Source: The post India balances ties while guarding strategic autonomy has been created, based on the article “ India’s strategic autonomy in a multipolar world” published in “The Hindu” on 6 September 2025. India balances ties while guarding strategic autonomy.
UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2- international relations -Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
Context: Strategic autonomy has moved from academic theory to India’s daily diplomacy. A fragmented world, sharpened rivalries among the U.S., China, and Russia, and fraying alliances have triggered a renewed debate on how India preserves sovereign choices while pursuing security, growth, technology, and regional stability.
What is strategic autonomy?
- Definition and scope: It is the sovereign ability to take foreign policy and defence decisions free from external pressure or alliance constraints. It is not isolationism or neutrality, but flexible, interest-driven engagement on India’s terms.
2. Indian origins and evolution: The idea draws from colonial experience and a resolve to decide India’s place in the world. It evolved from Nehru’s non-alignment to today’s “multi-alignment,” preserving freedom of action amid changing realities.
3. Promise and practice: It offers a middle path between bloc politics and disengagement. In practice it requires deft diplomacy, resilient institutions, and a clear view of national interest.
How is the world order changing?
- From dominance to fragmentation: The unipolar moment has given way to a fluid order marked by China’s assertiveness, Russia’s revisionism, and Western divisions. Washington’s unpredictability adds uncertainty.
2. India’s recalibration and interests: India must recalibrate ties while safeguarding territorial integrity, economic growth, technology advancement, and regional stability. Strategic choices are shaped by these core interests.
3. Flexibility with resilience: Autonomy demands adaptable partnerships and steady statecraft. It is essential for a rising India that avoids clientelism yet remains deeply engaged.
How is India managing the United States?
- Deepening partnership: Over two decades, defence cooperation, intelligence sharing, exercises, and technology transfers have expanded. The Quad, Indo-Pacific dialogues, I2U2, and IMEC reflect converging concerns over China.
2. Friction points: Erratic trade policies, tariffs, and sanctions in the Trump era strained economic ties. Pressure to curb energy and defence dealings with Russia tested India’s resolve.
3. Measured response: India engages the U.S. while taking independent positions on conflicts. It places national interest above ideological alignment, rejecting subsumption under another’s priorities.
How is India balancing China and Russia?
- China: challenge and approach: The 2020 border clashes ended assumptions of benign coexistence, even as China remains a major trading partner and regional actor. India mixes cautious engagement with firm deterrence, stronger borders, Indo-Pacific partnerships, and indigenous defence.
2. Meaning vis-à-vis China: Autonomy rejects confrontation or capitulation. India asserts sovereignty, avoids being anyone’s counterweight, controls Chinese economic access, and keeps diplomatic channels open.
3. Russia: continuity amid change: Ties rest on Cold War solidarity, defence cooperation, and shared interests. Even as Russia faced global isolation after the Ukraine conflict and drew closer to China, India continued to buy Russian oil, procure defence equipment, and keep diplomatic channels open.
4. Refusing binaries: India diversifies imports and builds indigenous capacity without abandoning old partners. It will not accept external vetoes or a forced choice between camps.
What is India’s Global South posture?
- Voice and identity: During the G-20 presidency, India framed itself as the Global South’s voice—plural, potent, and democratic. Its democracy was cast as a “bouquet of hope.”
2. Interest-led partnerships: Policy is shaped by interest, not sentiment. India seeks to be “non-West” without being “anti-West,” practising assertive, pragmatic, unapologetically Indian diplomacy.
3. Resonance across the South: Many rising and middle powers seek agency over alignment. They prioritise regional peace and stability while guarding geopolitical and economic interests.
What capabilities sustain autonomy and what is the path ahead?
- Domestic prerequisites: Autonomy needs economic strength, technological capability, and political coherence. Polarisation, vulnerabilities, and institutional limits can undercut choices.
2. New domains: Because cyber, AI, and space are new arenas of contestation, autonomy must extend into them. That means ensuring data sovereignty, robust digital infrastructure, and secure supply chains.
3. Recent steps: India is building indigenous platforms, securing critical minerals, and asserting its voice in global tech governance. These moves aim at resilience and adaptability.
4. Strategy, not slogan: India must keep walking the tightrope—engaging the U.S. without vassalage, deterring China without war, and partnering Russia without isolation. It should invest in capabilities, cultivate partnerships, and assert interests with clarity, reclaiming agency while standing straight and tall.
Question for practice:
Examine how India practises strategic autonomy while balancing ties with the United States, China, and Russia.
