Episode
India's Diplomacy - Vineet Thakur | 2025 Episode 30
- Podcast
- The IR thinker
- Published
- Dec 8, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 3638
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- https://www.irthinker.com/india-diplomacy-vineet-thakur
- Audio
- https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/655776911a7d7e0012cbc914/e/693724fbfe31b2ca09e09af7/media.mp3
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Summary
In this episode, Vineet Thakur unpacks the historical and intellectual foundations of Indian diplomacy. We discuss classical strategic traditions, civilisational and colonial legacies, caste and elite networks in diplomatic culture, non-alignment and strategic autonomy, neighbourhood diplomacy, and India’s contemporary practice of multi-alignment amid shifting great-power rivalries. Vineet Thakur Vineet Thakur is a University Lecturer in International Relations at the Institute for History, Leiden University. He received his doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in 2014 and has held academic positions and fellowships across India, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. His professional experience includes teaching appointments at Ambedkar University Delhi, the University of Johannesburg, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, following which he joined Leiden University in 2017. He has been a fellow at the University of Cambridge, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and Rhodes University. His research is situated in postcolonial international relations, with a particular focus on the politics of knowledge, disciplinary hierarchies, and the global intellectual history of International Relations, especially in the Indian context. Publications: V.S. Srinivasa Sastri: A Liberal Life India’s First Diplomat: V.S. Srinivasa Sastri and the Making of Liberal Internationalism Postscripts on Independence: Foreign Policy Discourses in India and South Africa Content 00:00 – Introduction and Framing of India’s Diplomatic Trajectories 02:03 – Mandala Theory and Kautilya’s Arthashastra as Lenses for Contemporary Regional Policy 05:10 – Intellectual and Historical Inspirations Behind India’s Diplomatic Traditions 06:32 – Civilisational State Narratives…