Development of India's Think Tanks

Over the past several years, the Indian government has placed a higher priority on supporting academia in the realm of foreign policy to round out its developing national security architecture. Several Washington think tanks have opened permanent offices in India over the past decade – Carnegie and Brookings, for example – but India wants to take it further and develop its own robust cadre of think tanks to encourage policy research and debate. Over the past few years, the EU and India have undertaken a “twinning initiative” to get the ball rolling. From 2015-2016, multiple European and Indian think tanks worked together on a small number of research projects, and undertook several public diplomacy initiatives as well. ORF, Chatham House, and EUISS conducted a security-focused research project regarding counterterrorism in West Asia. GPPi and Carnegie India worked on conflict management and security in Asia. IAI and Gateway House held multiple discussions on EU-India cooperation, and GRF and FES India held discussions on sustainability and cooperation for the future.

After this successful first round of networking, a second round of research projects was proposed in 2018 and several projects have been accepted and will be undertaken this year and into the future. One of the goals of this initiative is to improve the effectiveness of Indian think tanks. Effectiveness and relevance are how think tanks survive in the policy world. European networking and joint research projects are part of this revitalization of India’s think tanks, making them prioritize research over simply convening and talking about the same issues over and over again without any real data-based policy analysis. Other ways to improve India’s think tanks are to focus on the quality of analysis rather than quantity. As with the rest of the updates to its national security architecture, developing the infrastructure for improvements will not be enough without being put to effective use. Now that several think tanks have been established and are successfully networking on the international stage, the policy research needs to focus more on quality to promote effectiveness and relevance. As India continues to seek a greater role in the international sphere, developing relevant and robust think tanks will help increase its footprint in shaping global policy.