1) The founding principles of independent India's foreign policy were, in fact, formulated at least three decades before independence. It evolved in the course of the freedom struggle and was rooted in its conviction against any form of colonialism. Jawaharlal Nehru was its prime architect.
2) India's foreign policy was based on certain basic principles. They are anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-apartheid or anti-racism, non-alignment with the super powers, Afro- Asian Unity, non-aggression, non-interference in other's internal affairs, mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the promotion of world peace and security. The commitment to peace between nations was not placed in a vacuum; it was placed with an equally emphatic commitment to justice.
3) The context in which India's foreign policy was formulated was further complicated by the two contesting power blocs that dominated the world in the post-war scenario: the US and the USSR. Independent India responded to this with non-alignment as its foreign policy .doctrine. Before we go into the details of non-alignment, it will be useful to look at India's relationship with China since independence. China was liberated by its people from Japanese colonial expansionism in 1949, just two years after India's Independence. Nehru laid a lot of importance on friendship with China, with whom India shared a long border
4) India was the first to recognize the new People's Republic of China on January 1, 1950. The shared experience of suffering at the hands of colonial powers and its consequences - poverty and underdevelopment - in Nehru's perception was force enough to get the two nations to join hands to give Asia its due place in the world. Nehru pressed for representation for Communist China in the UN Security Council.
5) Tibet, in 1950, India was unhappy that it had not been taken into confidence. In 1954, India and China signed a treaty in which India recognized China's rights over Tibet and the two countries placed their relationship within a set of principles, widely known since then as the principles of Panch Sheel.
6) Meanwhile, Nehru took special efforts to project China and Chou En-lai at the Bandung Conference, held in April 1955. In 1959, the Dalai Lama, fled Tibet along with thousands of refugees after a revolt by the Buddhists was crushed by the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama was given asylum in India and it made the Chinese unhappy. Soon after, in October 1959, the Chinese opened fire on an Indian patrol near the Kongka pass in Ladakh, killing five Indian policemen and capturing a dozen others. Though talks were held at various levels including with Chou En-lai, not much headway was made.
7) Then came the 1962 war with China. On 8 September 1962, Chinese forces attacked the Thagla ridge and dislodged Indian troops. All the goodwill and attempts to forge an Asian bloc in the world came to a stop. India took a long time to recover from the blow to its self-respect, and perhaps it was only the victory over Pakistan in the Bangladesh war, in which China and the US were also supporting Pakistan, that restored the sen.se of selfworth.
8) India's contribution to the world, however, was not restricted to its relationship with China and the Panch Sheel. It was most pronounced and lasting in the form of non-alignment and its concretisation at the Bandung Conference.
9) In March 1947, Nehru organised the Asian Relations Conference, attended by more than twenty countries. The theme of the conference was Asian independence and assertion on the world stage. Another such conference was held in December 1948 in specific response to the Dutch attempt to re-colonize Indonesia. The de-colonization initiative was carried forward further at the Asian leaders' conference in Colombo in 1954, culminating in the Afro- Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. The Bandung Conference set the stage for the meeting of nations at Belgrade and the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.
10) The architect of independent India's foreign policy, indeed, was Jawaharlal Nehru and the high point of it was reached in 1961 then he stood with Nasser of Egypt and Tito of Yugoslavia to call for nuclear disarmament and peace. The importance of non-alignment and its essence in such a world is best explained from what Nehru had to say about it.

1) An important aspect of the making of independent India was the reorganisation of states on linguistic basis. The colonial rulers had rendered the sub-continent into administrative units, dividing the land by way of Presidencies or Provinces without taking into account the language and its impact on culture on a region.
2) Independence and the idea of a constitutional democracy meant that the people were sovereign and that India was a multi-cultural nation where federal principles were to be adopted in a holistic sense and not just as an administrative strategy,
3) The linguistic reorganization of states was raised and argued out in Constituent Assembly • between 1947 and 1949. The assembly however decided to hold it in abeyance for a while on the grounds that the task was huge and could create problems in the aftermath of the partition and the accompanying violence.
4) After the Constitution came into force it began to be implemented in stages, beginning with the formation of a composite Andhra Pradesh in 1956. It culminated in the trifurcation of Punjab to constitute a Punjabi-speaking state of Punjab and carving out Haryana and Himachal Pradesh from the existing state of Punjab in 1966.
5) The idea of linguistic reorganisation of states was integral to the national movement, at least since 1920. The Indian National Congress, at its Nagpur session (1920), recorded that the national identity will have to be necessarily achieved through linguistic identity; and resolved to set up the Provincial Congress Committees on a linguistic basis.
6) It took concrete expression in the Nehru Committee Report of 1928. Section 86 of the Nehru Report read: "The redistribution of provinces should take place on a linguistic basis on the demand of the majority of the population of the area concerned, subject to financial and administrative considerations."
7) This idea was expressed, in categorical terms, in the manifesto of the Indian National Congress for the elections to the Central and Provincial Legislative Assemblies in 1945, The manifesto made a clear reference to the reorganisation of the provinces: " ... it (the Congress) has also stood for the freedom of each group and territorial area within the nation to develop its own life and culture within the larger framework, and it has stated that for this purpose such territorial areas or provinces should be constituted as far as possible, on a linguistic and cultural basis ... "
8) On August 31, 1946, only a month after the elections to the Constituent Assembly, Pattabhi Sitaramayya raised the demand for an Andhra Province: "The whole problem" he wrote, "must be taken up as the first and foremost problem to be solved by the Constituent Assembly".
9) He also presided over a conference, on December 8, 1946, that passed a resolution demanding that the Constituent Assembly accept the principle for linguistic reorganisation of States. The Government of India in a communique stated that Andhra could be mentioned as a separate unit in the new Constitution as was done in case of the Sind and Orissa under the Government of India act, 1935.
10) The Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, however, found such a mention of ~dhra was not possible until the geographical schedule of the province was outlined. Hence, on June 17, 1948, Chairman Rajendra Prasad set up a 3-member commission, called The Linguistic Provinces Commission with a specific brief to examine and report on the formation of new provinces of Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Its report, submitted on December 10, 1948, listed out reasons against the idea of linguistic reorganisation in the given context. It dealt with each of the four proposed States - Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra - and concluded against such an idea.
11) However, the demand for linguistic reorganisation of states did not stop. The issue gained centre-stage with Pattabhi Sitaramayya's election as the Congress President at the Jaipur session. A resolution there led to the constitution of a committee with Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Pattabhi Sitaramayya and Jawaharlal Nehru (also called the JVP committee).
12) The JVP committee submitted its report on April 1, 1949. It too held that the demand for linguistic states, in the given context, as "narrow provincialism" and that it could become a "menace" to the development of the country. The JVP committee also held out that "while language is a binding force, it is also a separating one". However, it stressed that it was possible that "when conditions are more static and the state of peoples' minds calmer, the adjustment of these boundaries or the creation of new provinces can be undertaken with relative ease and with advantage to all concerned. "
13)  The committee said in conclusion that it was not the right time to embark upon the idea of linguistic reorganisation of States. In other words, the consensus was that the linguistic reorganisation of states be postponed. There was provision for re-working the boundaries between states and also for the formation of new states from parts of existing states.
14)  The makers of the Constitution did not qualify the reorganisation of the States as only on linguistic basis but left it open as long as there was agreement on such reorganisation.
15) The idea of linguistic states revived soon after the first general elections were over. Potti Sriramulu's fast demanding a separate. state of Andhra, beginning October 19, 1952 and his death thereafter on December 15, 1952.
16) This led to the constitution of the States Reorganisation Commission, with Fazli Ali as Chairperson, and K.M. Panikkar and H.N. Husrau as members. The Commission submitted its report in October 1955. The Commission recommended the following States to constitute the Indian Union: Madras, Kerala, Karnataka, Hyderabad, Andhra, Bombay, Vidharbha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Orissa and Jammu & Kashmir. In other words, the Commission's recommendations were a compromise between administrative convenience and linguistic concerns.

1) The adoption of the. Constitution on November 26, 1949 was only the beginning of a bold new experiment by the infant nation.
2) There were a host of other challenges that the nation and its leaders faced and they had to be addressed even while the Constituent Assembly met and started its job of drafting independent India's constitution.
3) Among them was the integration of the Indian States or the Princely States.
4) The task of integrating the Princely States into the Indian Union was achieved with such speed that by August 15, 1947, except Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad, all had agreed to sign an Instrument of Accession with India, acknowledging its central authority over Defence, External Affairs and Communications.
5) The task of integrating these states, with one or the other Provinces of the Indian Union was accomplished with ease. The resolution passed at the All India States People's Conference (December 1945 and April 1947) that states refusing to join the Constituent Assembly would be treated as hostile WflS enough to get the rulers to sign the Instrument of Accession in most cases.
6) There was the offer of a generous privy purse to the princes. The rapid unification of India was ably handled and achieved by Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who as Home Minister in the Interim Cabinet was also entrusted with the Status Ministry for this purpose. The People's Movements exerted pressure on the princes to accede to the Indian union.
7)  The long, militant struggle that went on in the Travancore State for Responsible Government culminating in the Punnapra- Vayalar armed struggle against the Diwan, Sir CP, Ramaswamy, the Praja Mandal as well as some tribal agitations that took place in the Orissa region - Nilagiri, Dhenkanal and Talcher - and the movement against the Maharaja of Mysore 'conducted by the Indian National Congress all played a major role in the integration of Princely States.
8)  on December 9, 1946. Rajendra Prasad was elected chairman of the House.
9) The Objectives Resolution is indeed the most concise introduction to the spirit and the contents of the Constitution of India. The importance of this resolution can be understood if we see the Preamble to the Constitution and the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in it and as adopted on November 26, 1949.
10) Yet, there was the problem .posed by the recalcitrant ruler of Hyderabad, with the Nizam declaring his kingdom as independent. The ruler of Junagadh wanted to join Pakistan, much against the wishes of the people.
11) Similarly, the Hindu ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, declared that Kashmir would remain independent while the people of the State under the leadership of the National Conference had waged a "Quit Kashmir" agitation against the Maharaja. It must be stressed here that the movement in Kashmir as well as the other Princely States were also against the decadent practice of feudal land and social relations that prevailed there.
12) "The police action" executed in Hyderabad within 48 hours after the Nizam declared his intentions demonstrated that India meant business. It was the popular anger against the Nizam and his militia, known as the Razakkars, that was manifest in the Telengana people's movement led by the communists there which provided the legitimacy to "the police action".
13) Though Patel had been negotiating with the Maharaja of Kashmir since 1946, Hari Singh was opposed to accession. However, in a few months after independence - in October 1947 - marauders from Pakistan raided Kashmir and there was no way that Maharaja Hari Singh could resist this attack on his own. Before India went to his rescue the Instrument of Accession was signed by him at the instance of Patel.
14) Thus Kashmir too became an integral part of the Iridian Union. This process and the commitment of the leaders of independent India to the concerns of the people of Kashmir led the Constituent Assembly to provide for autonomous status to the State of Janunu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution.