Don't you find it strange that a civilisation that has survived several millennia of contact, invasions, colonisation and economic exchanges with its core values intact is considered lacking a grand strategy? Don't you find it strange the Indian Republic acquired and maintained its unity, its pluralism, its democratic polity, in the face of unprecedented challenges, without a "strategic culture"?
Well, I do.
If the benchmark for grand strategy is Alexandrian expansionism, then yes, India fails the test. If, however, we look for an answer without Western prejudices of what grand strategy ought to be, we will find it in front of our noses: it lies in the pursuit of national unity.
The central preoccupation of India's rulers - from the Mauryas to Mughals, from the British Raj to the government of the Indian Republic - has been to unite the nation under one rule. This is our grand strategy. Our "strategic culture" is centred around this.
The Arthashastra enjoins the king to become the master of the subcontinent by various methods. But culture places limits on conquest. Arrian of Nicomedia, a second-century Greek historian, states that Indian kings refrained from attempting to conquer lands beyond the subcontinent because that was considered adharma.
While it might disappoint the Alexandrians among us, it is perfectly honourable to have an internally-focused grand strategy. There is no reason why only territorial or hegemonic ambition should qualify. The subcontinent is neither small in size nor the people dwelling in it few in number; so forging unity is not a simple task. In fact, uniting and governing a highly diverse nation such as ours is one of the toughest tests of statecraft. It should not be surprising that the energies of India's rulers are expended on this task.
Therefore, instead of trying to measure up to Western standards of what grand strategy ought to be, it is far more important to analyse what India needs to do to strengthen national unity in the current day.
Focusing on the internal tends to diminish attention to the external. The twentieth-century diplomat and historian, K M Panikkar argued that a "sense of isolation and refusal to see itself in relation to the states outside the geographical limits of the subcontinent" has historically been India's weakness. Inattention to the situation across the Hindu Kush meant that the enemy had to be fought on the plains of Panipat. Both colonisation and Partition were, in part, due to the failure of India's leaders to take an interest in politics beyond our shores. The lesson for us is that India must shape the global balance of power in ways and towards purposes that strengthen its own unity.
In a world where people, capital and ideas can move around relatively easily, nations are defined by success. Everyone wants to part of a successful nation; flights out of failed nations are often full. National success is built on the back of prosperity. In other words, India's unity will come under threat if it is not prosperous. Creating prosperity is in the domain of domestic policy, but protecting it is a task of foreign and defence policy.
The experience of the last century has created a mindset in our establishment that sees the world from a foxhole, defending a weak India against a hostile external world. We need one that thinks in terms of promoting the interests of a stronger India in a world where there are both opportunities and threats.
All of these, essentially, suggest that New Delhi must project power internationally for the simple, old reason of ensuring our survival as a united nation. For the next few decades, we will witness a geopolitical contest between a reigning superpower and its principal challenger. India shares a number of common interests with the United States, while Kautilyan logic suggests a structurally adversarial relationship with China. Even so, India is best off not choosing sides at this time. It is better off swinging between the two, enjoying better relations with each of them than they have with each other.
However, those looking for the government to promulgate and implement a grand strategic blueprint fail to understand that such a thing is not part of our political culture. It is unlikely that New Delhi will articulate an official grand strategy. It is, after all, too busy keeping the nation together.
The writer is director of the Takshashila Institution, an independent public policy think tank