Ian Hall, in his article “Interpretivism and the Analysis of India’s Foreign Policy: Interpreting the Jaishankar Doctrine,” published in Studies in Indian Politics 2025, argues that to grasp recent shifts in India’s foreign policy especially after the Galwan crisis, India must take interpretivist approaches seriously. Drawing on Mark Bevir’s ideas of “tradition” and “dilemma,” Hall suggests Indian foreign policy is best understood not just through material interests or external pressures, but by tracing the “webs of belief” that shape how key decision-makers interpret and react to world events.
Hall centres his analysis on External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar by tracing how his worldview evolved before and after the 2020–21 Galwan crisis. In The India Way (2020), EAM Jaishankar outlined a realist, nationalist philosophy that emphasised strategic autonomy, transactional diplomacy, and a posture of “multi-alignment” among major powers. But in Why Bharat Matters (2024), Hall identifies a clear shift: EAM Jaishankar adopts a more anxious and moralised tone, describing a world “moving into uncharted territory,” shaped by the weaponisation of trade, technology, and interdependence.
Hall argues that the Galwan crisis functioned as a “dilemma” that disrupted the coherence of Jaishankar’s earlier beliefs and forced a narrative reconstruction. What emerges is a revised worldview that frames India as both a resilient power and a normative actor, one committed to defending a “rules-based order.” Drawing on cultural motifs from the Ramayana, Jaishankar presents India as a force for global good, harmonising national interest with moral responsibility.
This shift, Hall suggests, marks a departure from the hybrid realism of The India Way toward a more “liberal globalist” position, one that values India’s partnerships with the West not only for strategic gains but for their shared democratic values. Importantly, Hall treats Jaishankar not as a passive mouthpiece of government policy but as a “situated agent” whose evolving beliefs have real influence within India’s foreign policy elite.
Ultimately, Hall’s article offers both a methodological argument and a substantive rethinking of Indian strategic thinking. By reading policy as interpretation, and diplomacy as discourse, Hall shows that understanding India’s global role today requires not just tracking what it does, but interpreting how its leaders make sense of the world they act within.
