CHATHAM HOUSE - Research paper - Competing visions of international order
05 India: A non-Western, not anti-Western, worldview
Dr Chietigj Bajpaee
Senior Research Fellow for South Asia, Asia-Pacific Programme
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India seeks greater recognition on the world stage and changes to the international order, but not through disruption – instead it sees itself as a bridge between the West and the Global South.
Like other emerging economies, India seeks a more equitable distribution of power in an emerging multipolar international system. It is often labelled a middle power, but India sees itself as a rising power and also as an aspiring major power.86 This view is reflected in the ambition to become a developed country (Viksit Bharat – ‘Developed India’) by 2047,87 and has prompted a push for greater status and recognition on the world stage.88 India wants to have a seat in key rule-making global institutions, including a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. In parallel, it has also been an architect of new regional and global initiatives. In some cases, such as the I2U2 grouping (of India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States) and the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, these complement the role of the US in the international system. In other situations, such as the BRICS89 group encouraging the de-dollarization of trade, they seek to challenge the US-led global order.
However, unlike other powers such as China, Iran and Russia, India seeks to promote a non-Western, but not an anti-Western, worldview. Reflecting this, when External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was asked about India’s position on relations with the West and Russia/China following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he responded: ‘[W]e are a democracy; we are a market economy; we are a pluralistic society; we have positions on international law and I think that should give a fair part of the answer.’90
India is a reformist rather than a revisionist power in that it seeks changes to the international system but not through disruptive means. In doing so, it also sees itself as a bridge between the West and the Global South – prompting some to refer to the country as a ‘southwestern power’.91 New Delhi has thus referred to itself as a Vishvamitra (‘friend to the world’). This became evident during India’s G20 presidency in 2023 with the admission of the African Union to the grouping, which came amid the country’s efforts to project itself as a voice of the Global South.92
Underpinning India’s worldviews are three ‘grand strategic prescriptions’ that have defined how the country’s foreign policy has evolved: Nehruvianism, neoliberalism and hyper-realism.
Underpinning India’s worldviews are three ‘grand strategic prescriptions’ that have defined how the country’s foreign policy has evolved: Nehruvianism, characterized by non-alignment and solidarity with the developing world (or Global South); neoliberalism, with an emphasis on economic interactions and mutual gain; and hyper-realism, which emphasizes the importance of the military and the balance of power.93
The three streams operate simultaneously, as illustrated in the foreign policy of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that assumed power in 2014.94 The Modi government’s proclivity for strategic autonomy (an updated version of non-alignment) through engagement with all poles of influence in the international system indicates the continuation of elements of Nehruvianism. The push to attract foreign investment to facilitate India’s development demonstrates the stream of neoliberalism. Finally, emphasis on internal balancing (by strengthening the capabilities of the military) and external balancing (through working with states with a history of difficult relations with China, including Japan, the US and Vietnam) shows the persistence of hyper-realism.95
At the same time, the Modi government has sought to reframe the core principles that drive India’s foreign policy. A resolution adopted in 2015 by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) noted that the key pillars of foreign policy had changed to Pancharmrit (referring to five cornerstones of foreign policy), which replaced Panchsheel (or the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, expressed in the 1954 Sino-Indian Agreement).96 So far these changes have been largely symbolic. They include referring to India as Bharat; references to Akhand Bharat (Greater India), which alludes to a so-called Indian sphere of influence; the use of terminology to promote the country’s civilizational identity, such as India as a Vishvaguru (‘world teacher’) and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (‘world as one family’); and attempts to project soft power through India’s cultural attributes such as yoga and Ayurveda.97
However, there is often more rhetoric than substance to claims that Modi’s rise to power marks a unique strain of India’s strategic culture, as many of the principles of the BJP’s Hindutva worldview can be subsumed under the three ‘grand strategic prescriptions’.98 The BJP has been more active in using civilizational identity as a tool of foreign policy, but it is not the only political party to do so. For example, India’s ‘Buddhist diplomacy’ can be traced to several non-BJP governments, from India playing host to the International Buddhist Conference in 1952 to efforts to revive the ancient Nalanda University in 2010.99
Therefore, despite claims of a distinct ‘Modi doctrine’, there is more continuity in India’s foreign policy.100 The real source of change has come from the stronger mandate of the Modi government, which has fuelled a bolder foreign policy, coupled with a more favourable international system in which India is seen as a potential beneficiary of a more acute rivalry between China and the US. The external geopolitical environment marked by more pronounced US–China strategic competition is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. However, the domestic political environment is showing signs of change: the 2024 elections saw the BJP return on a weakened mandate, and Indian politics appears to be reverting to the norm of coalition governments that preceded Modi’s rise to power in 2014.101
India’s perceptions of US power
Closer relations with the West (and the US in particular) have been a key component of Indian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Economic imperatives have been a key driver of the Indo-US rapprochement. Oil-price shocks triggered by the first Gulf War prompted a foreign-exchange crisis for India in 1991. As a result, New Delhi received an emergency bailout from the IMF and accelerated its economic liberalization reforms. The loss of preferential access to markets following the Soviet Union’s collapse also led India to reorient its external relations, which included rapprochement with the US.102
Closer relations with the West (and the US in particular) have been a key component of Indian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Economic imperatives have been a key driver of the Indo-US rapprochement.
In an address to the US Congress in 2016, Modi proclaimed that India and the US had ‘overcome the hesitations of history’ in deepening their relationship.103 He was alluding to the fact that the relationship was strained for much of India’s post-independence history and particularly during the Cold War. This has been largely overcome, with strengthened cooperation in strategically important areas, including defence, technology and energy. This cooperation has been facilitated by India becoming increasingly enmeshed in a growing web of bilateral initiatives with the US (for example, the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, which has been renamed the TRUST – Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology – Initiative under the Trump administration) and in multilateral ones with countries with similar perceived values (for example, the Mineral Security Partnership and the Artemis Accords).
There has also been a values-based dimension to the India–US relationship. Unlike the United States’ relations with countries such as Vietnam or Saudi Arabia, which are more transactional and rooted in shared interests, there is a perception in the US that its relationship with India is rooted in shared values (in addition to shared interests). This perception has supported India’s efforts to partner with the US and other democratic states in minilateral initiatives (such as the Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the US), with the aim of upholding the rules-based international order.
Despite the highly polarized political environment in the US, India was among the countries least concerned by the outcome of the presidential election in November 2024, as Indian elites believe that the long-term trajectory of the India–US relationship will not change. To be sure, there are likely to be areas of specific friction in the India–US relationship under the second Trump administration – most notably in the areas of trade and immigration.104 Donald Trump’s inclination to see foreign policy in transactional terms may also weaken the narrative of a shared ideological affinity between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy. However, the US image of India as a bulwark against the rise of China remains unchanged and is a strong driver of a deeper bilateral relationship.
There is also a high degree of consensus across the political spectrum in India regarding a deepening of the relationship with the US. Those who do oppose closer engagement with the US and the West are largely fringe elements, such as the country’s communist parties. However, a much more prominent contingent of the foreign policy elite, while supporting a deepening relationship, also endorses India’s commitment to maintaining strategic autonomy.105 This position is rooted in India’s tradition of non-alignment dating back to the tenure of its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The stance has made India reluctant to take sides in great power conflicts in the belief that the country should be an independent pole of influence rather than a swing state in the international system.106
As such, limits on the degree of India–US alignment may strain this relationship, especially given the challenge of maintaining strategic autonomy in a climate of growing geopolitical polarization and bifurcation. As relations continue to deteriorate between the US and other countries in the West on the one hand, and between the US, China and Iran on the other, India may yet be forced to choose sides. At present, it is likely that India will become increasingly estranged in organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which promote an overtly anti-Western agenda. Forums that straddle this divide will be where India faces increasingly difficult choices; for instance, India is the second-largest shareholder in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and an Indian national was the first president of the BRICS New Development Bank. India is also among the leading recipients of loans from both institutions.
Therefore, while India will position itself closely to the US, this will remain well short of an alliance. This is not least because of India’s strategic realities – such as economic dependence on China and military dependence on Russia – but also because its ideological affinities are embedded in the commitment to maintain strategic autonomy in foreign policy. These pressure points will be exacerbated under the second Trump administration. A more insular US that is less interested in global leadership will create more space for other countries, including India, to step up. This will help India to fulfil its long-standing ambition to play a leadership role in an emerging multipolar global order. At the same time, a more erratic US foreign policy under Trump will complicate India’s relations with the US (as it will for other partners, allies and adversaries of Washington).
India and the liberal international order
India is a supporter of the rules-based international order, but it maintains a more ambiguous position on the liberal international order.107 While it supports the principles of state sovereignty, international law, the peaceful resolution of international disputes and an open international economy, it also seeks to scale back emphasis in such areas as human rights, liberalism and interventionism.108 This becomes evident when looking at India’s position on several legal principles and issues of global governance – including freedom of navigation, climate change, the right to development and the responsibility to protect – where the country often appears to be more in sync with China than the US. External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has acknowledged this: ‘For all their issues with each other, India or China have at the back of their mind a feeling that they are also contesting an established Western order.’109
Moreover, while it supports the rules-based international order, what role India seeks to play in upholding that order is unclear. It has supported efforts in the provision of global public goods in selected areas, such as contributions to UN peacekeeping operations, naval deployments in the Indian Ocean to protect commercial shipping from piracy attacks, and digital public infrastructure. However, India is also often regarded as non-committal or ambivalent in other areas.110 This is apparent in its limited role in mediation efforts in global conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza, where its actions are largely dictated by self-interest. In this context, India’s conception of the rules-based international order is not universal but selective, based on pragmatic considerations and the limitations of its ambitions and capabilities.111
On the liberal international order, India’s limited affinity with the West is evident in the global democracy debate. The country has not been averse to leveraging its credentials as the world’s most populous democracy as part of its bid for leadership in key international institutions. Embedded within this tendency to promote its democratic credentials is the belief that India is well placed to offer lessons to other countries in the Global South by challenging an alleged trade-off between development and democracy.112 India has also sought to employ its democratic credentials to undermine China’s competing ambition to lead the Global South.113
Democracy has also emerged as an important pillar of India’s engagement with the US. Their shared democratic credentials have also undergirded the claim that India and the US are ‘natural allies’.114 This narrative has been sustained across administrations in Washington. For instance, the 2022 US National Security Strategy stated:
As India is the world’s largest democracy and a Major Defense Partner, the United States and India will work together, bilaterally, and multilaterally, to support our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.115
Deepening Indo-US relations have made India a stronger advocate of democracy. Speaking in 2005, India’s then prime minister, Manmohan Singh, noted: ‘Liberal democracy is the natural order of political organisation in today’s world. All alternative systems, authoritarian and majoritarian in varying degrees, are an aberration.’116 The same year India and the US were founding members of the Global Democracy Initiative and the UN Democracy Fund.
India’s democracy agenda has continued under the Modi government, which has referred to the country as the ‘Mother of Democracy’ and a ‘pole star’ (dhruv tara) among democracies.117 Under Modi the democracy narrative has shifted amid a greater emphasis on governance through the ‘democratization of technology’ and digital inclusion via digital public infrastructure.118
However, regarding claims of common ground between the West and India on the democracy debate, a gap remains between rhetoric and reality. New Delhi rarely promotes democracy as part of its foreign policy. Its emphasis is rather on upholding the principle of state sovereignty and maintaining relations with all countries, whether democracies or non-democracies. New Delhi’s model of democracy promotion tends to focus on supporting democratic processes rather than principles; for instance, by providing training in constitution drafting and election management.119 In this context, India’s democracy promotion activities will usually be confined to providing top-down technical assistance rather than bottom-up support for civil society. India is also apprehensive about including democratic transition as a criterion of its development aid, unlike the West.
New Delhi will generally only promote democracy where this matches other geopolitical objectives.
As a result, India’s foreign policy is often not aligned with that of Western democracies. While India is not unique among them in prioritizing pragmatism over principle, on non-democratic and weak democratic regimes it is often more aligned with China. New Delhi will generally only promote democracy where this matches other geopolitical objectives. This means that New Delhi will not push for democratic change where an authoritarian regime does not have a hostile approach towards India (for example, Iran or Russia) or where a country is seen to be supporting India’s national security concerns (for example, Myanmar or Bangladesh under the previous Sheikh Hasina government).
Another problematic issue arises from India’s pursuit of a bolder foreign policy. To be sure, this has generated positive outcomes as India seeks recognition as a responsible global power. For example, during its G20 presidency, New Delhi offered so-called Indian solutions to global problems such as climate change, digital public infrastructure and global health.120 However, should India seek to be exempted from global rules and norms because of the country’s self-perceived exceptional status, this will become a source of concern. Evidence of such behaviour can be seen in allegations of Indian complicity in recent assassination plots in several countries, including the US.121 New Delhi’s push to adopt a bolder foreign policy could become more problematic under the second Trump presidency as Indian foreign policy elites will challenge any criticism on the grounds of hypocrisy, noting that Washington is increasingly abandoning the order it helped to establish.
Indian positioning on the China–US rivalry
One of the pillars of the India–US relationship is the perception of India as a balancer against the rise of China. As New Delhi’s and Washington’s relations with Beijing have deteriorated, this narrative has strengthened. Moreover, as India and the US have deepened their relations, they have also developed a more collaborative approach on issues of regional security and global governance, where they have voiced common concerns about Chinese behaviour.122
India has long had a difficult relationship with China. This is rooted in their territorial dispute along their land border and competing visions of regional order: New Delhi favours a multipolar regional order while Beijing has a Sino-centric conception for one. This explains India’s long-standing aversion to China-led regional and global initiatives, including the Belt and Road Initiative. Tensions were exacerbated by a border flare-up in 2020, and have since set the tone of relations.123 In October 2024, the situation seemed to de-escalate following the conclusion of a border agreement. Despite this, however, India is no longer willing to shelve the border dispute while deepening cooperation in other areas, which had been the practice since the late 1980s. China’s ‘all-weather’ relationship with Pakistan and engagement with other countries in South Asia have also been sources of tension in the relationship.
Following the deterioration of its relationship with China, India has become less apprehensive about participating in US-led regional and global initiatives that previously it would have seen as offending Beijing. From an economic standpoint, Indian elites see their country as a beneficiary of the effort to de-risk or diversify supply chains away from China. On the security front, collaboration with the US is more ambiguous given there is a lack of clarity over the role India would play in a potential China–US conflict over Taiwan, for example.124 This has not prevented greater defence cooperation between New Delhi and Washington, with the US becoming India’s leading partner for joint military exercises and an increasingly important supplier of defence equipment. India has also become more willing to call out China’s acts of assertiveness, from the South China Sea to the Taiwan Strait.
Yet, ambiguities remain in the India–US relationship when it comes to China. India’s commitment to strategic autonomy makes New Delhi reluctant to be part of any US-led initiative that resembles a military alliance.125 Moreover, the limited overtures by both the US and India to China trigger sporadic concerns about strategic abandonment in New Delhi and Washington alike. New Delhi fears a return to a G2-type great power condominium between the US and China, while Washington fears the adoption of the ‘Asia for Asians’ concept that has been proposed by Beijing.126 This shows that there remains a gap in how India and the US perceive each other, stemming from India’s position of strategic autonomy and solidarity with the Global South on the one hand, and the US prioritization of its alliance relations and the liberal international order on the other, although the US commitment to upholding these priorities is being eroded under the second Trump administratıon.
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