The left parties and their liberal fellow travellers in India are excited by the recent regime change in New Delhi. They expect radical changes in India's foreign policy. They want a return to what they see as the "golden age" of Indian diplomacy focused on non-alignment and an end to the previous government's dalliance with the United States and Israel.

It will not be long before this left-liberal euphoria starts turning into political disappointment. Ideological approaches to foreign policy, any where in the world, rarely survive the reality checks on the ground. It will be no different when the current ruling coalition led by the Congress settles down to the business of dealing with the challenges on the diplomatic front.

The Congress might have been out in political wilderness at the national level for eight long years. But it has ruled the country for more than four decades. Unlike the Communist Left, the Congress Party has never been known to be ideologically rigid. As a party of the centre, it had always retained the flexibility to tilt either to the left or right, whenever circumstances demanded it.

The founding father of the Indian Republic, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a realist to the core when it came to foreign policy. He was conscious of the imperatives of power in the international system. As a genuine product of western rationalism, Nehru had no difficulty in seeking multiple options for Indian diplomacy.

His foreign policy was aimed at steering India away from the pitfalls of the Cold War and creating the maximum possible manoeuvring room for New Delhi. He wanted India to become a great power and realise a larger role in world affairs. He shunned ideological fixities.

It is the ideologues on the Left who have converted Nehru's complex foreign policy into a mantra. Indian communists had ridiculed Nehru's policy of non-alignment, when it was first propounded saying it was not anti-western enough. Sections of the Indian Left had joined the Chinese Communist leaders in denouncing Nehru as a "running dog of the imperialists".

Non-aligned movement

The Left which denounced non-alignment as immoral during the Cold War now attribute "anti-imperialist" virtues to non-alignment and the non-aligned movement. While the Left insisted that India walk out of the Commonwealth led by the former colonial power, Britain, Nehru saw diplomatic advantages of keeping links alive with the west even as he befriended the Soviet Union. When China attacked India, Nehru had no problem seeking an alliance with the US.

The history of India's foreign policy is too complex to be fitted into a box of simple principles.

The contradiction that the Left and liberals are setting up today between Nehruvian and anti-Nehruvian foreign policy is a false one.

India, like all the major nations in the world, has constructed a foreign policy to serve its national interests.

The Congress is unlikely to change the broad foreign policy contours that emerged during the six years of the coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Nations change foreign policy only when there is a fundamental change in external circumstances or the initiation of a new course at home.

Such a situation developed in 1991, when the Cold War ended and India's long-standing ally, the Soviet Union, fell off the world map. Internally, in the same year, the Indian economy faced bankruptcy and New Delhi had to undertake fundamental economic reforms to address the demands of globalisation.

It is in this context that India began the process of foreign policy re-adjustment. It was the Congress government led by P.V. Narasimha Rao during 1991-96 that initiated many of the new directions in India's foreign policy.

These included the preparation for the nuclear weapon tests, expanded engagement with the US, rethinking relations with China, a new emphasis on economic diplomacy, a sharp regional focus on South East Asia, Central Asia and the Arabian Gulf, and finding a new balance to its policy in the Middle East by restoring full diplomatic relations with Israel.

The BJP-led coalition only followed these initiatives to their logical conclusion. Despite its right-wing orientation and commitment to Hindu ideology, the BJP devoted considerable energies to improving relations with the Arab and Islamic world. The new relationship with Israel was not allowed to come in the way of a deeper engagement with the Arab world.

One of the architects of reforming and re-adjusting Indian foreign policy in the early 1990s was J.N. Dixit, who served as Foreign Secretary to Rao during 1991-94. The new Congress government led by Manmonhan Singh has brought back Dixit as the National Security Adviser. He is expected to have a crucial role in shaping India's approach to the world under the Congress.

Dixit, widely admired for his no-nonsense, realist thinking will be seen in New Delhi as a solid antidote to any temptations to return to old Shibboleths in foreign policy. Natwar Singh also an experienced foreign service officer, on the other hand, is widely regarded as being wedded to old ideas in India's foreign policy.

Reformist government

Singh, who now is India's external affairs minister, was not part of the reformist Rao government. But he has been quick to adapt. In recent days, he has underlined that Indian foreign policy has never been tied to any dogma.

Singh has emphasised the importance of deepening relations with all the major powers, including the US.

He has signalled essential continuity in the sensitive talks with key neighbours, China and Pakistan. Barring a little shading here and there and a change of tone on some issues, Indian foreign policy will the stay the course it had adopted in the early 1990s. Liberals and traditionalists will be disappointed with the Singh government's refusal to downgrade ties with the US or squander a multi-faceted relationship with Israel.

The search for deeper relations with all the great powers and seeking a balanced approach to Middle East are part of India's new orientation since 1991.

They are unlikely to be abandoned by the Congress, despite its political dependence on the Left parties. Foreign policy, after all, is not a pair of socks you change every day.

C. Raja Mohan is Professor of South Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a columnist on world affairs.