Q.(a) "India's relations with Russia are embedded in a history of trust and common interests." Support the statement with any three appropriate arguments.

Imagine you have a close friend for years. You share secrets, help each other out, and your families get along. Then, one day, you realise that friend has changed. Their values no longer match yours, or they’ve started hanging out with people who are hostile to you. You don’t just cut them off overnight — you slowly shift your circle, make new friends, and adjust how much you trust the old one. That slow, deliberate shift in who you rely on and how you deal with the world is, in essence, what foreign policy realignment means for a country.

At its simplest, foreign policy realignment is a fundamental and lasting change in a country’s strategic relationships with other nations. It is not a temporary disagreement or a single treaty. It is a deep, structural shift in who a country considers its primary allies, adversaries, and neutral partners. Think of it as a nation redrawing its mental map of the world.

The Precise Meaning (as per NCERT logic)

The NCERT textbooks for Class 12 Political Science (especially the chapter on India’s External Relations and The Cold War Era) treat realignment as a response to a major change in the global or domestic environment. It happens when the old framework of friendships and enmities no longer serves the country’s core interests — security, economic growth, or ideological goals.

For example, during the Cold War, many newly independent countries, including India, chose non-alignment. This was a deliberate policy of not joining either the US-led or Soviet-led military blocs. But when the Cold War ended in 1991, the entire world’s power structure collapsed. Non-alignment, as a strategy, lost its original meaning. India had to realign — it began building closer ties with the United States, engaging economically with the West, and simultaneously maintaining a special relationship with Russia. That was a realignment, not just a tweak.

Why Does It Matter?

For a commerce or humanities student, understanding realignment is crucial because it explains why the world is not static. It answers questions like:

• Why did India suddenly start cooperating with the US on nuclear energy after decades of tension? (Post-2005 realignment)
• Why did Pakistan shift from being a US ally to having closer ties with China? (Strategic realignment)
• Why did the European Union form after centuries of war between its members? (A massive realignment of European powers)

Realignment is the engine of history in international relations. It creates new opportunities (new trade routes, new alliances) and new risks (new rivalries, arms races).

Key Features of a Realignment (Bullet Points)

• It is strategic, not tactical. It changes the long-term direction, not just a short-term response to a crisis.
• It is often triggered by a major event: The end of a war, the rise of a new power (like China), an economic collapse, or a technological revolution.
• It involves multiple dimensions: Economic ties (trade agreements), military cooperation (joint exercises, arms deals), and diplomatic support (voting together at the UN).
• It is rarely sudden. It unfolds over years, sometimes decades, as old relationships fade and new ones are tested. …

Economic Transition Shock – First Encounter

Imagine a country that has been running a command economy for decades — the government decides what to produce, how much, and at what price. Then, overnight, it decides to switch to a market economy where prices are set by supply and demand, private businesses are allowed, and state controls are lifted. What happens next is not a smooth glide into prosperity. It is a jolt — factories close, prices skyrocket, jobs vanish, and people who depended on the old system suddenly have no safety net. That jolt is an economic transition shock.

The intuition is simple: when an entire economic system is dismantled and replaced by a different one, the adjustment is violent. The old coordination mechanisms (government orders, fixed prices, guaranteed employment) disappear before the new ones (markets, contracts, private credit) are fully functional. In the gap, output collapses, inflation surges, and unemployment spikes.

The Precise Statement

Key characteristics:

• Output collapse: GDP can fall by 20–40% in the first few years. This is not a recession in the usual sense — it is the disappearance of entire industries that were kept alive by state orders but cannot survive market prices.
• Price liberalisation shock: When price controls are removed, pent-up inflation explodes. Prices of basic goods may rise 10–100 times in months.
• Fiscal crisis: The state loses its main revenue source (profits from state enterprises) while still having to pay pensions, subsidies, and salaries. Budget deficits balloon.
• Institutional vacuum: Laws for private property, bankruptcy, banking, and contracts do not exist yet. Without these, new businesses cannot easily replace the old state firms.

Why It Happens – The Mechanism

In a command economy, production is driven by targets, not by consumer demand. Factories produce goods nobody wants, but they are kept running because the state pays for them. When the state stops ordering, those factories have no customers and no reason to exist. They shut down.

At the same time, the new private sector cannot spring up overnight. Entrepreneurs need:

• clear property rights
• functioning banks
• enforceable contracts
• a stable currency …