Guest Post: What does it take to write your first book on foreign policy?
Insights from author Mohamed Zeeshan on the process of writing a first policy book.
The following is a guest post by Mohamed Zeeshan, a foreign affairs columnist, editor-in-chief of Freedom Gazette and former guest on our show. This year he released his first book, “Flying Blind: India’s Quest for Global Leadership”, published by Penguin Books. Mohamed was one of the very first guests on the Policy People Podcast. In our in-depth conversation, we dug into his book and discussed many aspects of India’s foreign policy.
What does it take to write your first book on foreign policy?
by Mohamed Zeeshan
The idea of writing a book first struck me some four years ago while I was still at Columbia University, surrounded by some of the world’s brightest young (and not so young) minds. A classmate and close friend of mine first floated the idea to me during the course of a conversation on India and the world.
I didn’t take him seriously at first, but as the days went by, I became increasingly ambitious and decided to give it a shot. I’d already published several articles in the world media by then as a young writer, and my professors trained me well at forming coherent thoughts and substantiating them with facts and data. So the process of writing wasn’t itself alien to me.
I also had a theme I felt strongly about. I’d long been a passionate believer in – and advocate for – a more enlightened and proactive role for India in world affairs. I was a patriotic Indian but also a globalist. I was an ardent believer in the universal values of India’s freedom struggle, which had shaped not just India’s own independence movement but also several civil rights movements around the world – from South Africa to the United States. I had always felt, therefore, that the foundations of Indian nationhood lay in fighting for peace and justice everywhere – not just in India.
My intention was to write a book that would capture this vision – to explain to Indians and the world why India should play a more proactive role in world affairs, what national interests Indian foreign policy should seek to fulfil, and how Indian foreign policy can achieve these ends.
Although there were several books that dealt with different facets of this story, there were few books that captured the entire essence of what I wanted to convey. As a student at Columbia, I soon realised that most writing on Indian foreign policy was painfully turgid, scholarly and unrelatable to the masses. As a result, foreign policy and world affairs hardly feature in Indian electoral discourse – and by consequence, these issues have often been subject to neglect and mismanagement. My objective was to take Indian foreign policy to the common Indian voter, to educate them on world affairs and to have them realise why their own self-interest would be fulfilled by a more proactive Indian foreign policy. These are goals that I make plain in the preface of my book.
I was fortunate not to suffer a dearth of ideas. Being at Columbia during the conception of my book was a blessing. Each passing day brought a new perspective with it on the world at large. My short stint with the Indian delegation at the United Nations gave me an unparalleled ringside view of how India saw the world and how it conducted its diplomacy at the highest level – on the multilateral stage.
Being in New York also had its own perks: It helped me talk to people from all over the world on a daily basis and gave me access to diplomats and leading international journalists. And compared to most writers based out of New Delhi, New York also exposed me to a far wider cross-section of global discourse: I spoke to Colombians about the peace deal with the FARC, with Mexicans about drug cartels and institutional corruption, and with Africans about civil wars and peacebuilding.
The challenge was in thinking about how these issues relate to India’s quest for global leadership – and fitting them into a storyline. India was far removed from most of the burning issues that the world dealt with and talked about. But I soon realised that this insularity was a major reason for India’s underwhelming global influence. Part of my task, therefore, was to think about how these challenges and crises impact a globalised India, why India should bother about them, and what Indian foreign policy can do about them. As a result of my travels, debates and conversations with various people, I accordingly began developing an outline and synopsis for my book.
As I left New York and took up various projects with governments in the Middle East, and further travelled the world, I found my storyline continuously evolving and deepening. The project became a journey by itself – of discovering the world, discovering India and discovering myself.
After three long years of much pondering, research and consultation, I was finally confident enough in the outline of my book and was ready to begin writing in earnest. At first, it took me much effort and many attempts to get the tone right. I was keen to appeal as fervently as I could to the uninitiated reader – to spark interest among those who had never thought seriously enough about India or its role in the world. I passionately wanted to ensure that my writing style was not a burden to the reader, as most traditional academic writing tends to be.
As I settled into it though, the process became thoroughly enjoyable. Even though I did not yet have a publisher – and still did not know if the world would ever read this book – the process of writing became intrinsically meaningful. I had found a voice. I had several ideas that I wanted to put down on paper – countless messages that I wanted to convey – and the more I wrote, the clearer my thinking seemed to become.
After months of work, the manuscript was finally complete and ready, and I began emailing excerpts to major publishers. On advice from friends and mentors, I took particular care to convey to them – as briefly and clearly as possible – why I wrote this book and why it deserves to be read. The response was overwhelming. I was lucky to receive interest from multiple publishing houses – including Penguin, with whom I finally signed a deal. I was grateful that my editor at Penguin appreciated my effort to make what she called a “dry subject engaging and readable”. The Penguin editorial team then took charge of the manuscript, including copy-editing and design.
Upon reading my manuscript, my editor had said that she sees many books in me. Here’s hoping that this is only the first among them – and here’s also hoping that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Mohamed Zeeshan is a foreign affairs columnist, editor-in-chief of Freedom Gazette and author of Flying Blind: India’s Quest for Global Leadership (Penguin 2021)