Why Bharat Matters Chapter 5: From Aspiration to Strategy: India’s Leading-Power Horizon

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From Aspiration to Strategy: India’s Leading-Power Horizon

India’s foreign policy over the past decade has been animated by a declared ambition to be a “leading power,” a formulation first articulated publicly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. It was an aspiration, not a claim of arrival; nonetheless, a decade on, it has become serious work in progress. The underlying logic has been that leadership derives not from declaratory posture alone but from sustained capability accumulation and purposeful international conduct.

In 2023, at the inauguration of Bharat Mandapam, the Prime Minister reaffirmed a strategic determination for India to emerge as the world’s third-largest economy. The explicit linkage was between economic scale and foreign-policy agency: larger national income, deeper markets, and advanced production capabilities translate into leverage, resilience, and the ability to shape outcomes beyond one’s borders. A year earlier, the Prime Minister had urged planning not for a single political term but for an entire era, framed as the Amrit Kaal—a 25-year horizon directed at India’s emergence as a developed nation. Anchoring foreign policy to these timelines and targets has lent a programmatic character to external engagement: diplomacy is tasked not only with managing risks but with enabling development, opening supply chains, advancing technology partnerships, and securing India’s position in a fluid order.

The implications are significant. When foreign policy is tethered to specific developmental metrics and time-bound goals, it demands clarity of ends, prioritisation of means, and a disciplined focus on delivery. The cumulative achievements of the last decade—whether in connectivity projects, new frameworks of cooperation, or the steadier cultivation of strategic partnerships—indicate that India has been laying the foundations for an expanded and more confident global footprint.

Reorienting Practice: Innovation in Diplomacy and Public Outreach

From the outset, the present leadership imprinted a distinct strategic orientation. The invitation to neighbouring leaders to attend the 2014 oath-taking ceremony was an innovative signal of regional outreach that orthodox thinking had not contemplated, and it set a tone of proactive engagement. Soon thereafter, the 2014 visit to the United States showcased a new mode of public diplomacy, infusing India’s external engagements with heightened energy, broader reach, and greater intensity. Mass outreach, direct diaspora mobilisation, and deft media management complemented formal diplomacy, expanding India’s soft power and enhancing narrative control.

Substantively, the approach went beyond incrementalism. Across geographies and domains, India tabled fresh ideas and initiatives—on energy security and transition, climate action and climate-resilient infrastructure, counter-terrorism coordination, and physical and digital connectivity. Rather than merely reacting to global developments, New Delhi sought to shape agendas and outcomes, including in multilateral and minilateral settings. Importantly, this was not a linear extrapolation of inherited policy; it entailed sharper strategic clarity, a stronger conceptual basis for choices, an upshift in diplomatic tempo, and a more rigorous emphasis on implementation and delivery across priorities.

An Architecture of Partnerships: Neighbourhood to Global South

The strategic design combined a focused approach to the immediate neighbourhood with tailored engagement of the extended neighbourhood, all underwritten by a refreshed reading of the global order. In South Asia and the Indian Ocean, the emphasis lay on connectivity, capacity-building, and security cooperation, reflecting an understanding that regional stability and prosperity are the sine qua non of India’s larger aspirations. The extended neighbourhood—stretching across the Indo-Pacific and West Asia—was approached with calibrated initiatives that married maritime awareness, economic corridors, and sensitive political balancing.

Relationships with major power centres were strengthened in parallel. The effort has been to manage convergences and divergences with discipline, expanding areas of cooperation in technology, defence, and critical supply chains while hedging against systemic volatility. Complementing this, the planned cultivation of middle powers and systematic engagement of regions and sub-regions diversified India’s partnership matrix. This widened the channels of influence beyond great-power binaries, enabling coalitions of convenience and purpose-driven groupings suited to issue-specific problem-solving.

A notable pillar has been the sustained advocacy of the Global South’s interests. India not only spoke for equity in finance, technology access, and development pathways; it improved the delivery of its own projects—power, water, health, digital public goods—making them visible symbols of a “New India” focused on reliable, outcome-oriented partnerships. This outward delivery was matched by inward readiness: first-responder capabilities were purposefully developed, with the capacity to protect and assist Indian citizens abroad during crises becoming a hallmark of state responsiveness. Rapid evacuations, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief operations have underscored operational readiness and a sense of responsibility commensurate with a rising power.

Mechanisms, Delivery, and the Road Ahead

The decade also witnessed the emergence of fresh strategic concepts alongside new mechanisms and memberships, cumulatively elevating India’s global standing. Purpose-built coalitions on climate-resilient infrastructure, solar energy, and disaster response; minilateral formats in the Indo-Pacific; and active roles in regional organisations and forums expanded India’s toolkits for influence and cooperation. These developments reflected a larger shift from declaratory multilateralism to instrumented multilateralism—selecting platforms and partnerships that advance concrete national objectives.

Yet the narrative consistently cautions that transformational characteristics should not be mistaken for completed transformation. The real changes have only begun, and a considerable road remains to be traversed. Delivery has improved but must be institutionalised across the system; diplomatic bandwidth has expanded but must keep pace with the density of engagements; and mechanisms have multiplied but require prioritisation and resourcing to avoid diffusion of effort. The next phase will test whether India can consolidate gains, reduce execution gaps, and convert strategic intent into enduring capability advantages.

Rite of Passage and Policy: A Ramayana Lens on Strategic Maturation

A civilisational lens illuminates how nations come of age through demonstrations of strength and judgement. In the Ramayana, Rama’s stringing of Shiva’s bow at Janaka’s court signalled entry into the company of great warriors—a rite of passage that affirmed both prowess and legitimacy. The bow itself, entrusted to Janaka’s ancestor Devaratha at a time when Shiva could not trust himself to control his emotions, became the condition for Sita’s hand: only one who could lift and string it would marry her. Rama accomplished the feat and immediately faced another trial. Confronted by Parasurama—a sage who obsessively contested the warrior order—Rama prevailed by capturing and stringing Vishnu’s bow, fashioned by Vishwakarma and long held within Parasurama’s lineage through his grandfather. These victories were not an end; they were beginnings that unlocked further tests.

Major trials seldom arrive without preparatory experience. Before Mithila, sages had sought Rama’s help against demons disrupting their sacrifices. King Dasaratha’s reluctance to expose his son to risk gave way, with hesitation, to consent—a familiar analogy to systemic caution when states confront new threats. Rama’s early trials included defeating the demoness Tataka in the Kamasrama forest and confronting Maricha and Subahu in Siddhasrama, vanquishing one and reducing the other to ashes. Accompanied by Lakshmana, Rama then traversed the hermitage of Sage Gautama, where he was destined to revive Ahalya from a long-standing curse, before proceeding to Mithila to accomplish the feat with Shiva’s bow. The sequence—moral, spiritual, and martial validations—demonstrates a layered progression of capability and confidence.

The lessons for contemporary India are clear. A nation aspiring to be a leading power must cross figurative rivers and mountains, confronting both direct challenges and structural circumstances. Some problems recur, much like Rama’s repeated encounters with Maricha, testing not only strength but endurance and patience. The rise of a power thus becomes a test of perseverance, mental stamina, and institutional steadiness. In practical terms, this translates into sustained investment in infrastructure, systematic upgrading of human resources, steady countering of territorial challenges, and the development of deep scientific, technological, industrial, and maritime strengths. It also includes the maintenance of a credible nuclear deterrent—embedded in sound doctrine and decision-making—and the continuous improvement of governance quality to ensure policy coherence and delivery.

As India moves to the next stage of its ascent, it must broaden national vistas, sharpen awareness of competitors, and strengthen comprehensive national power—economic, military, technological, institutional, and societal. The Amrit Kaal provides the temporal discipline for such a project. Aligning long-term strategic planning with sustained capability development and consistent global engagement will be the modern equivalent of lifting and stringing the bow—proving readiness not once, but repeatedly, as new tests arise.

Chapter 5 — The New Mandala

From Inflection Points to a Coherent Strategy

Individual events in Indian foreign policy over the past decade—from leader-level summits to sectoral breakthroughs—can be misread as episodic or reactive. A closer view reveals a deliberate, long-term strategy in which inflection points are signposts of deeper structural change. The sequencing of policy articulations—Neighbourhood First in the months after the 2014 swearing-in ceremony; the formal enunciation of the SAGAR outlook during the prime ministerial visit to Mauritius in 2015; and the deepening and operationalization of Look East into Act East—illustrates a carefully layered architecture. Strategic choices such as explicitly propagating the Indo-Pacific concept, convening purpose-built events like the Forum for India–Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) summits, and launching the Voice of Global South Summit in the aftermath of Covid and the Ukraine conflict are not isolated initiatives. They now connect as lines and concentric circles of interest, revealing a strategy that has matured through iterative engagement, institutionalization, and periodic calibration.

The contemporary mandala of Indian strategy is visualized as concentric circles radiating outward from the core. At the centre lies the immediate neighbourhood, whose salience was underscored by the presence of regional leaders at the 2014 oath-taking—a symbolic and substantive signal. Beyond it is the extended neighbourhood—east toward ASEAN and the Pacific, west to the Gulf, south across the Indian Ocean, and north to Central Asia. Each circle has its own logic, instruments, and pace, but all are nested within a single, system-level design that aligns diplomacy with India’s growing economic weight, geographic centrality, and security imperatives.

The Inner Mandala: Neighbourhood First

Neighbourhood First prioritizes a periphery that is stable, secure, and sensitive. It recognizes that historical, sociological, and economic interdependencies require sustained investments in connectivity, cooperation, and people-to-people ties. The central task is persuasion through performance: neighbours must experience tangible benefits from closer relations with India and see consistent delivery on the ground.

Since 2014, regional integration has grown more concrete. Cross-border transmission grids have expanded electricity trade and optimized power generation, reducing costs and enhancing reliability across borders. Fuel pipelines link refineries to consumer markets, lowering logistics frictions. Roads, railways, and inland waterways are being stitched into trans-border corridors, supported by smoother border crossings through upgraded infrastructure and interoperable procedures. Reciprocal utilization of capabilities is becoming routine: landlocked neighbours leverage Indian ports and logistics systems; coastal partners facilitate the movement of goods to India’s Northeast; and interconnected grids allow load balancing and capacity sharing. These arrangements generate region-wide scale and efficiency gains that extend beyond any single bilateral relationship.

Credibility has been a decisive currency. During Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, India’s expeditious response demonstrated the trustworthiness and strategic seriousness of its neighbourhood policy. The episode reaffirmed that timely support in distress—anchored in sound economic management and political sensitivity—can protect regional stability while deepening confidence in India as a dependable partner. In both calm and crisis, the core of the mandala rests on making the neighbourhood’s prosperity and security a shared outcome.

The Extended Mandala: East, West, South, and North

India’s second concentric circle is the extended neighbourhood, conceptualized as a comprehensive plan of engagement spanning four directions.

  • Eastward, Act East upgrades the earlier Look East approach by deepening cooperation with ASEAN and the Pacific across security, development, and digital domains. Maritime awareness and connectivity projects sit alongside capacity-building, resilient supply chains, and technology partnerships. Act East has also become a launch pad for outreach to the Pacific, where FIPIC provides a purpose-built forum for small states to engage India on climate resilience, development finance, and digital public goods. The operational emphasis is on sustained presence, diversified instruments, and mutual agency—moving past rhetoric to measurable outcomes.

  • Westward, the Link West approach has produced unprecedented intensification, particularly with the United Arab Emirates. What once centred narrowly on energy and labour has broadened to encompass technology ecosystems, education, innovation, investment, and security cooperation; even energy ties have expanded to include storage, renewables, and value-chain collaboration. The Gulf now functions as a bridgehead to Africa: finance, logistics, and diaspora networks in West Asia increasingly serve as conduits for India–Africa commerce and project implementation, multiplying diplomatic traction and commercial reach.

  • Southward, the SAGAR outlook integrates maritime neighbours into a shared Indo-Pacific vision that overlaps with Neighbourhood First in places such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives, but brings greater focus and resources to the maritime domain. The development partnership with Mauritius—cutting across infrastructure, capacity-building, and maritime security—illustrates how SAGAR aligns developmental and strategic equities. In parallel, maritime cooperation underpins an emerging security conclave framework for cooperative security thinking, building habits of information-sharing, domain awareness, and coordinated responses to non-traditional threats.

  • Northward, the Connect Central Asia Policy completes the geographic puzzle by forging systemic linkages with culturally comfortable partners. Priority is accorded to connectivity, de-radicalization, and development—offering states options that enhance their strategic positioning amid shifting great-power dynamics. This approach leverages historical affinities while using contemporary tools: energy and transit corridors, education and health partnerships, and counter-extremism cooperation calibrated to local contexts.

Across all four directions, the unifying principle is optionality—expanding choices for India and its partners, reducing vulnerability to single points of failure, and embedding India more deeply in regional architectures that reflect its interests.

Major Powers and Non-Linear Diplomacy

Progress in the mandala depends on steady calibration with major powers. India engages the constituent segments of collectives such as Europe individually, recognizing that the continent’s strategic diversity demands differentiated approaches. Some actors can facilitate India’s objectives; others may obstruct them. The goal is not a rigid centrism but an optimal mix of relationships tailored to specific issues—technology, clean energy, defense, supply chains, or standards-setting—chosen for their net contribution to India’s interests.

This results in a diplomacy that is intentionally non-linear. To outside observers it may appear as zigzags, but the evaluative criterion is straightforward: has India gained advantage in a competitive environment? Periodic assessments—anchored in outcomes rather than alignments—are central to policy validation and course correction. Such pragmatism accepts that pathways to national objectives will sometimes be indirect, provided they are coherent in aggregate and reversible when conditions change.

Architectures, Outreach, and Economic Presence

A broader global footprint requires moving beyond historical perfunctoriness. Over the past decade, numerous countries have received an Indian foreign minister for the first time, and diplomatic engagement has shifted from sporadic contact to a more efficient, mission-oriented modality. India has combined vigorous participation in existing mechanisms with the creation of new platforms tailored to its strategic geography and functional priorities: the Quad and FIPIC in the Indo-Pacific; I2U2 in West Asia linking innovation and food-energy-water security; the India–Nordic Summit in Europe; and the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as the latest initiative to reimagine connectivity. This has occurred alongside sustained engagement with ASEAN, the European Union, Africa, and BRICS.

At ministerial levels, new formats cover Central Europe, the Caribbean, and Central America. By engaging sub-regions within broader geographies like Africa and Latin America, India improves focus and traction, matching interlocutor needs with Indian comparative advantages. The opening of new embassies—especially in Africa—offers a platform for steady, granular diplomacy that is sensitive to local priorities.

Economic presence has become a key instrument of statecraft. Indian investments, trade, and overseas projects have made India a top five economic partner for many African and Latin American economies. The movement of Indian professionals adds depth to these ties, creating a constituency for long-term engagement and transmitting skills and standards. On-the-ground development projects—funded by grants and soft loans across 78 nations of the Global South—help build capabilities and brand presence in areas ranging from digital infrastructure and healthcare to water management and energy access. This is development cooperation as strategic leverage: responsive to local development agendas but aligned with India’s broader interests in stability, connectivity, and normative influence.

The Conceptual Mandala: Security, Autonomy, Digital, and Human Capital

The spatial mandala is matched by a conceptual one in which national security imperatives more explicitly shape priorities and choices. Security is defined broadly to encompass economic resilience and technological capability. Programs such as AatmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan and Make in India are not protectionist slogans but instruments for building deeper strengths and strategic autonomy—necessary attributes for a state that aspires to be a leading power. The objective is to diversify risk, enhance domestic capacity, and secure critical nodes—industrial, digital, and human—within global interdependence, not outside it.

The digital domain exemplifies this approach. India does not seek autarky; it seeks capabilities that allow it to compete at global scale while safeguarding trust and resilience. Opportunities lie in resilient and reliable supply chains for electronics and telecom, in the knowledge economy powered by software and services, and in the value generated by transparent and trusted data flows. Choices about standards, cross-border data regimes, and digital public infrastructure are thus cast as strategic, with implications for participation in emerging technology coalitions and supply-chain rewiring.

Deeper integration into the global economy demands preparation, the right strategic outlook, and appropriate human resources. Investments in skilling, and in promoting Indian talent through start-ups and innovation ecosystems, are therefore seen not merely as economic or social policy but as strategic inputs to foreign policy. Human capital mobility—epitomized by the flow of H1B visas—has been a significant driver of the transformed India–United States relationship. It links domestic aspirations to international opportunity structures, making the fulfilment of rising ambitions at home and abroad two sides of the same strategic coin. In effect, talent becomes a vector of influence: it shapes market access, technology partnerships, and political goodwill, while reinforcing the feedback loop between national capability and external credibility.

Taken together, these spatial and conceptual mandalas describe a strategy that is both grounded and adaptive: rooted in neighbourhood stabilization and regional integration; extended through purpose-built platforms and economic statecraft; calibrated vis-à-vis major powers through non-linear pragmatism; and underwritten by investments in technology, production, and people that expand India’s strategic choices over time.

External Perception as Strategic Outcome

For a state whose strategic culture is increasingly anchored in performance, the ultimate audit lies in how others perceive it. India’s external image has shifted from that of a reliable “back office” to that of a consequential technology partner and co-developer in complex sectors—defence manufacturing, advanced electronics, and semiconductors. This change is not rhetorical; it reflects a decade of simultaneous investments in physical infrastructure, digital public goods, regulatory clarity, and macroeconomic stability that make India a top-tier destination for foreign direct investment. The Covid-19 pandemic consolidated India’s reputation as the “pharmacy of the world,” but more consequential in strategic terms was the speed and scale of domestic economic recovery and the export of critical health goods and platforms, which signaled both resilience and reliability.

Globally, improved governance is a central thread in the narrative about India. Attracting particular scrutiny—and interest—is the digital delivery of services at continental scale: identity (Aadhaar), payments (UPI), data empowerment (DEPA), and health platforms (CoWIN). The breadth of these public digital infrastructures (DPIs) has lent credibility to claims of inclusive growth and accelerated progress on Sustainable Development Goals, shaping a perception of India as a society in motion rather than a static, risk-laden emerging market.

Delivery Statecraft: Governance, Infrastructure, and Sectoral Proof-Points

A mosaic of sectoral advances has formed the evidence base behind India’s external image. Beyond vaccines and a robust health industry, the rollout of an indigenous 5G stack, a renewed cadence of space missions and commercial launches, an explicit “Study in India” branding for higher education, and tangible “Make in India” outcomes in electronics and automotive components together project capability and seriousness of purpose. These are reinforced by visible infrastructure upgrades—airports, highways, metros, logistics parks, and dedicated freight corridors—combined with process reforms that lower the cost of doing business.

India’s G20 presidency functioned as a national-level “open house,” enabling a wide cross-section of policymakers, investors, and media to observe first-hand the transformation of public service delivery and connectivity. This emphasis on delivery has extended to the external domain: development projects, lines of credit, and humanitarian assistance are now more closely synchronized with budgeting and procurement cycles, reflecting an understanding that diplomacy is the art of detail. Execution credibility has grown accordingly. A globally successful diaspora—integrated into technology, finance, academia, and public service—adds social capital to this delivery-focused statecraft.

Strategic Clarity, Continuity, and Communication

Indian diplomacy over the last decade exhibits a sharpened strategic clarity: power must flow from internal capability, partnerships should serve national interests without eroding autonomy, and priorities must be sequenced to match resources. Neighbourhood First embodies this logic by aligning political intent with on-the-ground implementation—cross-border energy grids with Nepal and Bhutan, port and logistics upgrades with Bangladesh, currency and credit support to Sri Lanka at a moment of crisis, and emergency relief that arrives with predictable speed.

Crucially, New Delhi has overcome long-standing hesitations with the United States and wider West, building frameworks that survive changes in administrations on both sides. Policy continuity, combined with the preservation of broader balances (including legacy ties with Russia and deepening links with the Gulf and ASEAN), has kept collaboration with the West from becoming zero-sum. Strategic communication has matched strategic clarity. On the Indo-Pacific, critical technologies, pandemic response, and the Ukraine conflict, India’s messaging has been consistent: the primacy of national interest, the need for multipolarity, respect for international law, and a preference for diplomacy over escalation. This coherence has limited ambiguity among partners and enhanced credibility.

Technology, Economy, and the Trusted Manufacturing Proposition

Global interest in India has risen most sharply at the interface of technology and the economy. As production becomes data-intensive and supply chains are re-architected for resilience and trust, India positions itself as central to “trusted manufacturing,” underpinned by a political democracy, a pluralistic society, and an open, entrepreneurial market economy. Policy instruments—production-linked incentives, the India Semiconductor Mission, defence offsets calibrated to co-development, and ecosystem support for electronics and EVs—signal a move from assembly to value capture.

A structural demographic–demand misalignment in the global economy has raised the premium on India’s human resources. As ageing advanced economies confront skills shortages, India’s youthful workforce—amplified by skilling missions and mobility partnerships—becomes a strategic asset. The establishment of the Trade and Technology Council with the European Union marks this direction of travel, embedding regular dialogue on supply chains, standards, and critical technologies. Parallel initiatives with the United States (including the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies) and with other Quad partners have created a lattice of technology and security cooperation that stretches from chips and telecom to space situational awareness and maritime domain awareness.

Security of the Global Commons and Networked Balancing

India’s contribution to the stability and security of the global commons is most visible in the Indo-Pacific. Mission-ready humanitarian assistance and disaster relief deployments, white-shipping information fusion for maritime domain awareness, anti-piracy patrols, and capacity building for regional navies point to an outward-facing security role that is practical and welcomed. Simultaneously, India remains a partner of value in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, venues where it advances counter-terrorism norms, connectivity standards, and development agendas without ceding its strategic autonomy. This networked balancing—deepening with Western partners while engaging major non-Western platforms—preserves room for maneuver and increases India’s utility in conflict mitigation or crisis management when windows open.

Leadership of the Global South and Demand-Driven Development Partnerships

The consolidation of a deeper constituency for India in the Global South owes much to a triad: Covid-era support (vaccines, medicines, and open-source digital tools), scalable digital delivery models, and steady development projects. Commencing the G20 presidency with the Voice of the Global South Summit and championing the African Union’s full membership of the G20 were both symbolic and substantive, signaling that India will use convening power to widen representation and channel development priorities into global agendas.

India’s development partnerships emphasize demand-driven projects and the absence of hidden conditionalities: power generation, water and sanitation, transport, health facilities, and digital connectivity aligned to recipient priorities. Enhanced project preparation, tighter contracting, and more precise financial provisioning have improved completion rates and partner satisfaction. The result is a reputation for practical solidarity—an identity that dovetails with India’s ambition to act as a bridging power across geopolitical fissures.

Civilizational Projection and the Idea of New India

India has sought to shape global discourses by combining hard capability with the “power of ideas.” On climate, New Delhi’s leadership helped incubate the International Solar Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, and the LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) agenda; on digital, it has promoted DPIs as global public goods and established a G20 repository for DPI best practices; on terrorism, it has pressed for normative clarity and operational cooperation. These policy moves are accompanied by a more visible projection of history, culture, and wellness traditions, not as ornamentation but as frames for cooperation—in food security, traditional medicine, and cultural industries.

The notion of “New India” operates both domestically and internationally: a polity more confident and nationalist in spirit, yet comfortable offering global public goods and burden-sharing. It is presented as more capable and practical—measured by delivery rather than declamation—and more authentic in its policy stances, asserting autonomy of judgment while remaining flexible enough to assemble issue-based coalitions. In a fractured, multipolar world, this blend of independence, capability, and communication has made India a partner that is both legible and valuable across multiple, sometimes competing, networks.

Foreign Policy as a Development Accelerator

The Modi era marks a deliberate reframing of foreign policy from a domain of external relations to a direct instrument for national development and modernization. This developmental turn is not rhetorical: it prioritizes the flow of technology, capital, and best practices into India, and operationalizes that priority through investor outreach, ease-of-doing-business reforms, and sustained engagement with technology-providers and high achievers. Flagship domestic frameworks—AatmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan and Make in India—are connected to external engagement, while Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes and the PM Gati Shakti master plan provide the manufacturing and infrastructure backbone to absorb and scale what foreign partnerships deliver.

Prime ministerial travel exemplifies a purposeful technology-and-governance learning mission. Study visits to a battery storage facility in the United States, river-cleaning projects in South Korea, Japan’s high-speed rail ecosystem, Singapore’s skill development architecture, and German models for modern railway stations have been part of a systematic effort to benchmark and internalize world-class practices. This outward learning has been matched by outward application: India has increasingly exported projects, products, and services reflecting upgraded capabilities in infrastructure, connectivity, and public facilities, visible across South Asia, Africa, and parts of Latin America. Defence exports have steadily risen, both in range and in the number of recipient countries, reinforcing India’s profile as a security partner of consequence.

The cumulative effect is a perceptible shift in global perception: India is increasingly seen as a credible partner for production, innovation, and problem-solving. Improved market access and export performance have created positive domestic feedback loops, which in turn reinforce the political salience of growth-centric diplomacy. Symbolically and substantively, the Prime Minister’s periodic collective engagements with Indian ambassadors—tasking missions to pursue specific investment, technology, and talent outcomes—have aligned the diplomatic apparatus with national economic objectives and signaled an institutional shift in external conduct.

Operational Culture: Coordination, Formats, and Accountability

The internal culture of decision-making has been retooled to overcome bureaucratic silos. Ministries and agencies engage in tighter coordination, deeper strategizing, and stronger feedback loops, emphasizing collective deliberation across trade negotiations, national security situations, and multilateral development concerns. Direction set by ministers and secretaries now cascades through clearer tasking, timelines, and performance expectations. This approach has yielded denser inter-ministerial processes for complex dossiers—from comprehensive trade talks to standards, supply chains, and technology regimes—where the old separation between “economic” and “strategic” has increasingly dissolved.

New formats have institutionalized multi-agency alignment with key partners. With Singapore, a multi-ministerial mechanism brings together finance, trade, technology, and skill portfolios in a coordinated frame. With the European Union, the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) provides a structured channel for addressing digital governance, critical technologies, secure connectivity, and resilient supply chains. India’s 2+2 Ministerial Dialogues in Defence and External Affairs with major security partners have created steady, senior-level rhythms for strategic planning and capability cooperation. Even leadership symbolism is harnessed to strategy: the selection of a Republic Day chief guest is used to amplify priority relationships at moments when diplomatic signaling can unlock new possibilities.

Performance management has been adapted to the foreign policy domain through the national-level Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation (PRAGATI) platform. Originally designed to accelerate domestic project delivery, PRAGATI has been customized to identify and resolve delays, regulatory or policy obstacles, and inter-agency roadblocks in projects with international linkages—ranging from cross-border infrastructure to development cooperation. The result is not merely better coordination but measurable gains in execution, a crucial element when credibility rests on timely delivery.

Crisis Management and International Public Goods

The resilience of these systems has been stress-tested in crises. During the Covid-19 pandemic, India mounted the Vande Bharat Mission—the largest peacetime repatriation in its history—while simultaneously launching Vaccine Maitri to supply vaccines to partner countries, particularly in the Global South. India also executed major evacuation operations from conflict and disaster zones: Yemen (Operation Rahat), Nepal (Operation Maitri), Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul, Ukraine (Operation Ganga), and Sudan (Operation Kaveri). These operations fused intelligence, logistics, consular readiness, and diplomatic leverage, demonstrating a strengthened ability to protect citizens abroad and to deliver international public goods under pressure. The lessons learned—on preparedness, inter-operability of agencies, and the value of pre-negotiated understandings with host states—have been folded back into doctrine and practice.

Agenda-Setting in the Global Order and Climate Recalibration

From 2014, India has moved from a reactive posture to an agenda-setting one in multilateral arenas. It has elevated issues such as terrorism and tax evasion, pushing for greater accountability in cross-border terrorism and for transparency regimes that constrain illicit financial flows and base erosion. Maritime security has emerged as a central theme, with India contributing to norms and architectures that protect sea lanes, strengthen domain awareness, and promote lawful connectivity across the Indo-Pacific and the western Indian Ocean.

India’s climate positioning has been recalibrated. Once cast as reluctant, New Delhi has become a credible champion of climate action and climate justice—insisting that ambition be matched by finance, technology transfer, and equitable carbon space. At home, the rapid expansion of renewables has underwritten credibility abroad. At the United Nations, G20, and COP meetings, India has moved from defensive language to propositional leadership, institutionalizing ideas in durable platforms: the International Solar Alliance (ISA) to aggregate demand and de-risk solar deployment globally, and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) to mainstream resilience into planning and financing.

The innovation pipeline remains active. One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG) envisions transnational green grids linking time zones and seasons to stabilize clean energy. The Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) initiative reframes sustainability as a behavioral and societal choice, not merely a technological challenge, bridging individual responsibility and systemic change. India’s leadership in securing the International Year of Millets (2023) brought attention to climate-resilient, nutrition-rich grains, linking agricultural heritage with contemporary sustainability and food security goals. These initiatives are conceived not as one-offs but as platforms open to partnerships that can translate concepts into actionable projects.

Platforms, Partnerships, and Minilateralism

India has used networked and minilateral arrangements to amplify influence and to deliver solutions. The Quad (with Australia, Japan, and the United States) has widened its portfolio from maritime security to critical and emerging technologies, health, infrastructure, and supply-chain resilience. The I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, US) has piloted projects in food corridors, renewable energy, and logistics with a problem-solving ethos and a strong private-sector interface. Engagement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) provides a continental vector for counter-terrorism coordination, connectivity debates, and economic linkages into Eurasia.

These formats complement bilateral diplomacy and enable targeted contributions to shared problems. A development agenda for Africa, for instance, has combined lines of credit, capacity building, and increasingly, the sharing of India’s digital public infrastructure stack to improve service delivery. Vaccine Maitri’s unilateral generosity was paired with collaborative initiatives that scaled outcomes and embedded India in wider coalitions of delivery. In this way, early aspirations for greater global presence have been translated into a portfolio of concrete, trackable outcomes.

Cultural-Civilizational Rebalancing

Parallel to economic and political rebalancing is a cultural recalibration. India’s effort to project itself as a civilizational state challenges the skew of two centuries of colonial epistemologies that placed Western experience at the center of global discourse. Many postcolonial elites had equated modernity with Western emulation, often disparaging indigenous knowledge systems; contemporary Indian diplomacy contests that premise without retreating into nativism. The global celebration of yoga—propelled by a 2015 initiative and subsequent International Day of Yoga observances—has been phenomenally successful, renewing interest in India’s knowledge traditions. The propagation of medical and wellness practices, coupled with norms of environmental stewardship that emphasize lifestyle changes, has found receptive audiences. Millets, foregrounded as climate-smart nutrition, have been advanced as both cultural heritage and modern solution, with leadership optics reinforcing the narrative that India’s traditions can serve global ends.

This cultural rebalancing is not merely an exercise in soft power branding. It is part of a broader intellectual project to rethink the deeper assumptions and normative foundations of international relations—from whose values define “universal” standards to how developmental equity is conceptualized. That recalibration is a work in progress, expected to register cumulative gains over time as practice informs theory and vice versa.

People-Centric Diplomacy and Mobility Governance

A notable hallmark of Modi-era diplomacy is its people-centric character. The domestic focus on improving development indices and social welfare is extrapolated externally: protecting and empowering Indians abroad becomes an obligation of a rising state. This shift has both moral and strategic dimensions. If a major power leaves its citizens vulnerable overseas—students, professionals, or settled communities—it erodes confidence at home, deters mobility, and undermines national standing.

Preparing for the knowledge economy requires reimagining India’s role in the global workplace, not only in the global marketplace. The state has sought to create institutional arrangements so that Indian citizens are not left at the mercy of opaque intermediaries and the “mobility industry.” Reforms include radical simplification of passport issuance through an expanded Passport Seva network and digital services; strengthened consular services with clearer protocols for assistance and emergency response; and regulatory steps to curb exploitative recruitment practices, especially for low- and semi-skilled workers.

Concrete measures for welfare and mobility facilitation have been pursued through bilateral instruments. Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreements (MMPAs), concluded with countries from Australia to Germany and beyond, provide structured pathways for students, researchers, professionals, and skilled workers while embedding safeguards against discrimination and abuse. Crisis extrications and repatriations—most visibly during the pandemic—have been complemented by routine protections, legal assistance, and labor dispute resolution mechanisms in destination countries with high concentrations of Indian workers.

The heightened recognition of the importance of Indians abroad reflects a strategic calculus: human capital is India’s paramount 21st-century asset. By ensuring that mobility is safe, legal, and welfare-protected, India positions itself not only as a trading nation but as a talent nation—able to negotiate from strength in global fora on skills, recognition of qualifications, and data governance. This approach completes the circle of developmental diplomacy by integrating technology acquisition, market access, cultural confidence, and citizen welfare into a single feedback-driven enterprise that enhances capability, reputation, and agency across bilateral, regional, and multilateral arenas.

Delivering on Partnerships

India’s external engagement over the past decade has combined a more assertive diplomatic posture with a demonstrable emphasis on delivery. This pairing—principle-driven positions backed by implementation—has enhanced credibility, widened partnerships, and given India a stronger voice in shaping global debates. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s international role is centrally implicated here: he has presented India’s national interest as consonant with a broader conception of the global good, and has steered India away from perceptions of hesitation or risk-aversion in difficult international decisions.

Regional and Major-Power Perceptions

In the Subcontinent, perceptions have shifted toward recognizing India’s more purposeful and sustained engagement. Since 2014, high-level political visits after long gaps signaled intent, but the deeper change has been in connectivity, cooperation, and contacts. Inland waterways, cross-border electricity trade, port and rail linkages, and facilitation of people-to-people movement have gained momentum, even if progress has not been linear across all neighbors. The Sri Lankan economic crisis response in 2022, extensive post-earthquake reconstruction projects in Nepal, and large-scale infrastructure initiatives in the Maldives and Mauritius have reinforced the image of India as a steady and responsive partner.

Among major powers, India is widely viewed as a confident, independent actor, able to pursue convergences with different partners while protecting core interests from external pressures. The diversification of defense partnerships (with the United States, France, Russia, and others), technology collaboration (semiconductors, critical minerals, digital public infrastructure), and energy security arrangements (including long-term LNG contracts and discounted crude purchases amid geopolitical volatility) underscores a strategic autonomy that is neither isolationist nor transactional. India’s stance during periods of contestation—such as maintaining energy ties with Russia while deepening engagement with the United States, Europe, Japan, and the Gulf—has been read as a mature assertion of national interest anchored in a multipolar outlook.

Leadership on Global Issues

India has exercised a more active voice on global economic governance. It has pushed for debt relief mechanisms more attentive to vulnerable economies, backed a global minimum corporate tax through the OECD/G20 process while safeguarding its digital taxation concerns, and consistently advocated fairer market access for developing countries. The emphasis has been on equitable rules that reflect the distributional realities of a diversified global economy.

On counterterrorism, India’s domestic measures and international cooperation have converged to shape norms. Strengthened legal frameworks, effort against terror financing, and advocacy at the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the Financial Action Task Force have raised the costs of impunity. India has worked to list sanctioned terrorists and entities under UN regimes and has pressed for the integrity of these processes. This activism has been matched by regional capacity-building in investigation, financial intelligence, and border management.

Maritime security has been another arena of leadership. India advanced the debate in the UNSC—including a high-level session in 2021—by emphasizing freedom of navigation, adherence to UNCLOS, and the indivisibility of security across traditional and non-traditional domains (piracy, trafficking, illegal fishing). On the ground, India has pursued tangible Indo-Pacific initiatives: the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), participation in the Quad’s Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness initiative, and hosting the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region (IFC–IOR) to enhance maritime domain awareness and operational coordination among partners.

Connectivity and Principle-Setting

India has decisively influenced the global connectivity discourse by championing principles of transparency, financial viability, local capacity creation, and respect for sovereignty. These standards—articulated in G20 outcomes, development bank practices, and various Indo-Pacific platforms—have raised expectations for infrastructure financing and project governance. India’s approach has balanced physical connectivity with regulatory alignment and digital public goods, and has emphasized debt sustainability and community-level benefits over headline-grabbing but unsustainable mega-projects.

Covid-19 Diplomacy and Global Public Goods

During the Covid-19 pandemic, India provided vaccines to 100 partners and medicines and medical materials to 150 nations. This effort, from vaccine shipments to supply of essential generics and protective equipment, projected responsibility at scale and earned substantial goodwill. It also reaffirmed India’s identity as a provider of global public goods, capable of mobilizing public-private capabilities (notably in pharmaceuticals and digital platforms) in a crisis and of sustaining solidarity amid an unsettled world order.

Scaling and Professionalizing Development Partnerships

India’s development partnerships—long focused on training, scholarships, and occasional projects—have been scaled significantly. Expanded lines of credit through EXIM Bank, targeted grant assistance, capability-building programs (notably under ITEC), and an emphasis on infrastructure, logistics, and energy have broadened both sectoral and geographic reach. The hallmark change is improved delivery. A strengthened Development Partnership Administration, continuous monitoring, tighter supervision, and professionalized project management have produced visible outcomes, especially in the neighborhood.

Post-earthquake reconstruction in Nepal illustrates this shift: housing, health, and educational infrastructure were built to resilient standards and delivered at scale, contributing to social stabilization and local ownership. In Mauritius, projects such as the Metro Express, a state-of-the-art Supreme Court building, and social sector facilities have proved catalytic, aligning infrastructure with urban mobility, justice delivery, and public health. In Africa, despite Covid-related constraints, India sustained the bulk of commitments made at the India–Africa Forum Summit, with a disciplined approach to implementation across water, agriculture, power, and capacity-building.

Geographic Footprint and Flagship Projects

India’s development footprint now spans multiple regions and sectors:

  • Renewable energy in the Pacific and climate adaptation projects supported through instruments like the India–UN Development Partnership Fund, designed to be locally led and context-sensitive.
  • Community-level initiatives in the Caribbean aimed at resilience, health, and digital services.
  • Strategic infrastructure and industrial capacity across Afro-Eurasia, often linked to job creation and technology transfer.

Illustrative undertakings include the oil refinery in Mongolia (a gamechanger for energy security and industrialization), the Metro Express in Mauritius (redefining urban connectivity), modernization of textile capacity in Kenya (e.g., Rivatex), and water supply projects in Tanzania (addressing urban service deficits and health outcomes). These projects demonstrate how targeted investments can shift development trajectories when coupled with training, maintenance planning, and institutional support.

New Frameworks, Memberships, and Plurilaterals

A more vigorous posture has enabled India to shape and occupy new strategic formats. The Quad’s revival and consolidation have expanded cooperation in critical and emerging technologies, supply-chain resilience, education, health security, and maritime security. The Quad Fellowship for STEM students, work on secure telecommunications, and coordinated maritime domain awareness are emblematic of this widened canvas.

In Eurasia, India’s admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2017 affirmed its salience to continental security and development debates, adding a platform for counterterrorism, connectivity, and energy discussions. Complementing these are memberships in export control regimes—the Missile Technology Control Regime (2016), the Wassenaar Arrangement (2017), and the Australia Group (2018)—which signal trust in India’s technology governance and non-proliferation credentials.

India has also launched or co-led plurilateral initiatives focused on sustainability and resilience, notably the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure. Together, these frameworks institutionalize India’s capacity to convene and deliver on issues central to the global commons.

Participation Metrics and Institutional Presence

The breadth of engagement is reflected in participation metrics and summitry: all 54 African states at the 2015 India–Africa Forum Summit; all 10 ASEAN leaders as chief guests at India’s 2018 Republic Day; engagement with 27 EU leaders at the 2021 Porto meeting; and 125 nations at the Voice of Global South Summit in 2023. These numbers are not merely ceremonial; they mark the consolidation of India’s convening power and the receptivity of diverse partners to Indian initiatives and ideas.

India’s credibility has also been validated through elections to international bodies and committees, where it has largely succeeded, and through the growing demand for its presence across multilateral and plurilateral forums. Recent UNSC membership (2021–22), leadership roles in UN bodies, and competitive wins in specialized agencies underscore both diplomatic bandwidth and the perceived reliability of Indian contributions.

Implications for Strategic Culture and National Security

The accumulated evidence—principled connectivity norms, crisis-era support during Covid-19, scaled and better-delivered development partnerships, strategic memberships, and robust summit participation—points to an India that delivers on partnerships and shapes outcomes. This is not simply reputational. It embeds habits of implementation into India’s strategic culture, aligns diplomacy with economic statecraft, and enhances national security by building dense networks of cooperation in defense, technology, energy, and the maritime domain. In effect, delivery has become a strategic resource: it reinforces autonomy, increases bargaining power with major powers, and consolidates India’s role as a provider of global public goods in an increasingly fragmented order.

Strategic Landscape and the Imperative of Indian Solutions

India’s strategic culture now insists on crafting and executing its own solutions—grounded in fierce independence, realistic landscape analysis, and confident ambition—rather than relying on inherited assumptions or externally imposed frameworks. The pandemic years underscored this imperative. Taking stock of costs, experiences, and lessons, New Delhi has concluded that, by virtue of strong fundamentals and considered policy choices, India weathered the crisis better than many peers and remains on course to consolidate its rise as a leading power.

Such an ascent demands an exacting form of landscape analysis. At the highest level, it revolves around managing a dynamic multipolarity and an ongoing global rebalancing, while also navigating contradictions among major nations whose interests do not neatly align. Regionally, India’s diplomacy prizes a granular appreciation of political economies, social preferences, and security concerns that defy one-size-fits-all prescriptions. The ideologies of globalization, often expressed through universalist slogans, have repeatedly proved misleading; as Indian policymakers have learned, one truth mainly works for one street. Context-specific strategies—rather than dogma—must guide choices.

This approach requires shedding older habits that were once defensive necessities but are now strategic liabilities: downsizing Indian ambitions, accepting hyphenation, practicing ritual noninvolvement, and defaulting to risk aversion. With greater resources and more instruments of statecraft at hand, New Delhi’s updated mindset is one of self-confident independence, calibrated risk-taking, and policy entrepreneurship befitting a state with regional heft and widening global consequence.

Domestic Capability as Foreign Policy: Building the Foundations of Power

India’s earlier mantra—that 8 per cent growth was the best foreign policy—underestimated the importance of transforming underlying structures. Growth without systemic reform does not deliver durable power. The current decade has therefore prioritized comprehensive modernization: retooling production and logistics, digitizing governance, formalizing the economy, and hardwiring resilience. The decision in 2019 not to accede to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) exemplified a more strategic, less naïve approach to globalization: preserving policy space to develop capabilities and guard against asymmetric vulnerabilities, rather than equating openness with virtue per se.

The conceptual framing of this project through Amrit Kaal signals long-term, comprehensive ambition running to 2047, the centenary of independence. Policymakers justify this audacity by pointing to tangible gains over the last decade, notably a steep decline in poverty and a middle class expected to double by 2047. These shifts matter to the world in two ways: they expand India’s contribution to global growth and innovation, and they enlarge its role as a sophisticated consumer and market-shaper.

Human capital investments are widening and deepening. The expansion of universities, medical and nursing colleges, and engineering and technical programs is matched by skill-development schemes that are more world-friendly—attuned to global standards and cross-border mobility. Infrastructure transformation—across highways, railways, airports, and logistics networks—has been joined by ubiquitous digital connectivity and a remarkable build-out of digital public goods, enabling efficient delivery of services, transparency, and citizen participation.

By raising and delivering basic amenities at scale, India is measurably improving the quality of life for roughly one-sixth of humanity. This, in turn, enhances India’s attractiveness as an innovator, producer, contributor, and exemplar: a polity that designs for scale, deploys at speed, and adapts for diversity. The domestic is not merely “linked” to the external; it is the primary source of leverage in India’s external engagements.

Competing and Partnering at Scale: Positioning a Sui Generis India

As capabilities grow, so must the boldness and fortitude to compete at higher levels. This demands confident political leadership, systemic change within the state and economy, the ability to outthink competitors through anticipatory policy design, and the stamina to outlast mindgames that accompany strategic rivalry. India’s peer group and benchmarks evolve with each phase of ascent. The country has outgrown hyphenation with Pakistan, and is increasingly perceived as sui generis—a civilizational state with distinctive institutions, capacities, and aspirations. That altered perception necessitates recalibrated ambitions, metrics, and timelines.

Strategic success will hinge on striking optimal understandings with appropriate partners across commerce, investment, technology, and connectivity. India must leverage its evolving strengths and meet emerging global demands for reliable supply, trusted data, and critical technologies—domains where resilience, standards, and governance are as important as price and scale. The guiding principle is not alignment for its own sake but alignment that advances Indian interests while contributing to a more stable and diversified global economy.

Constraints of the Frozen Order and India’s Counter-Narratives

The contemporary world order, designed more than 75 years ago, embeds structural obstacles that reflect the historical moment of its birth. In 1945, India was nominally present or effectively absent at the high table; the traumas and dislocations of 1947 further constrained its voice and capabilities. The subsequent decades have been an exercise in rising despite adverse terms of engagement. Hegemonic states have perfected a strategy of freezing the moment—entrenching the advantageous elements of a particular historical landscape to preserve hierarchy. Most visibly, the outcomes of 1945 are continually leveraged to define international status and resist contemporary reform.

Institutional practices and norms interlock to sustain this order. The workings of the UN (not least the Security Council), the nuclear nonproliferation regime, a selective and episodic focus on human rights, and the calculated balancing of realpolitik and proclaimed values combine with a recurring invocation of Cold War imagery. Together they set the boundaries of acceptable debate and keep vested interests intact. Particular events are instrumentalized to sharpen the sense of the “other” and to fix narratives in place: the 9/11 attacks and recurring evocations of the last World War are pressed into service to frame global agendas and identities. Efforts to reshape debates accordingly face disproportionate resistance.

India must anticipate and counter such entrenched narratives. Its advocacy of Reformed Multilateralism is both principled and pragmatic: to secure due representation and more contemporary rules, the system must reflect today’s distribution of power, capabilities, and responsibilities, not those of the mid-twentieth century.

Managing Narratives and Learning from Policy Episodes

The freezing of the moment affects India in multiple formats. Institutions underweight Indian interests; great-power expectations shape approaches and constraints; and impactful moments create external and internal pressures that can shift policy. After the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack, a widespread perception of a weak-kneed governmental response generated public pressure for a policy recalibration on counterterrorism and national security. Earlier, following the 1998 nuclear tests, the Vajpayee government reached out swiftly to key partners, seeking to move the discourse beyond the single event and shape the broader diplomatic environment on India’s terms.

India has systematically worked to break out of externally imposed frames—first moving beyond the post-Partition hyphenation with Pakistan, and then pushing past the imagined “Indian Ocean box.” Its Indo-Pacific presence is a natural extension of geography, trade, and security interests; yet it predictably provokes reactions from those vested in the status quo. The objective is not provocation but normalization: to convert presence into acceptance and eventually into institutionally recognized role.

Finally, India must avoid becoming a prisoner of its own history. This requires building forward-looking concepts, practices, and habits—doctrines of response, crisis playbooks, technology roadmaps, and alliance management techniques—that support ascent in a competitive international hierarchy.

Historical Memory, Identity, and the Indian Lexicon of Statecraft

Political creativity lies in reframing past difficulties as assets. The renewed interest in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army, and in earlier anti-colonial resisters such as the tribal leader Birsa Munda and the revolutionary Alluri Sitarama Raju, does not merely celebrate memory; it deploys historical imagery as inspiration for future aspiration, strengthening societal resilience and elite resolve. In national memory, the conflicts of 1962, 1965, 1971, and 1999 stand out as milestones that teach hard lessons about preparedness, coalition-building, escalation management, and political will. Institutionalizing such lessons through doctrine, training, and procurement sustains a strategic culture fit for a leading power.

Messaging has become more energetic, backed by a deliberate lexicon that signals priorities and principles:
– Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family): a commitment to cooperative solutions and shared responsibilities.
– Reformed Multilateralism: urgency in updating UN effectiveness and representation to reflect contemporary realities.
– A World Free of Terror: a non-negotiable stance against terrorism and its enablers.
– Digital for Development: the use of digital public infrastructure for inclusion, efficiency, and transparency at scale.
– Mother of Democracy: linking pluralistic, consultative traditions to deep civilizational roots.
– One World One Health: calling for timely, effective, and nondiscriminatory global health responses.

Developing and socializing India’s own concepts, mechanisms, and ideas in global politics both reflects and reinforces its continued rise and its vigorous participation on global platforms.

Internal Debate, External Perceptions, and Policy Implications

Domestic debate over continuity versus change in foreign policy is both natural and desirable; it incubates innovation and improves course correction. It is equally useful to invert the usual lens and ask how the world visualizes India and the opportunities it presents. Such self-reflection, linked to sustained perception management abroad, helps align strategies and tactics with evolving global realities and Indian ambitions.

Several temporal markers illuminate the argument: the outcomes of 1945 continue to define hierarchy; the dislocations of 1947 introduced structural constraints; the 1998 nuclear tests were followed by rapid diplomatic outreach; the 26/11 attacks demonstrated how impactful moments shift public and policy expectations; the wars of 1962, 1965, 1971, and 1999 remain foundational lessons; the decision not to accede to RCEP in 2019 underscored a more strategic approach to openness; and Amrit Kaal runs to 2047, by which time India’s middle class is expected to double. These are complemented by demographic and welfare transitions—rising basic amenities and a steep decline in poverty—whose significance is both domestic and international.

The implications for Indian foreign policy are clear:
– Anchor policy in rigorous, multi-level landscape analysis; refuse outdated assumptions and resist narratives “frozen” to past advantages.
– Pursue reformed multilateralism as a structural objective while recalibrating partnerships on optimal terms.
– Leverage strengths in reliable supply, trusted data, and critical technologies, sustaining domestic reforms to underwrite external influence.
– Institutionalize strategic communication through an indigenous lexicon; normalize India’s Indo-Pacific presence beyond the Indian Ocean frame.
– Execute policy with resilience—outthink competitors, outlast mindgames, and adjust ambition and peer benchmarking as India consolidates a sui generis profile.

Above all, Bharat must remain true to itself—its interests and ambitions—continuously enhancing capabilities and advancing India-centric concepts, narratives, and partnerships so that India not only imagines its own solutions but implements them with confidence and consequence.