Non Appeasement: A New Direction for Indian Foreign Policy

Non Appeasement: A New Direction for Indian Foreign Policy, (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1972)

In this extensive analysis of the Indian foreign policy, ML Sondhi offers an alternative vision for India’s foreign policy. According to him, the ways and means of fostering an improvement in India’s image abroad cannot be found unless effort is first directed towards identifying the chief reason for the reduction of India’s policy options. This chief reason he identifies as the policy of non-alignment. Non-alignment turned out to be a scenario which instead of creating greater oppor­tunities on matters of basic foreign policy increasingly raised technical barriers to policy adjustments and stimulated counter­productive rigid and one-sided relationships. Therefore he suggests Non Appeasement which will give a tenacious strength to India’s national interest and integrate it with the world order. In an important sense Indian decision-makers who adhere to Non Appeasement will find them­selves free to come up with imaginative yet practical proposals to deal hopefully with the powerful forces of change with which India’s national interest as a modernising society is strongly linked.

Foreign Policy & Legislatures: An Analysis of Seven Parliaments

ML Sondhi (ed.), Foreign Policy & Legislatures: An Analysis of Seven Parliaments, (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1988).

This volume analyses the different patterns of legislative influence on foreign policy. These parliaments include the British Parliament, the Japanese Diet, the Israeli Knesset, the Sri Lankan Parliament, the European Parliament, New Zealand’s Parliament, Indian Parliament and the Canadian Parliament. For each of these seven Parliaments discussed, the main strands of legislative-executive relations are examined in terms of the policy-making framework.

Contributors: James Callaghan, Cliff Grantham, Bruce George, Saburo Okita, Akio Watanabe, Netanel Lorch, Hemda Golan, Shelton U. Kodikara, Juliet Lodge, Ramesh Thakur,  Antony Wood, ML Sondhi, Shrikant Paranjpe, Joe Clark.

Beyond Perestroika: Choices and Challenges Facing Gorbachev

ML Sondhi (ed.), Beyond Perestroika: Choices and Challenges Facing Gorbachev, (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1989)

The complied essays in this book present a comprehensive way of thinking about Gorbachev’s contribution to Soviet theory and practice. Mikhail Gorbachev was responsible for changing the crude stereotype about Soviet leadership. He launched into long overdue social and political reform at home. His perception of international relations was strikingly different from the earlier Brezhnev who often relied on worst case assumptions. This volume is basically a cooperative enterprise by scholars from India, Canada, the United States, Italy and Britain and addresses the underlying problems, choices and challenges that faced Gorbachev as he proceeded to implement Glassnost and Perestroika beyond sheer image-making.

At the time of its publication, it was perhaps the first international attempt to consider each aspect of Gorbachev’s strategy within the context of general trends and processes in Asia, of superpower relations, of the setting of global systematic considerations and in terms of the domestic implications of centre-periphery relations in the Soviet Union. This important book provided a sober assessment of both the strengths and weaknesses of Gorbachev.

Contributors: ML Sondhi, Shrikant Paranjpe, RG Gidadhubli, Abhijt Bhattacharya, Radoslav Selucky, Jonathan R. Adelman, Fulvio Attina, Peter Ferdinand.

A Peace Agenda for Indian Foreign Policy

ML Sondhi and Shrikant Paranjpe,  A Peace Agenda for Indian Foreign Policy, (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1995)

This study articulates that Indian foreign policy must seek a fundamental transformation of political and institutional realities in order to achieve peace in Asia. India has a unique potential for peace-building based on her culture and philosophic tradition in peace-thinking. The book situates itself at the border of theory and praxis to give not only a theory of conflict management but also its application to India’s foreign and security problematique. It deals with issues such as nuclear policy, economic reforms programme, disarmament, regional integration etc.

Vajpayee’s Foreign Policy: Daring the Irreversible

ML Sondhi and Prakash Nanda, Vajpayee’s Foreign Policy: Daring the Irreversible, (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1999).

This book aimed not only at a better understanding of the foreign policy vision of the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajapayee, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the allied parties but also at building a reinforcing scenario that could strengthen India’s security, add new weight to its arms-control and disarmament diplomacy, and enhance India’s role as a major player in the international system.  The book analyses how the historic decisions of the Vajpayee government, particularly the nuclear tests in May 1998 heralded the process of building an international consortium of democracies, the best guarantee for peace and stability. It was written with the conscious aim of generating a more informed public debate on the country’s foreign and security policies.

Democratic Peace: The Foreign Policy Implications

ML Sondhi (ed.), Democratic Peace: The Foreign Policy Implications, (New Delhi, Har-Anand Publications, 2000).

The book is designed to help readers to gain the understanding needed for informed and thoughtful choices concerning the key issues of democratization which would contribute in building peace and at the regional and global levels. The contributors to the volume believe that every policy needs a sound theoretical rationale. The discussion has focused attention on the need for research into the phenomenon of democratic peace which would have theoretical and practical perspectives. Given India’s robust commitment to democratic values, should democratic peace become the centrepiece of India’s future strategy in its relations with the outside world in general and with the counties of the democratic world in particular.

Contributors: Bharat Karnad, Amitabh Mattoo, Varun Sahni, Savita Pande, Therese Delpech, Martin Sherman, Apratim Mukarji, Shrikant Paranjpe, Dawa Norbu.

Nuclear Weapons and India’s National Security

ML Sondhi (ed.), Nuclear Weapons and India’s National Security, (New Delhi, Har-Anand Publications, 2000).

This volume is the culmination of a workshop organized by the Indian Council of Social Science Research in June 2000 which provided an opportunity for an intense and open exchange of views among leading scholars, policy makers and nuclear scientists on fundamental trends that are shaping the nuclear challenges facing India. The goal of the workshop was to strengthen the basis for a continued and informed nation-wide discussion on nuclear policy choices.

A wide range of subjects from fundamentalism and terrorism to regional and international security are included. China’s contribution to nuclear and missile proliferation, and bargaining asymmetries between India and China absorbed the attention of the workshop.

Contributors: PK Iyengar, MS Ramakumar, Ashok Kapur, Shrikant Paranjpe, PK Kamath, Sujit Dutta, Savita Pande, AN Prasad, PK Pahwa, Hriday Kaul, KS Pendse, Bharat Karnad, Raja Menon, Vishnu Bhagwat, Arundhati Ghosh, KK Nayyar, VR Raghavan, Dilip Mohite, VK MAdhok, Shanta Verma.

Terrorism and Political Violence: A Sourcebook

ML Sondhi (ed.), Terrorism and Political Violence: A Sourcebook, (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 2000).

The sourcebook volume presents a new way of thinking about our response to the destructive potential of terrorism. Contributors approach the problems of terrorism and political violence within a larger matrix that includes the experience of South Asia and Europe. The volume is the culmination of the proceedings of the New Delhi Seminar which brought together experts working in different disciplines and produced fresh insights for collaborative intellectual efforts in the areas of ethnic separatism with its implications for international and internal stability, the strengthening of the criminal justice systems to cope with the burden of dealing with high levels of terrorism, the growth of extreme religious fundamentalism and the development of new technologies and their potential use in the prevention and combating of terrorism.

Contributors: ML Sondhi, Murli Manohar Joshi, Paul Wilkinson, B Raman, KPS Gill, V Suryanarayan

How India and Pakistan Make Peace

ML Sondhi (ed.), How India and Pakistan Make Peace, (New Delhi: Manak Publications, 2001).

The Indian Council of Social Science Research organized a landmark two day India-Pakistan bilateral conference in New Delhi in July 2001 that brought together a large number of social scientists including 35 from Pakistan which included distinguished scholars, businessmen, journalists and representatives of civic groups from India and Pakistan. This was a gathering of forward looking experts. The consensus was that moment was ripe for the people of the two countries, a quarter of humanity, to develop linkages and to develop a framework of negotiations for complex strategic issues dividing them.

The book argues that it is the responsibility of the two leaders to orchestrate a paradigm shift towards conflict resolution between the two countries and it includes the proposals jointly agreed upon by the several working groups in the seminar and endorsed by the entire seminar.

India in the New Asia-Pacific

ML Sondhi and KG Tyagi (eds.), India in the New Asia-Pacific, (New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2001).

Privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation have become the main features of the new world order, which means closer economic, social and cultural ties, transfer of technology and restructuring of internal priorities in the various countries. In the era of globalisation and economic reforms, Asia-Pacific region is the most vibrant region in the world. This book provides a diverse and vivid account of how globalisation of social, economic and cultural advancements leading to reforms are being resisted, managed, experienced and understood at the local, national and regional level in the Asia-Pacific region.   

Contributors: A. Sukumaran Nair, MM Koganurmath, Mallikarjun Angadi, CV Hiremath, Anand Bandi, Subbiah Arunachalam, Om Kumari Choudhary, A Neelameghan, E Rama Reddy, Sudhir K Samantaray, PB Sharma, SK Soni, Ajit Dixit, Nalin K Shastree, Neil Fisher, Jagdish Arora, Usha Mujoo-Munshi, Ashikho Henia, RK Rana, RK Sudan, VS Ramamurthy, GR Krishna, MR Aggrawal, Atul Sarma, Pradeep Kumar Mehta, PG Jogdand, B Mohanan, Joginder Singh, RK Mishra, B Navin, Rameshwar Tandon, A Neelameghan, Shabtai Shavit, RK Mishra, Justin Paul, VJ Sebastian, A Ramanathan, MA Qureshi, Dibakar Kundu, SR Kakade, Shobha Vaidya-Chaudhari, K Mahadevan, R Jayasree, MSR Murthy, Andrei Volodine, PL Dash.

Asia-Pacific Security Globalisation and Development

ML Sondhi and KG Tyagi (eds.), Asia-Pacific Security Globalisation and Development, (New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2001).

In this book, leading experts and policy makers from the Asia-Pacific region and academic world explore various dimensions of globalisation and their relationship to various economic social, cultural and political aspects vis-à-vis development process. All contributions are linked together by a common endeavour to explore a dynamic balance between global economic forces, regional and national security. This book is one of the most stimulating contributions to our understanding of various challenges in the age of globalisation.

Contributors: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Andras Balogh, Martin Sherman, Arya Bhushan Bhardwaj, Yong-Ok Park, Arun Kumar Singh, Vijay Kumar, Bharat Karnad, Changsu Kim, Taeho Kim, AK Chirappanath, Debasis Bagchi, Ramesh Thakur, Yoginder K Alagh, Ashok Kapur, Hoshiar Singh, RS Yadav, J George Waardenburg, Son Ngoc Bui, RS Dube, Pramod Mishra, Meyer Mikhail, Sushanta Kumar Nayak, Govinda Chandra Rath, K Borichpolets, Sergei Lounev, Bhaskar Majumder, Tran Thi Ly.

The Black Book of Gujarat

ML Sondhi and Apratim Mukarji (eds.), The Black Book of Gujarat, (New Delhi: Manak Publications, 2002).

The Godhra carnage and its aftermath in the form of Gujarat riots in 2002 attracted national and international attention on an unprecedented scale and significantly continues to be in the limelight even after the state has ostensibly returned to normalcy. In this timely book, published in record time just after four months after the riots, the contributors attempt to understand this phenomenon at two levels: by documenting the physical manifestation of the riots as achieved in substantive measure by exhaustive on-the-spot investigations and subsequently published reports. A distinguishing characteristic of this book is that it looks upon the happenings in Gujarat as both a part of historical truth and as a lesson for humankind to retrieve approaches to conflict resolution and communal harmony. Hence, it serves as a work of contemporary history, a manual of conflict analysis and a sociological study.

Contributors: ML Sondhi, Imtiaz Ahmad, RK Amin, AN Dar, Roger Fisher, Satish Mishra, Apratim Mukarji, Fali Nariman, Kanwal S Rekhi, S Henry Rowen, Ajai Sahni, Madhuri Santanam Sondhi.

US and India: Changing Strategic Parameters

ML Sondhi and Ashok Kapur, US and India: Changing Strategic Parameters, (New Delhi: Manak Publications, 2002).

The authors argue that both India and the United States should forge a relationship with primary strategic interest. They put forward recommendations for enhancing Indian negotiating strength, suggesting to both the policy makers and academics of the two democracies fresh approaches to bilateral relations in the context of a volatile strategic environment. The volume is a tour d’horizon with a compelling strategic rationale for each area for which policy prescriptions are proffered. The diplomatic initiatives suggested in the book are sophisticated and innovative and advocate a proactive approach based on Indian values and interests. India has the capacity to shape its future and develop a good working relationship with the United States through a larger Asian vision and the development of strategic power. Coherence in strategic policy will enable India to constructively engage with America’s predominance in the world.

Hinduism’s Human Face

ML Sondhi and Madhuri Santanam Sondhi (eds.), Hinduism’s Human Face, (New Delhi: Manak Publications, 2002).

This book offers detailed cultural and social analysis for unfolding a compelling vision of Hinduism which will help India to take its place in a new era. It demonstrates how the foundations of Hinduism are related to the authenticity of human identity. Fanaticism and xenophobia are dysfunctional aberrations.

Contributors: AC Bose, NGS Kini, Madhuri Santanam Sondhi, ML Sondhi, K Swaminathan, KC Kamaliah, SS Barlingay, Cedomill Veljacic, Utpal Chattopadhaya, A Ranganathan, Girija K Mookerjee, Hiranmoy Ghoshal, MA Karandikar, Ajit Mookerjee, Sudhanshu Kumar Roy, VV Sadagopan.

Towards a New Era: Economic, Social & Political Reforms

ML Sondhi (ed.), Towards a New Era: Economic, Social & Political Reforms, (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2002).

This book offers detailed cultural and social analysis for unfolding a compelling vision of Hinduism which will help India to take its place in a new era. It demonstrates how the foundations of Hinduism are related to the authenticity of human identity. Fanaticism and xenophobia are dysfunctional aberrations.

Contributors: AC Bose, NGS Kini, Madhuri Santanam Sondhi, ML Sondhi, K Swaminathan, KC Kamaliah, SS Barlingay, Cedomill Veljacic, Utpal Chattopadhaya, A Ranganathan, Girija K Mookerjee, Hiranmoy Ghoshal, MA Karandikar, Ajit Mookerjee, Sudhanshu Kumar Roy, VV Sadagopan.