Conclusion

This concluding chapter addresses the question of why Modi’s government sought to reinvent Indian foreign policy, whether the reinvention succeeded, and what lessons might be learned from this episode for our understandings of how policy is made and implemented in India. It argues that the reinvention was intended to displace inherited understandings of India’s role in the world in favour of a Hindu nationalist alternative. It argues too that giving Indian foreign policy a stronger ideological character was intended to appeal to the Modi government’s core constituencies and to others, to convince them of its authority and capacity. Finally, it suggests that the patchy success of the project is due to both inherent weaknesses in Indian thinking and the limitations of the Modi model of governance.