of diverse voices, resulting in empire-like practices within IR in India. In sum, the Indian dependency on the West has affected the development of the decolonial/indigenous IR in India by limiting the opportunities for meaningful engagement. In this essay, I explore the mechanisms and means through which the West limits the opportunities of a decolonial IR in India by controlling the epistemological, ontological, and methodological contours of the discipline. By deploying a decolonial and de-parochial outlook, I argue that IR in India developed as a received discourse from the West with little to no engagement with the disciplinary past and practices. Moreover, IR in India failed to reflect on its own past by being tied to the West and its trajectory. The current state of the discipline in India can be better understood from debates about the history of IR, its imperial underpinnings and the underlying statism in IR. Moreover, the problem continues to become complex with forces like neo-liberalism and India’s ascendance in global politics, limiting the opportunities for reflection. An uncritical acceptance of Western tenets and practices has truncated the growth of an Indian IR by keeping it in an unending ‘catching-up’ situation with the West (Behera, 2007).
The essay is organized into four sections. The first section outlines the current state of IR practice in India and its relationship to neo-liberalism, the market, and the economy. The second section outlines the history of IR in the US and its influence on IR worldwide. The third section outlines the issues and challenges to IR in India by delving into specifics like history, methodology and theory in India. The fourth and final section presents the conclusion and findings from the Indian experience of IR in India and its relevance for the current practice.
The Current State of Indian IR
IR publications in India have boomed, with over a thousand published annually. These publications include student-authored articles, think tank reports, commentaries, journal articles, op-eds, etc. The Indian IR academic community is ensnared in what Haack terms the ‘publishing racket’, with neo-liberal forces and demands dictating the direction of the discipline (Haack, 2019). While the rise in the number of publications might be correlated to the growth of the discipline, no definite causation exists between the same. The majority of publications produced on IR in India suffer from short deadlines, poor editing and an absent feedback mechanism. Many of these works lack critical decolonial depth, either being overly analytical, excessively sophisticated in their methodologies, or too conceptually abstract. A survey of IR scholars reveals that 40% of IR scholars believe that disciplinary scholarship has a limited role in public debate and foreign policy (Yester, 2009). IR publishing in India continues to be driven by a neo-liberal industry obsessed with productivity, numbers, and auditing, responsible for controlling the content, form, and voice of scholarship in India. Research on IR in India operates on a factory line embedded in the ideas of incentives and recognition rather than those of research and knowledge. A way for the IR academy to overcome this is to reflect on its publication practices and engage with questions of voice, research, and knowledge in IR.
Similarly, learning IR in today’s context is challenging as universities navigate neo-liberal forces. Although more universities (both public and private) now offer IR in India, the situation of learning remains the same. Universities offering IR compete for admissions as they balance neo-liberal forces of demand and supply. A placement-oriented attitude reduces admissions to instrumentalist forces like CGPA, publications, and citations, limiting the diversity of programmes. Many IR programmes evolve while neglecting essential aspects like pedagogy, curriculum, and teaching, primarily due to their market-driven focus. As a result, the structure, teaching, and pedagogy of IR remain unchanged, reflected in the trajectory of the discipline.
A related problem with IR in India is its perception as a specialized and niche discipline. The idea of specialization and niche helps separate IR from other social sciences, maintaining academic traction and marketability. Notions such as specialization and niche also influence the direction of the discipline, perpetuating oppressive pedagogies and practices. The ‘banking notion of education’ is one example where ‘knowledge is [considered] a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing’ (Freire, 2018, p. 100). Such notions can be observed in the teaching, delivery, and curricula of IR, embodying colonial and oppressive practices. The discipline is dominated by monologic and unidirectional teaching methods, reducing learners to passive recipients rather than active contributors. The lack of acknowledgement of student voices, insights, and roles deepens the colonialization of the field, with concepts such as power, security, and state occupying normative roles.
Moreover, the lack of engagement with critical theories and literature consolidates the dominant position of select paradigms, such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism, by positioning them over other approaches. Critical approaches to IR are often clubbed together in academic discussions and presented to have a common meaning. They are given less time in academic curriculums and discussions, resulting in less research from critical standpoints. Pedagogically, IR education in India remains the same as the lecture model of education dominates. While there have been attempts to innovate the pedagogy and teaching of IR, such changes do not receive adequate support from the universities and students. The practices and approaches to IR continue to mimic the depositor–depository relationship, hindering a genuine inquiry into the discipline.
By prioritizing outcomes over processes, the current academic environment perpetuates a neo-liberal logic, evident in its recruitment, research, and project choices. The choices and paths pursued by the academy remain exclusionary and elusive as they remain silent on questions of privilege and hierarchy. The success-driven approach often takes away the joys of researching by making research not a desire for truth or knowledge but a tool for control and influence (Tagore, 1927). A way out for the IR academy is to redefine itself by making truth and enquiry the central elements of the discipline.
IR and the West: Growth, Politics, and Consequences
IR is taught in a linear and apolitical fashion in the West, overlooking the imperial and racialized past of IR. Such apolitical and ahistorical discourses of IR perpetuate myths like anarchy, nation-state and the international system in the discipline by reinforcing ideas from realism and liberalism in IR. Homogenous and white-washed ideas often work as gatekeeping mechanisms to knowledge creation in IR, keeping alternative meanings, perspectives, and interpretations at bay. In this section, I trace the growth of IR as a discipline by tracing key events, disciplinary politics, and their implications.
The formal roots of IR date back to 1919 and the establishment of the first chair of IR. Before that, IR did not constitute a formal discipline and was discussed in disciplines like economics, history, philosophy, and administration. The early discussions of IR centred on ideas of the ‘race line’ and the colonies with the aim of securing the interest of colonizers. It was in the early 1920s that the field shifted from its racist and imperial language of colonies, savages, and colour to ideas of justice, war, law, and peace. Notably, the changes towards justice, war, and peace were applicable only to the free and independent states of that time, that is, the imperial state. The colonies, on the other hand, were still regulated by colonial powers and states, through ideas of mandate, trusteeship, modernization, etc. (Vitalis, 2015). Until 1945, the subject matter of IR remained the same, after which it got enmeshed in political science departments in the United States. The close affinity between IR and Political Science can be traced to factors like the overlap between subject matter, the relationship of IR and Political Science to the idea of the nation-state, and their relevance to foreign and public policy debates in the US. IR’s integration into the Political Science departments was natural and predictable, as ‘disciplinary gatekeeping’ was intense in the US (Alagappa, 2011).
Furthermore, the assimilation of IR into the field of Political Science contributed significantly to the establishment of IR because of its methodological and theoretical rigour. Despite the centrality of Europe to IR in the twentieth century, it was the United States that exerted a profound influence on the academic discussions and deliberations of the discipline. The influence of the US is expounded in Hoffman’s essay ‘In American Social Science: International Relations’, wherein Hoffman elaborates on the evolution of IR in the United States. Hoffman underscores several pivotal factors contributing to the growth of IR in the US, such as the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War, the ascendance of the United States as the global hegemon, the prevalence of rational choice theory, the infusion of scientism, the mass education projects, etc. Hoffman also elucidates on the role of discipline-specific developments, such as the publication of Hans Morgenthau’s ‘Politics Among Nations’, the ascendancy of realism, and nuclear deterrence, among others, that propelled the growth and prominence of IR within the United States (Hoffmann, 1977). Hence, the decade spanning from 1960 to 1970 occupies a central position in the debates on IR. It marks the milestone of the consolidation of the IR’s position in America and its academic and intellectual community.
Despite the broader acceptance of IR as a standalone discipline, some contentions do exist about its disciplinary status. IR continues to be offered as a subfield of Political science or as a field in history, policy, etc. Scholarly disagreements persist on the history and development of IR, with some believing the growth to be in tandem with world politics, while others believe discipline to emerge from the Great Debates of IR. Over the years, IR has established its own concepts and theories, establishing its presence in the social sciences. From two strands of theories, that is, liberalism and realism, IR has grown to host multiple theories such as feminism, post-colonialism, constructivism, and others. Despite the expansion of IR, it continues to be Eurocentric, with Western values comprising the heart and soul of the discipline. A majority of IR concepts and theories trace their origin in the West, with Western history comprising the centre of the development. A 2014 survey illustrates that 66.98% of scholars believe IR to be a Western discipline (Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al., 2016). Therefore, theory-building in IR continues to be a predominantly Western enterprise, with non-West existing on the margins.
An example of Western hegemony in IR is the replication of core-periphery relations in the discipline. The West constitutes the core of knowledge production in IR, with the East being the periphery (Sitaraman, 2016; Tickner, 2003). Tickner captures the core-periphery relations of knowledge production in IR when she writes, ‘IR reinforces analytical categories…defined by academic communities within the core, and that determines what can be said, how it can be said, and whether or not what is said constitutes a pertinent or important contribution to knowledge’ (Tickner, 2003, p. 300). Tickner provides valuable insight into the politics of knowledge production in IR, with the West deciding the content, voice, and form of knowledge and the East having to decide nothing. By favouring the positivist/Western view of IR, the discipline disadvantages the non-positivist/non-Western view of IR, resulting in the marginalization of the East. Therefore, by occupying a Gramscian-like hegemony over the discipline, the West alienates the majority of the non-West by reducing them to knowledge takers rather than makers in IR (Behera, 2007).
A central implication of Western hegemony and its domination is the normalization of the Western worldview. An example is the prevalence of Realism and the Realist theory in IR. The popularity of Realism spans across the West and the non-West, with one-fourth of the scholars deploying Realism in their analysis (Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al., 2016). The Western hegemony of IR has helped sustain the geopolitical, economic, and strategic interests of Europe by side-lining the needs and interests of the Global South. The Western domination of IR has ensured a position of power to the West by limiting opportunities and resources for the non-West. The Western dominance has created a division within IR, with the non-West delegated qualitative and descriptive work and the West delegated theoretical and methodological research (Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al., 2016). Such a division has furthered the alienation of the non-West by ensuring total and complete control of the West. Responding to the question of why Western IR has produced little about non-Western ways of thinking, Pinar Bilgin, in her essay ‘Thinking Past the “Western” IR?’ writes, ‘the disciplinary straitjacket imposed by IR as social science, …. have not socialized [the students of IR] into being curious about the “non-West” but have been encouraged to explain away “non-Western” dynamics by superimposing “Western” categories’ (Bilgin, 2007, p. 11).
IR and the Indian Experience: Issues and Challenges
IR at the bachelor’s level is a recent development in India established predominantly in the private universities of India. While there is a supply crisis for IR in India, with more applicants available seats, the discipline is still often perceived as inferior in academic discussions. 1 Common perceptions about IR in India include (a) IR is about guns and bombs, (b) Newspapers are sufficient sources of knowledge to understand IR, (c) There is no methodology in IR, (d) IR is about description, and (e) IR is a branch of Political Science (Behera, 2007). Despite the stereotypes about IR in India, the discipline continues to grow. Two central forces to the growth of IR in India include (a) India’s rise as an economic and political power and, (b), the interconnectedness made possible by globalization. India’s rise, accompanied by globalization, has resulted in the expansion of IR in India caused by demands for specialized knowledge and positions. Despite the massive growth of IR in India, the discipline continues to face challenges ranging from the underexamined history of IR in India to the dependency of Indian IR on the West. In the section below, I trace the history of IR in India and commonly articulated criticisms of it, highlighting disciplinary limits and obsession with IR in the West.
IR and its Incomplete History
The story of Indian IR starts in 1943 with the establishment of the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) by Sir Bahadur Sapru in Delhi. A year later, due to a lack of significant developments in Indian IR, Dr Appadorai joined ICWA, establishing the ‘India Quarterly’, a journal articulating Indian views on world politics. After the change in leadership of ICWA from Sir Bahadur Sapru to Hriday Nath Kunzru, IR in India gained momentum with rigorous research and publications in the discipline. In 1955, the ICWA agreed to establish the Indian School of International Studies (ISIS) under the aegis of the University of Delhi to train next-generation diplomats and IR scholars in India. The next year, 1956, Jadavpur University established its Department of IR in Calcutta, offering IR training to students.
However, the association of ISIS with the University of Delhi was short-lived. In 1961, ISIS parted ways from the University of Delhi, gaining the status of a ‘deemed university’. The reasons behind the termination of ISIS’s association with the University of Delhi include: ‘disputes over recruitment/training of staff for a new discipline; induction of foreign visiting professors; financial provisions for fieldwork in India and abroad for teachers and students; foreign exchange for acquiring research materials about current international and area studies ISIS’ (Rajan, 2005, p.196). Between 1961 and 1970, ISIS managed to secure scholarships from stakeholders other than the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Reserve Bank of India, helping to chart its independent trajectory. During these years, a one-year pre-doctoral programme was introduced in ISIS with a mandatory foreign language course in the programme. IR acted as a training ground for diplomats and foreign officials and was included as one of the articles in the Union of Public Service Commission exams in India. Alongside this, another development took place, that is, the decision to set up Area Studies Centres across India. The decision was helmed by the UGC with the aim of facilitating the practice of IR in India and defining India’s interest in world politics (Mattoo, 2009; Rajan, 1994, 2005). Following the controversy about writing the thesis in Hindi, ISIS was merged with Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, leading to the establishment of the School of International Studies (SIS) in the 1970s. The SIS initially offered Master’s and MPhil training in India and later expanded to other disciplines and courses. (Rajan, 2005).
About the early days of IR in India, Mattoo writes,
Few disciplines could have enjoyed a more favourable climate for intellectual growth in the early years of India’s independence than IS [International Studies]. There were not many political leaders in Asia with the same breadth of vision, sense of global history, and deep commitment to building institutions like Jawaharlal Nehru. (2007, p.38)
However, from the short history of IR in India, one can argue that the foundation of Indian IR lies beyond the narratives of Nehru, the Cold War, and the NAM in India, involving issues such as the turn to Area Studies, competition over resources, concerns over appointment of faculty and others. Centring the disciplinary history around Nehru and a select few risks the marginalization of figures like Appadorai and Kunzru, who played an important role in the history of IR in India.
IR and the Disciplinary Crisis
The trajectory of IR in India has been largely independent; however, questions persist about its disciplinary placement. Appadorai, on the question of the IR’s location in India, remarked:
Two views are held on the question of whether international relations is a separate academic discipline. One view is that international relations is a synthesis of various subjects such as geography, history, demography, politics, economics, and law…. The other view, a view with which I agree, is that while it is true that the students of international relations have to depend on data supplied by many scientists, he is at the same time engaged in making a synthesis sufficiently differentiated from the synthesis of other specialists and of sufficient intellectual and social distance…. To put it in other words, the geographer, historian, demographer, student of politics and the economist are not primarily students of international relations (Appadorai, 1987, p. 134)
Despite a distinction between IR and other social sciences in India, the growth of IR programmes and departments has been staggeringly slow across India. A few reasons for the slow growth of IR in India include limited career opportunities, a shortage of faculty, and a lack of resources. A related problem with the disciplinary location of IR in India is its close association with Political Science in India. The close association between Political Science and IR in India can be better understood from the similarity in the subject matter and the cross-deployment of faculty across disciplines. On the question of the relationship between Political Science and IR in India, Bajpai remarks, ‘IR is still thought of as a poor country cousin of Political Science and the other social sciences’ (2009, p. 120). An example is the privileging of graduates/doctorates from Political Science on matters of tenure, appointment, and funding (Gaffar, 2015). The relationship between IR and Political Science in India can be understood from factors like the assessment of IR on Western standards and a desire to mimic the West. Indian IR has generally grown in the shadows of the West with a constant need to catch up to the West. This has resulted in Indian IR being nested into Political Science Departments in India because of the theoretical and methodological rigour they offer and their resonances with the West. However, despite the nesting of IR into Political Science, no good has been achieved, as Behera writes, ‘IR’s relationship with the parent disciplines of Political Science and Area Studies has tremendously stilted its growth’ (2007, p. 342). The growth of IR in India has been largely looked at from the disciplinary concerns of Political Science and its paradigms, influencing its disciplinary journey and growth.
The Methodological Obsession
About the obstacles to IR in India, Bajpai (2009) writes about ‘methodological competence’, wherein he characterizes Indian IR as being between the extremes of ‘methodological fanatic’ and ‘naif’. However, not just Bajpai but also scholars like Mattoo (2009) and Alagappa (2009) echo similar concerns about the lack of methodological rigour in Indian IR. While Mattoo, Alagappa, and Bajpai are right about the ignorance of methodology in Indian IR, their understanding of methodology remains Eurocentric. Critiques about the lack of methodological rigour of Indian IR stem from a Western understanding of methodology, where the methodology is conceived of in scientific, positivist, and tangible terms. The obsession with methodology serves as a gatekeeping mechanism for alternative sources and means of knowledge creation in IR, reinforcing Western hegemony. For a non-western or decolonized IR to emerge, one must start by investigating existing parochialisms and limits of current discourses and their effect on other knowledge traditions. By engaging with diverse meanings of rationality and science, IR can expand on its understanding of methodology and integrate indigenous and non-western ideas.
The criticism of methodology has also emerged from feminist, post-colonial, and Indigenous scholars, recalling the horrors of parochial, patriarchal, and colonizing methodologies. Methodology in critical discourses has been regarded as a means of coercion and control, determining the boundaries, form, and content of the discipline. The methodology has acted as a barrier to the knowledge from the East, aiding the consolidation of the Western empire. Behera, on the question of the limits of positivist methodology, remarks, ‘a positivist enterprise precluded a debate about what issues of inquiry could be included in IR and how its key concepts of nation-state, nationalism, sovereignty, and territoriality could acquire different meanings’ (2007, pp. 348–349). Therefore, challenging the positivist methodology of IR and its underlying tenets, IR could expand as a discipline by integrating works with a different methodological landscape.
The Theoretical Gap
Bajpai (2009), in the essay ‘Obstacles to Good Work in Indian IR’, writes:
Bereft of theory, research in IIR [Indian International Relations] had tended towards descriptive studies, which are rich in detail but which fail to distinguish between more and less likely explanations. Descriptive detail overwhelms the reader. It is difficult to know why a piece of research was conducted - what value it adds in relation to earlier studies, which piece of what intellectual puzzle it seeks to fill and how it relates to current or future policy choices (Bajpai, 2009, p. 114)
According to Bajpai and others, Indian IR neglects theory, creating a vacuum of its own (Alagappa, 2009, 2011; Bajpai, 2009; Basrur, 2009; Mattoo, 2009). While the neglect of theory can be attributed to factors like perception of theory, India’s intellectual trajectory and the concerns about Westernizing; issues such as: Who decides what a theory is?; Who writes the theory, and for what?; and Why is theory necessary?; remain underexplored. Mallavarapu (2009) and Behera (2007) have addressed the issues of theory by problematizing the history, writing, conditioning, and socialization associated with theoretical work. An important finding that emerges from Mallavarapu’s work is that the West heavily influences our understanding of theory by framing the coordinates of research. Tickner and Wæver, when discussing the topic, remark that theory works as a tool for the ‘social regulation of scholars’ (2009). Therefore, any attempt to engage with theory must start by recognizing the assumptions, biases, and qualifiers of what counts as theory and its role in shaping discourse. Thus, reviving historical thoughts, conceptualizing a pre-Westphalian state, and recognizing non-Western sources must be undertaken to reconfigure the theoretical canon of the West and advance the decolonization of IR (Behera, 2007; Mallavarapu, 2009).
Behera further posits that theorizing should not be viewed as a neutral act but a political one, underscoring the three foundational premises underpinning theorizations in India (2007). The three theorizations elaborated by Behera include (a) A Westphalian Indian Nation-State, (b) Acceptance of Political Realism, and (c) Blind faith in Western modernity. A majority of the works of IR in India have internalized these norms, reinforcing a paternalistic view of the West. The Indian academia has primarily operated within a Western paradigm with little effort in questioning or bypassing it. While scholars have been working on expanding the Indian IR or vouching for the inclusion of Indian scholars and thinkers in IR, the number of such scholars and enthusiasm surrounding their work remains low. Theory in Indian IR continues to heavily borrow from the West, as evident in the teaching and writing practices of IR in India. Therefore, for IR to be global and international in nature, the practitioners must engage with the normative and discursive impacts of theory in IR and its impact on knowledge creation.
Findings and Conclusion
The development of IR in India has coincided with Indian independence, evident from the written and taught history of the discipline. The history of Indian IR is deeply intertwined with Nehru, the NAM, and the Cold War’s influence in India, all of which shaped the discipline’s direction. Such historiography mirrors the Western discourse of IR centred on the myth of 1919 and President Wilson. The challenge with starting the story of Indian IR at independence is the exclusion of thought, ideologies, and conceptions pre- and post-1947. IR, in its initial years in India, addressed issues of human rights, decolonization, the right to self-determination, etc. The appeal by Indian diplomats, Prime Ministers, and scholars in the early years was grounded in ideas of humanity, the community, and the individual over nation-state and national interest.
Moreover, the vision behind ISIS or ICWA was not the participation in great power politics and competition but the articulation and understanding of events worldwide. However, such developments fail to be mentioned in contemporary discussions of IR that remain obsessed with realism, liberalism, and security studies in analysis. The language and socialization in Western IR are so complete that imagination outside of it has been severely limited. The political thinking on non-violence, peace, and inclusivity in the sub-continent is neglected, resulting in the absence of the voices of Gandhi, Tagore, Bose and others from discussions. The absence of voices reflects the parochialism of the discipline and its impact on the disciplinary practice.
The contemporary IR discourse has developed in ignorance of India’s colonial past and pre-colonial traditions. An example of this is the conceptualization of India IR on concepts like the nation-state, nationality, and national interest. Engaging with the colonial and pre-colonial past can help redefine the categories and concepts and build a relational/global understanding of IR. Starting from assumptions like nation-states is problematic as they reinforce beliefs such as (a) Contributions to IR cannot emerge outside of the nation-state, (b) Nation-states are the only legitimate actors in IR, and (c) Participation in IR is contingent on being a nation-state. Such beliefs continue to shape the contemporary discussions of IR, with nation-states and their bodies regarded as the highest form of legitimacy. The legitimization of the nation-state continues to limit the participation of marginal voices in IR, such as the subalterns, the indigenous people, the women and others, by reducing them to knowledge takes in the discipline. Therefore, the obsession with the nation-state in IR helps to serve the interest of those in power by neglecting the voices of the weak and voices that speak against state violence and domestic issues. Reforming IR involves challenging not only the pedagogy, curriculum, and teaching of IR in India but also the history, structure, and assumptions on which IR operates, Behera sums up the same as she writes:
It [IIR] has fought that intellectual battle on a turf chosen by the West, with tools designed and provided by the West and rules-of-game set by the West enforced, as they were, by not just its political and military might but, more importantly, its all-pervasive discursive power (Behera, 2007, p. 354)
These words aptly describe the root cause of the problem, that is, the capture of Indian IR by Western practices and voices. India’s IR practice continues to be entangled in the Western web of isms and debates, deploying Western categories and concepts for its definition. While many solutions and recommendations exist for improving the state of Indian IR, these recommendations and suggestions aim at mimicking the West. The solutions aim not to redefine or decolonize IR but to westernize/Europeanize the Indian practice.
As argued in this essay, a central problem that confronts Indian practice is Western control and hegemony, obstructing the development of a decolonial/de-parochial IR. The disciplinary crisis of Indian IR has less to do with the methodology and theoretical rigour of the Indian practice and more with the desire to imitate the West. Therefore, for Indian IR to de-parochialize, one has to start by acknowledging the limits of contemporary practice and creolize the existing practices of IR by engaging with India’s colonial, pre-colonial, and post-colonial past.