text: Secondly, the method of assessing strategic culture or thinking by the volume and extent of written texts or publications may not be entirely relevant in the Indian context. This is because India has a highly evolved and a long-standing oral tradition stretching back thousands of years. The age-old venerable Vedas, Hinduism’s original texts, have been preserved for centuries without loss of a single syllable through oral traditions.10
  Written texts and notes may be an obsession of the West. In India however, the practice of the written word is gaining ground now. There may be an additional reason for the lack of published security policy documents.
  When a country is not powerful enough to influence actions of other parties, publishing policies objectives which may not be achieved or which may prematurely unveil its strategies, would make little sense. It is then preferable to avoid explicit declarations on security or foreign policy issues and play one’s cards as the situation unravels.
  This approach to some extent has resulted in India’s policies being dubbed reactive. The lack of written policies does not in any manner indicate absence of strategic thinking in India’s case.