Who makes India's foreign policy?

Foreign policy is debated in Parliament, argued in the press and decided somewhere else. The Constitution says where, and the Supreme Court has drawn the one line the decision-makers may not cross. The PSIR syllabus asks about the institutions of policy-making; this is the record of who they are and what each can do.

What does the Constitution say?

That foreign affairs belong to the Union, and its executive. Entries 10 to 21 of the Union List give Parliament alone the power to make laws on foreign affairs and the subjects around them: diplomatic representation, the United Nations, treaties and their implementation, war and peace, citizenship, extradition, passports and visas. Article 73 extends the Union's executive power to every matter Parliament can make laws on, and to the rights and authority India holds under any treaty. The Supreme Court put it plainly in 2024: the authority to conduct foreign affairs is vested in the Union Government under Article 73.

Who makes a treaty?

The government, not Parliament. The Ministry of External Affairs' guidelines on concluding treaties state that, under the Indian constitutional scheme, “making of international treaties is an executive act.” There is no vote in Parliament to approve one.

But a treaty does not change Indian law by itself. As the Supreme Court said in 2023, a treaty duly ratified does not by that alone have the force of law, and Article 253 recognises this: it gives Parliament the power to make any law, for the whole of India or any part, to implement a treaty, agreement or convention, notwithstanding the usual division of subjects between the Union and the states.

What line did the courts draw?

On territory. When an agreement with Pakistan would have transferred half of Berubari Union No. 12, the Supreme Court advised in 1960 that ceding Indian territory needed an amendment to the Constitution, and Parliament passed the Ninth Amendment to do it. In Maganbhai Ishwarbhai Patel v Union of India (1969), on the award that settled the boundary in the Rann of Kutch, the Court held the other half of the rule: settling a boundary dispute is not ceding territory, so implementing the award was within the government's executive power, and no amendment was needed.

Who runs it day to day?

The Prime Minister and a few bodies around the office. The Cabinet Committee on Security is chaired by the Prime Minister. The Ministry of External Affairs runs diplomacy and, by the government's allocation of business, handles “political treaties, agreements and conventions with foreign and Commonwealth countries”; its Legal and Treaties Division, set up in 1957, advises on international law. The National Security Council is headed by the Prime Minister, with the National Security Adviser as its secretary, and works through three tiers: a Strategic Policy Group chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, a National Security Advisory Board, and the Council's Secretariat.

What can Parliament do?

Three things, none of them a veto. It can make the laws a treaty needs, under Article 253. Its Committee on External Affairs, one of the departmentally related standing committees, examines the ministry's work. And members can question ministers and debate policy on the floor. What it does not do is approve a treaty before India accepts it.

So who makes it?

The executive, led by the Prime Minister, within one constitutional limit. The Constitution gives the power to the Union; the ministry and the Council turn it into policy and treaties; Parliament gives treaties effect in law and holds ministers to account; the courts keep one decision, giving up territory, for the amending process. A good answer names the article for each of these, and the two cases.