The vision of a new world order

Concept and evolution

• The term “new world order” gained prominence after President George H.W. Bush’s 1991 speech advocating a system governed by the rule of law.
• The trajectory: Westphalian multipolarity → Cold War bipolarity → post-Cold War unipolarity.
• The world is now at a critical juncture, with the Indo-Pacific and Asia — the “Asian Century” — as the pivot, and the US facing rising challenges from Asian powers.

From Westphalia to the Asian Century. Westphalian (Multipolarity of sovereign states) → Cold War (Bipolarity: US vs USSR) → Post-Cold War (US unipolarity) → Emerging (Multipolarity — the Asian Century)

India’s vision — multipolarity and multi-alignment

• A multipolar world reflecting India’s pluralistic, tolerant heritage — contrasting with China’s “Middle Kingdom” perspective — aiming to expand strategic space without a new hegemon or bipolar system.
• Rooted in strategic autonomy (manoeuvrability), diverse interests (many partners) and countering hegemony (countervailing coalitions).
• Scholars: S. Jaishankar urges proactive engagement and active roles in international organisations as traditional powers decline; Veena Kukreja sees an assertive India seizing the opening left by the end of US unipolarity; Barry Buzan describes a “rise of the rest” diffusing power; C. Raja Mohan traces the shift from non-alignment to multi-alignment; Avinash Kumar backs multipolarity to democratise international relations; Sumit Ganguly examines the balance between strategic independence and active diplomacy.

Strategic autonomy — Nehru to Modi

Strategic autonomy

Freedom to choose partners and positions by interest, not bloc loyalty — recast by S. Jaishankar from the “choice of inaction” into the “choice of action.”

• Vijay Gokhale grounds autonomy in an issue-based approach rather than ideological non-alignment.
• India and Russia: ties from April 1947; non-interference as a constant — Russian silence on Chumar, Doklam and Galwan; India’s neutrality on Crimea and Ukraine. Post-2022, India became the second-largest importer of Russian oil, with almost a 600% trade rise. Harsh V. Pant reads the Ukraine war as the most serious test of India’s autonomy under Modi.

The five pillars of the India–Russia partnership: Strategic alignment · Economic development · Defence cooperation · Science & technology · Cultural exchange

Strategic autonomy, redefined

Contribution — G20, culture, connectivity

• Cultural heritage — multiculturalism, pluralism, tolerance, cosmopolitanism — as India’s distinctive asset in shaping an inclusive order, to be matched by unity and inclusivity at home.
• Modi at the World Economic Forum (India as a “champion of liberal international order”), at the Shangri-La Dialogue (clarity on the Indo-Pacific), drawing on Lothal (ancient trade) and Buddhism (peace).
• G20 Presidency (2023): the theme “One Earth, One Family, One Future” (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam). Achievements: inclusion of the African Union; the Global Biofuels Alliance (with the US and Brazil); digital-economy and cybersecurity frameworks; a pledge to triple renewable capacity by 2030; and IMEC as a counter to the Belt and Road.
• The stated ambition: India moving from a mere “balancer” to a “leading state.”
• Analysts: Chietigj Bajpaee — India “sees itself as a bridge between the West and the Global South”; Ume Farwa traces autonomy from Nehru’s non-alignment to Modi’s realpolitik, warning of a China “security dilemma” and a “lack of real partners”; Purnendra Jain — India “aims to be a leading power,” convening Voice of Global South summits.

A multipolar world and a multipolar Asia

• India envisions a multipolar Asia of shared regional leadership, reasoning that China’s rise is unbalancing the regional structure and eroding India’s choices.
• The essence rests on an equal distribution of power and responsibility (the AIIB, an expanded SCO and the NDB illustrate China’s stature).
• Three elements: the diffusion of power interlinks Asian — especially Indian — security with global security and strengthens India at the UNSC; major and minor powers must share collective decision-making; and inclusivity, not exclusivity, should leave space for an external power like the US. In Asia, India promotes “shared leadership” among India, China and Japan.

India and the Emerging World Order

India has traditionally supported a multipolar order over a bipolar or unipolar one, underpinned by international law and respect for sovereignty (H. V. Shringla, CICA, 2021).

• Why the preference — unease with balance-of-power games and arms races, and a civilisational self-image as a moral power unwilling to play second fiddle. India practises contingent balancing (Pratap Bhanu Mehta) — reaching out to the USA after 1962, signing the 1971 treaty with the USSR when interests required.
• Determinants of engagement — primacy, though contested, in South Asia and SAARC; the rise of China and the Indo-Pacific; energy and trade interests in ASEAN, West Asia and Central Asia; growing reach into Africa and Latin America.
• The vision — strategic autonomy and flexibility: multiple cooperative partnerships rather than binding alliances. A multipolar order would normalise such complexity and keep India out of any single power’s sphere (Ummu Salma Bava).
• India’s role — pressing for fair representation and UN Security Council reform; using its IT-driven economy and young workforce; positioning itself as a responsible nuclear power. P. R. Shankar sees a rising India, drawing on its non-alignment experience, as a potential “bridge and balancing” third pole between the USA and China.
• The framing to write — non-alignment has matured into strategic autonomy: India seeks engagement with all major players in an interdependent world, working through “shifting and variable coalitions rather than settled alliances” (S. Jaishankar; Non-Alignment 2.0).

India’s Place in the Emerging Order

• Devin T. Hagerty → world politics is in transition from bipolarity to a new, as yet indeterminate order; the ‘unipolar moment’ is giving way. Two futures: a new bipolarity (US and China atop the great-power hierarchy), or a re-emergence of multipolarity — historically the most common configuration — with BRICS states along with Germany, Japan and Turkey as potential poles.
• States vary on a continuum from status quo to revisionist. China’s place on it is among the liveliest debates in international affairs; its projection of a ‘peaceful rise’ expresses the aspiration to become a world power without threatening the US-led order, and to appear a responsible ‘stakeholder’.
• Robert Gilpin → as new states climb the great-power hierarchy they eventually try to alter existing rules and norms — rules created by other, now declining, great powers for their own purposes. Aspiring great powers try to reshape prevailing norms to suit their interests, which can spark instability.

Scholar readings of the five relationships

India’s Indian Ocean Statecraft — SAGAR to MAHASAGAR

• SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) was launched by PM Modi in Mauritius in 2015; it was expanded to MAHASAGAR, announced in Mauritius on 12 March 2025, resting on trade for development, capacity building and mutual security.
• Pooja Bhatt → records real gains in maritime awareness, disaster relief and naval diplomacy, but finds the agenda under-institutionalised — “more of a guiding strategic vision than an operational policy”.
• Colombo Security Conclave — an India-led Indian Ocean group whose five pillars include maritime security, counter-terrorism and disaster relief. It reached six members after Seychelles acceded at the 7th NSA meeting, New Delhi, November 2025, chaired by Ajit Doval. Harsh V. Pant and Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy tie its revival to the China factor and to India’s role as regional “first responder”. Both MAHASAGAR and the Conclave present an inclusive alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative.
• Voice of Global South Summit — first hosted virtually by India in January 2023 on the theme “Unity of Voice, Unity of Purpose”, with 125 countries taking part, timed ahead of India’s 2023 G20 presidency. C. Raja Mohan reads it as statecraft rather than a revival of non-alignment: Delhi shunned the anti-Western tone of past summits, and the outreach complements rather than works against India’s partnerships with the United States and Europe.

“It shall encompass the ideas of trade for development, capacity building for sustainable growth, and mutual security for a shared future.”

Narendra Modi on MAHASAGAR, Mauritius, 12 March 2025

The Idea of the Asian Century

• The idea argues that the twenty-first century international order will be defined by Asia’s pre-eminence, the way American pre-eminence defined the twentieth century and Europe the nineteenth. It is also seen as Asian countries’ mutual rediscovery through reconnection and reintegration, repairing artificial divisions in Asian social, economic and cultural space created by colonial intervention.
• It appeared in the early 1990s as the world began sensing Asia’s economic resurgence, facilitated by the end of the Cold War. With the growth of Asian economies, mainly China’s, the share of the United States fell, leading to relative decline. After the 2008 global recession, during which the Chinese economy helped stabilise the world economy, the idea gained further traction, powered by China’s rise and recognition of India’s progress and long-term potential.
• India and China are ‘twin engines’ of the Asian Century, in geopolitical and geo-economic terms, by virtue of their geographic, demographic, economic and military profiles. The quality of no two other Asian countries’ bilateral relations will be as critical to its realisation.
• Challenges come more from within Asia than from outside. China should realise that most parts of Asia show promise for growth and are interconnected; the Asian Century is not China’s century alone, and its essence lies in multipolar Asia. China’s conduct toward its neighbours should be more inspiring and accommodating of their rise. China’s ‘Asia for Asians’ slogan has an exclusionary tone. The Asian Century is not about isolating Asia from the wider world, nor is it a formula to project China’s leadership.
• Chinese aggression, particularly in the post-COVID order, has swept away hopes for a peaceful and cooperative Asian order. The two countries imagined as joint leaders have been locked in military conflict at their border. The hostility has spilled beyond the bilateral relationship into South Asia: as South Asian states carve their own path amid the competition, regional dynamics become geopolitical events — the Chinese ship Yuan Wang 5 docking at Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port, described by China as a research vessel while India raised security concerns, presented Sri Lanka with a difficult choice.
• A South Asia already carrying deep fissures along lines of migration, citizenship and religion continues to witness increasing hostility between the two Asian giants, and moves by either or both to woo or antagonise South Asian countries will not augur well for Asia as a whole.
• Evidence against feasibility — the border conflict since 2020; the breakdown of the 1988 consensus; Shashi Tharoor’s “cold peace” turned colder; a trade deficit of about US$ 92 billion in 2024 and Indian dependence on Chinese inputs.
• Structural obstacle — Samir Saran: China treats multipolarity as good for the world but not for Asia; “One mountain cannot contain two tigers”. Worldview obstacle — Shyam Saran on the Middle Kingdom complex against the Indian conception of Bharatvarsha.
• Evidence for continued feasibility — BRICS, the SCO, the AIIB, RIC, BASIC, the COP26 alignment on coal phase-down, and trade that has kept growing despite tensions. The economic case survives; the political case depends on whether Asia’s two largest powers can convert coexistence into cooperation.

India and Other Emerging Powers

• India’s interactions with other emerging powers such as Brazil and South Africa reflect a commitment to South-South cooperation. Sachin Chaturvedi → the IBSA Dialogue Forum illustrates India’s strategy of building collective influence among developing countries to advocate a more inclusive global order.
• The BRICS countries increasingly assert influence in international finance and economic governance, seeking reform in the World Bank and the IMF, and have created the New Development Bank and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement.
• On climate, India works with Brazil, South Africa and China through BASIC and with the Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries.
• South Africa, like India, abstained at the UN on Ukraine and refused to join sanctions, on the ground that they were unilateral and imposed without UN approval — evidence that the developing-country position on the war was not an Indian peculiarity.
• India’s newer trade architecture with emerging and middle powers includes agreements concluded with Australia and the UAE, and negotiations sought with the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada.
• IBSA’s four objectives — reform of global governance, pursued alongside BRICS demands for change in the World Bank and the IMF; South-South cooperation, extending the logic India applies in BASIC and the LMDC; coalition-building on trade, pressing developed nations on their Doha Development Agenda commitments; and support for UNSC reform, complementary to India’s G4 track with Japan.
• Value for India — three large democracies of three different continents, all outside the Western alliance system; a forum where India is not the junior partner, unlike groupings that include China, and one that carries no alliance obligation. Harsh V. Pant → India must manage multiple simultaneous arrangements, from BRICS to the Quad, and IBSA is part of that portfolio rather than an alternative to it.

BRICS and the SCO — the 2025 summits

Expansion, revisionism and the polarity dispute

• Ashley J. Tellis → India values the group as a status stage, a lever for multipolarity and a route to Global South leadership; India and Brazil actively resist the anti-Western turn that Moscow and Beijing want, and multi-alignment is India’s steadiest foundation in a disordered system.
• Oliver Stuenkel → membership is insurance against diplomatic isolation and a way to manage the rise of China. Thaís Dória and Gustavo de Carvalho → ten members strain a consensus model designed for five; they count more than 180 cooperation mechanisms, weak institutional memory and an over-stretched rotating chair, and judge that consolidation, not further expansion, should now take priority.
• Alexander Gabuev → the Kremlin treats BRICS as the base for a post-American order and a shield against sanctions. Tong Zhao → for Beijing it is a bridge to reshape global rules, working beside the BRI and the SCO. Mihaela Papa and Zhen Han → BRICS restrains US power on some issues while cooperating on others — anti-hegemonic without seeking a clean break.
• Is the order actually multipolar? Rajesh Rajagopalan → the system is bipolar: only the US and China hold first-rank power, and reading multipolarity as reality is a costly Indian illusion. C. Raja Mohan → the multipolar idea persists in Indian thinking even as a bipolar order forms, while official Delhi adapts nimbly in practice. Amitav Acharya → the coming order is multiplex — post-Western and decentred, with many actors and no single dominant power, bloc or ideology.
• Substance or stagecraft? Papa and Han read the NDB and the CRA as genuine institutional balancing, while noting the reserve pool has never been drawn and the bank borrows in dollars. On the SCO, Sujan R. Chinoy holds the forum is largely China-driven yet India’s presence checks an anti-Western drift; Jason Wahlang adds that India’s position outside the BRI limits its gains from SCO economic projects.
• Harsh V. Pant → enlargement has imported regional rivalries and weakened cohesion, though India’s chairship holds the group to a development agenda rather than open fragmentation.

“Connectivity that by-passes sovereignty, ultimately loses both trust and meaning.” — Narendra Modi, 25th SCO Summit, Tianjin, 1 September 2025

“The sooner India gives up its fantasies about multipolarity, the better.”

Rajesh Rajagopalan

“the myth of multipolarity endures in Indian foreign policy discourse even as a bipolar world takes shape.”

C. Raja Mohan

The Balancing Vocabulary — how scholars classify India’s conduct

“post-Galwan India has sustained a level of limited hard balancing even as threat perceptions have subsided.”

Jivanta Schottli, Asian Security (2026)

“India’s evasive balancing strategy can neither balance China adequately nor accommodate it sufficiently.”

Rajesh Rajagopalan

“New Delhi is effectively hedging against the uncertainties of a fragmented global order… without becoming a subordinate ally to any one of them.”

Rahul Pandey, Valdai Discussion Club

From Non-Alignment to Multi-Alignment

Non-Alignment 1.0 and 2.0 — what carries over

• Both are anti-violence, anti-imperialist and anti-colonial.
• Both aim to protect national interest — sovereignty and territorial integrity.
• Both reject formal military blocs and uphold an independent, autonomous foreign policy.

What changes

• 1.0 → non-alignment from bloc politics; 2.0 → multiple alignment.
• 1.0 emerged in the Cold War; 2.0 in the setting of globalization and liberalization.
• 1.0 was largely Nehru’s personal initiative; 2.0 arose from the changing dynamics of a multipolar world.
• 1.0 diluted ties with neighbours; 2.0 deepens them through Act East and Link West.
• 1.0 was strictly against military alignment; under 2.0 India has signed LEMOA and COMCASA, moving away from a purely Nehruvian posture.

The Non-Alignment 2.0 document (2012)

• Framed by twelve experts on international relations, defence and foreign policy → a prescription for India’s foreign and strategic policy over the following decade.
• Objectives → identify opportunities and challenges; enhance strategic autonomy while upholding liberal values; set out a comprehensive framework built on India’s economic and security capabilities.
• Key formulations → “strategic autonomy has been the defining value” since independence; the goal is “to give India maximum options”; and knowledge is “the field that is vital to defining national power in the twenty-first century.”
• Criticism → Bharat Karnad calls it a regressive roadmap, faulting its overemphasis on ideational and moral influence and questioning the revival of non-alignment when material power drives international relations.

Strategic autonomy and multi-alignment

• Terminology → the phrase “Non-Aligned” was first used by V.K. Krishna Menon at the UN General Assembly in 1953 and by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1956.
• S. Jaishankar → non-alignment belonged to a specific era and context, but the independence of action within it remains a thread of continuity in Indian foreign policy.
• Multi-alignment → engaging several powers at once on specific interests — defence, trade, technology — without a single alliance.
• Nirupama Rao → strategic autonomy is now driven by sustained economic growth, energy and maritime security, and access to technology and innovation, pursued through “well-rounded strategic relationships and partnerships with all the major powers.”
• Tanvi Madan → India’s NAM heritage still supplies diplomatic flexibility, letting it engage many states without binding itself to one bloc.

“This is a time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood and expand traditional constituencies of support.”

S. Jaishankar (2020)

Multi-alignment — many partnerships, one decision-maker. PARTNERSHIPS (Quad · BRICS · SCO · INSTC · G20 activism · defence and energy ties with Russia) → STRATEGIC AUTONOMY (issue-by-issue judgment; no single bloc) → OUTCOMES (maximum options · Global South leadership · “Vishwa Mitra”). Voice of Global South Summits · Vaccine Maitri · African Union into the G20 · International Solar Alliance · digital public infrastructure

“There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.”

the Chanakya maxim invoked by India’s strategic establishment

Answer-frame — 1.0 against 2.0

• Shared ground → anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, protection of sovereignty, rejection of military blocs, an independent foreign policy.
• Divergence → 1.0 sought distance from blocs; 2.0 seeks multiple, issue-based alignments.
• Instruments of 2.0 → LEMOA and COMCASA, Act East and Link West, and non-attendance at NAM summits mark the departure from Nehruvian practice.
• Scholarly framing → C. Raja Mohan holds the old tenets less adequate today; Harsh V. Pant argues India cannot be pigeonholed into a rigid non-aligned stance.
• Assessment → the grammar shifts from neutrality to engagement; the constant is autonomy in decision-making.

Answer-frame — debunked, or reinterpreted?

• Non-alignment was the cornerstone of Cold War diplomacy → autonomy through the avoidance of formal alliances.
• A de facto tilt toward the Soviet Union already qualified strict non-alignment, forced by the US posture toward Pakistan and China.
• The 1991 Soviet collapse and economic liberalization pushed a reorientation toward strategic autonomy and strategic partnerships.
• Multi-alignment reinforces autonomy by cultivating a diverse network of partnerships across the geopolitical spectrum.
• Continuity, not rupture → as at Bandung, India can still model a path for the Global South between US–China confrontation.
• Assessment → “debunk” overstates it; India has reinterpreted non-alignment as multi-alignment while keeping strategic autonomy intact.

Answer-frame — an alternative universality

• Non-Alignment 2.0 (2012) set out a framework for India’s foreign and strategic policy, drawing on Nehruvian principles adapted to a multipolar world.
• Alternative universality → India offering a model of order distinct from both Western liberal hegemony and rigid bloc politics.
• Strategic autonomy as the defining value → policy that gives India “maximum options” while preserving the core of non-alignment.
• Emphasis on an open global order, deep economic engagement, and knowledge as the key to national power in the twenty-first century.
• A polycentric order → states coexisting and cooperating in networks rather than fixed alliances, which is what makes multi-alignment possible.
• Global South leadership → the Voice of Global South Summits and the African Union’s entry into the G20 project this aspiration.
• Assessment → 2.0 does frame India as a site of an alternative universality, but its credibility rests on converting convening power into concrete outcomes.

India’s Soft Power & Public Diplomacy

• Cultural diplomacy runs through India’s regional engagement: the ICCR runs scholarships and cultural programmes in Afghanistan (Culture Week 2017; ~14,000 Afghan students) and Palestine (ICCR scholarships, Kathak and martial-arts programmes).
• Public diplomacy converts values into influence — vaccine diplomacy (COVISHIELD to Saudi Arabia; doses to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover), the Voice of Global South summits, and the “One Earth, One Family, One Future” G20 messaging.
• Soft power complements hard power: it sustains India’s foothold without direct security involvement, though critics note it cannot secure every strategic interest on its own.

Assessment

India’s recent foreign policy across its western arc pairs realpolitik with principled diplomacy. In West Asia it has moved from a provider of security toward a builder of peace, holding independent partnerships with the Gulf, Israel and Iran without being trapped by their rivalries. In Afghanistan it balances non-recognition with humanitarian engagement, denying space to a China–Pakistan axis while protecting security and connectivity. Ties with the United States and Israel have deepened even as India guards strategic autonomy — refusing mediation on Kashmir, staying neutral on Ukraine.

Underlying all of it is a reformist vision of a multipolar world and a multipolar Asia, resting on strategic autonomy, multi-alignment and cultural heritage. India’s ambition — from balancer to leading state — will turn on converting flexible autonomy into consistent leadership, deepening regional trust, and presenting a stable, cohesive democracy at home.