Beyond Eurocentrism: Kautilya\u2019s realism and India\u2019s regional diplomacy

Arshid Iqbal Dar

doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00888-6

Abstract

The article is a modest attempt to deparochialize Eurocentrism embedded within the discipline of International Relations by examining Kautilya and his Arthashastra. Kautilya’s text serves as a potent non-Western theoretical and conceptual reservoir to engage with and thereby to interrogate the Eurocentric realist tradition. The subject matter of Arthashastra precisely earns him the title of ‘first great political realist’ because much of the bedrock assumptions of realism that Europe came to know very late, Kautilya had in ancient India grasped them. Therefore, his Arthasastran realism offers an indigenous theoretical toolkit to examine India’s strategic culture. In fact, Kautilya’s realism is there in the DNA of India’s strategic culture and has been the default strategy for South Asia as India still perceives the region through the historical sub-continental prism. Nevertheless, its application varied across leadership. However, the rise of Modi had revitalized the dynamic of Arthashastra by openly and boldly embracing Kautilya as vividly underscored by his ‘Neighborhood First’ diplomacy in South Asia. Thus Kautilya apart from being a non-Western begetter of the realist tradition offers a reliable understanding of India’s regional diplomacy in the subcontinent.

Highlights

International Relations (IR) especially with the post-positivist turn has been subjected to serious scholarly discontent for being a parochial discipline
The IR theory in general and the dominant realist paradigm in particular argues Osiander, developed against the background of the ideology of sovereignty (Osiander, 2001). In this way Eurocentrism underpins both classical, as well as neo-realism given their normative and explanatory framework being grounded within a parochial analysis of West wherein intra-Western politics is presented as world politics
Being disavowed in the scholarship of his own country, as well as orientalized in the West, Kautilya is the doyen of the well-established tradition of realism in the discipline of IR

Summary

Introduction

International Relations (IR) especially with the post-positivist turn has been subjected to serious scholarly discontent for being a parochial discipline. His National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, quoted a tale from Arthashastra in his speech at a conference organized by the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) Delhi in 2012 He acknowledged that the tale from Kautilya would help in building economic and other links while attempting to resolve the political and security issues that divide us’ According to strategic expert Michael Kugelman, ‘New Delhi’s outreaching to Taliban represents a significant shift because it is going from a non-existent relationship to the beginning of some kind of communication channel’ (Vaid, 2021) This is a very pragmatic move from India given its huge security stakes in Afghanistan and it makes no sense to cede the space for arch-rivals like Pakistan and China and in order to preserve its stakes, New Delhi must be talking to everyone including the Taliban. It would hardly be an overstatement to proclaim that Kautilya’s diplomacy got rejuvenated under Modi, very vividly articulated vis-a-vis Pakistan and China

Conclusion

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