NEW DELHI, March 17: A parliamentary panel on external affairs has strongly recommended the government to take up on priority the preparation of a formal strategic document that clearly articulates India’s foreign policy objectives, and flagged that its absence is a “significant gap” for a country with such global stature, ambitions and expanding international engagement.
The committee, in its report presented in Parliament on Tuesday, also noted that the introduction of Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill, 2025 has “remained pending” despite the completion of the panel’s feedback, and recommended that the Centre treat the introduction of the new emigration Bill as a “legislative priority” and introduce it in Parliament at the earliest opportunity.
The Committee of External Affairs is headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
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The ‘Twelfth Report of the Committee on External Affairs (2025-26) on Demands for Grants (2026-27)’ of the Ministry of External Affairs, contains 62 recommendations, ranging from budgetary allocation to passport facilities.
One of the key recommendations is that the MEA “must articulate a formal foreign policy document” or a grand strategy.
“The Committee note that with regard to formulating a grand strategy or a comprehensive foreign policy document that clearly articulates India’s foreign policy objectives, goals, and long-term strategic approach, the Ministry submitted that no single overarching and formalised strategic document currently exists, and that India’s diplomatic principles and priorities are expressed through various platforms,” the report says.
The panel in its report also furnished a list of 36 countries which have such a strategic document.
These include major powers such as the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, and Russia, as well as smaller nations such as Estonia, New Zealand, Slovenia, and Bhutan, and they have published formal foreign policy or national security strategy documents laying out their international objectives, priorities, and approaches in a single accessible document, it says.
“The Committee are of the considered view that the absence of a formal, publicly available foreign policy document is a significant gap for a country of India’s global stature, ambitions, and expanding international engagement,” it flagged
The panel said the MEA’s Annual Report, while comprehensive and valuable, as a record of the previous year’s diplomatic activities, is “inherently a retrospective document”.
“It is not a forward-looking strategic document that articulates where India seeks to go in the world, what its priorities are, and how it intends to pursue them over the medium to long term,” the report adds.
The MEA’s Planning Policy & Research Division (PP&R Division) is in charge of the publication of the Annual Report of the ministry that continues to be its “most comprehensive policy publication” in the public domain.
The committee has also noted that the MEA has acknowledged that there are “no obstacles” to preparing such a document.
“In this context, the Committee would like to understand why such a document has not been prepared thus far, particularly given India’s growing global profile and its active engagement across bilateral, regional, and multilateral platforms,” the panel says in its report.
The committee, therefore, strongly recommends that the MEA, “through the PP&R Division, take up on priority the preparation of a formal Indian Foreign Policy Document – a publicly available, medium-term strategic document that clearly articulates India’s foreign policy objectives, regional and global priorities, key bilateral and multilateral engagements, and the guiding principles of India’s approach to the world”. The panel has urged the ministry to inform it of the timeline within which this exercise will be completed. (PTI)
