How India Sees The World: From Kautilya to Modi: Kautilya to the 21st Century

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Review ------ ‘Part history, part memoir, How India Sees the World is an illuminating and at times controversial in into the thinking of one of India’s great diplomats and civil servants. A vigorous defender of India’s national interests, Shyam Saran offers us a unique and candid view of policy deliberations at the highest levels of the Indian government. He rightly argues for a deeper understanding of China and the historic factors which inform and shape its strategic behaviour today. Moreover, Ambassador Saran provides a timely overview of the contemporary challenges facing global politics, including but not limited to cyberspace, climate change and outer space. This is a strong contribution from a fine strategic thinker’ – *Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia* ‘As an inful, acute and erudite description of the well-springs of Indian foreign policy, Shyam Saran’s How India Sees the World is unmatched. Drawing on his deep experience in crucial positions and his undoubted intellectual gifts, this book is required reading for anyone interested in India’s role in the world, and the future of Asia and the world. His familiarity with traditional Indian statecraft, and his focus on China - a country he is familiar with and has studied for over forty years - makes for fascinating and thought-provoking reading. A must read and an essential addition to any library on modern India’ – *Shivshankar Menon, former national security advisor of India* ‘Arguably the most brilliant Indian diplomat in the past four decades, Shyam Saran’s breathtaking command of the ancient foundations and Cold War dimensions of India’s foreign policy provides an indispensable frame of reference for the country’s current external challenges. His discussion of the rise of Chinese power and its muscular strategic applications should be required reading for every head of government and foreign minister in the world. And his penetrating analyses of adversarial Pakistan and unpredictable America are as inful as they are troubling. If you can only read one book on how India should conduct itself as world order fractures, read this one’ – *Robert D. Blackwill, former US Ambassador to India and senior official at the White House* ‘Drawing on his exemplary career as a one of India’s shrewdest and subtlest diplomats, Shyam Saran’s penetrating tract is at once strategic road , policy handbook, and practical manual: a magnificent, sophisticated statement of the axioms and skills that must guide us in confronting the rtunities and wicked challenges ahead as we make our way in an uncertain world’ – *Sunil Khilnani, Avantha Professor and Director, King’s India Institute* ‘Shyam Saran’s How India Sees the World is a thoughtful reflection on the deepest wellsprings of Indian foreign policy. By integrating his own rich experiences with a careful analysis of India›s strategic circumstances, he has produced a magnificent book that interprets Indian grand strategy as a persistent struggle for autonomy characterized by a humane realism. It will be indispensable reading for better understanding not simply India›s recent diplomatic history but also how its efforts to relate to the modern international system bear the deepest traces of its ancient and venerable ethos’ – *Ashley J. Tellis, Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace* ‘Nowhere else but in India do religion, culture, history and recent developments come together to define a nation’s relations with the world. Shyam Saran is a unique guide to the long lines in Indian foreign policy. His practical statesmanship, eye for a good st /// full original details greater than 3900 characters have been truncated /// About the Author ---------------- Shyam Saran is a former foreign secretary and has served as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Nuclear Affairs and Climate Change and as chairman of the National Security Advisory Board.