This is the first of a two-volume collection of docu¬ments on India’s foreign policy and relations, covering the period from independence until 1972. As no intention is signified of bringing the documents up to date, in order to cover more immediate deve¬lopments over the last decade, the exercise appears to have been undertaken not so much for the benefit of those engag¬ed in the immediacy of Indian foreign relations and con¬temporary diplomatic chal¬lenges as for those interested in documents of a more dated period. However, compilation of key documents in any period is a most desirable service to the scholar, the stu¬dent or the merely curious, and this book is to be wel¬comed as a useful and neces¬sary reference work.
In the introduction the editor states that the documents have been grouped under five sections: foreign policy, foreign relations, foreign economic policy, promotion of interna¬tional peace and cooperation and diplomacy. Only the first section and one part of the second, covering a hefty 744 pages, appear in this volume. The focus of the material in¬cluded here is on the ideologi¬cal motivations behind Indian foreign policy, nonalignment and relations with China and Pakistan, upto the events sur¬rounding the emergence of Bangladesh.
Nov-Dec 1983, volume 8, No 3