Probity in international relations

Story hook

In February 2022, as Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the Indian foreign secretary stood before journalists in Delhi with a careful sentence on his tongue: "India is closely monitoring the situation." No condemnation. No alignment. A few weeks later India would buy Russian crude at a discount, vote abstain at the UN Security Council, and host the Russian foreign minister in Delhi. Western capitals raged. The Indian position confused them — was this neutrality, opportunism, or something else?

A philosophy student in JNU framed it as the ethics of the small neighbour. India shares a 3,488 km contested border with China. Russia is its single largest defence supplier. Forty per cent of its crude oil comes from regions in geopolitical flux. To "do the right thing" in the abstract — by condemning Moscow — would have concretely harmed Indian soldiers in Ladakh, Indian families buying petrol, and Indian patients waiting for Russian-made vaccines. The ethical question is not whether India should have a position, but whose welfare it weighs first when it speaks.

This is the deep dilemma the GS-IV syllabus calls ethical issues in international relations. Every foreign policy choice is a moral choice. Every aid cheque carries a leash. The exam asks: when national interest and universal values pull in opposite directions, how does an ethical state choose?

Why this matters for UPSC

GS-IV explicitly lists "ethical issues in international relations and funding" as a syllabus item. Mains questions have appeared in 2014, 2018 and 2022 (e.g., on conditional foreign aid and on "vaccine diplomacy"). Interview boards probe this when a candidate mentions IR, diplomacy, or world affairs. Prelims rarely visits it directly but may ask factual anchors (e.g., FCRA rules, OECD DAC).