'Students, professionals' outflow to West helped reverse India's global isolation'

India’s international relations over the last three decades has been one of a slow but definitive movement towards political reconciliation with the West

India’s massive outflow of students and working professionals to the United States, Europe and Australia has been instrumental in reversing the country’s erstwhile isolation and drift from the West, an expert said.

Speaking at the 48th Foundation Day of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore on Thursday, Professor C Raja Mohan, Director, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, noted that as “the interface between India and the West grows by leaps and bounds, across a broad range of areas, the current generation has an unprecedented opportunity to become a two-way bridge between the two worlds.”

“For many of my generation, the West was about escaping the lack of opportunities in India. At home, many saw it as ‘brain drain’. Today, the movement of professionals is seen as ‘brain gain’ and a powerful boost to the modernisation of India,” he added.

Using the term “West” as a political concept, Professor Mohan pointed out that in the current context, a few nations in the West exercise great influence on world politics. While it seems natural now that India has good relations with the West, he noted that the current scenario evolved slowly through the 21st century.

“Although India had bilateral relations with the individual countries of the West, it was totally reluctant to join them in groups. The 1970s saw India drift away from the West. India’s new readiness to participate in western forums marks a decisive turn in independent India’s worldview that was long defined by the idea of nonalignment and its later avatar as strategic autonomy — both were about standing apart if not against the post-War Western alliances,” he said.

But the story of India’s international relations over the last three decades has been one of a slow but definitive movement towards political reconciliation between India and the West, he added, highlighting India’s recent participation in various alliances like the Quad and G7 meetings.

“While both Delhi and Washington deny that the Quad is a military alliance, it could certainly take India closer than ever before to a security coalition with the West,” he added. “The idea of Indian participation in looser coalitions of various kinds with different western countries is no longer taboo in Delhi.”

The Foundation Day celebrations also saw Long Service Awards being presented to IIMB faculty, including 10 years’ and 20 years’ awards.