BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

REGIME'S RESPONSE TO FOREIGN POLICY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INDIA'S FOREIGN POLICY UNDER THE UNITED FRONT AND BHARATIYA JANATA PARTY GOVERNMENTS

Author: Ashok Kumar Pankaj

DOI Link: https://www.doi.org/BIISSj2002v23n2a3

ABSTRACT

The paper undertakes a comparative study of foreign policy responses of the United Front (UF) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Ied governments in India. Theoretically, the study broadly relies on the 'Decision Making Theory' of international politics. The study starts with the assumption that though both the UF and the BJP were coalition governments, facing identical historical reality and being in power at the similar juncture of history, their foreign policy behaviour was entirely different. This paper then raised the inevitable question: why the two governments responded quite differently in the similar situations? In doing so, the study highlights how the .United Front Government engaged the neighbours through Gujral Doctrine taking a principled stand on nuclear and other international issues, and how the BJP-Ied Government responded primarily in terms of its nuclear policy. The paper concludes that both the Governments were fundamentally different in their approaches. For instance, while a pragmatic-idealist perspective guided the UF Government, the BJP was influenced by the realist version of international politics.