A World in Flux
The world has noticeably changed over the last few years – wars, conflicts, supply chain disruptions, trade disputes, tariffs, multilateralism is on the wane. All these are a sign of a world transitioning from rules-based order, which ensured relative stability to a state of flux. The Ukraine war, which started in Feb 2022 is ongoing. In West Asia, there is an ongoing wa
World in a Flux - India's Strategic Autonomy
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r in Iran, and Israel is involved in conflict within its wider region since 2023. Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas continue to pursue asymmetric warfare. Conflicts simmer below the threshold of declared war. Economic interdependence, once considered as a restraint on rivalry, is now routinely being weaponised. Tariffs, sanctions, technology controls, energy supplies and critical minerals are all being leveraged as viable and potent tools of statecraft.
The multilateral institutions built after 1945 to manage
competition between states look increasingly unable to enforce the rules, as
per their laid down charter. The Security Council remains paralysed by the
interests of its permanent members. Multilateralism has not collapsed, but its
capacity to constrain great-power behaviour has eroded. Power is back at the
centre of international relations. Nowhere is this clearer than in the
relationship between the United States and China.
The G2 Reality
The recent US - China summit must be read against this
backdrop. The label “G2” was coined by President Trump to refer to the United
States and China, the two great powers. In this context, what matters most is
that Washington and Beijing have had two bilateral summit level meetings. The
statements at the end of the summit indicate that the two are openly shaping
the strategic, economic and technological environment. It seems like a given
that every other country will have to operate in the environment created by
these bilateral G2 summits. The very discussion of a more transactional US - China
compact has already forced capitals across the Indo-Pacific and the rest of the
world to recalculate their options to safeguard their vital national interests.
For India the Stakes are Especially High
India’s partnership with the United States has deepened in
technology, defence, trade and the Indo-Pacific. It continues to remain a
partnership, not an alliance. Trade frictions, tariff disputes and differences
over New Delhi’s energy purchases from Iran and Russia have been ongoing during
the Trump 2.0 administration. These issues are a periodic reminder to New Delhi
that Washington will always put its own national interests first, irrespective
of the Indo-Pacific Quad partnership.
With China the relationship is more complex. Beijing is
India’s largest strategic challenge; its biggest source of imports; and a
geographic neighbour. The post-Galwan chill has eased into cautious
stabilisation, but the boundary dispute and deep strategic distrust remain
unresolved. The asymmetry between strategic competition and economic dependence
is uncomfortable and real.
India cannot treat either relationship as binary. Nor can
it assume that the United States and China will stay permanently locked in
confrontation. They may compete fiercely and cooperate selectively, as is being
witnessed. They may bargain on one issue while clashing on another. They may
even manage their rivalry in ways that suit them and leave everyone else
adjusting to the consequences.
That is the G2 dilemma for any middle power, including
India. The question is not which side India should choose. India has oft repeated
strategic autonomy as an important pillar of its foreign policy. The question then
becomes whether India will retain the freedom to choose at all?
Autonomy Requires Capability
India has long prized strategic autonomy. In a less
competitive world, it was more of a diplomatic signal and intent, which gave it
the freedom to say, “we will not be dictated to.” That is only half the truth.
The harder half is possessing the strength to live with the consequences of
saying no.
A country dependent on others for its energy security,
technology, critical components, military hardware, capital or market access
may formally retain sovereignty, while at the same time, it may be losing
practical freedom of action, in an uncertain world. Strategic autonomy is more
than just a posture; it is posture that is insured with capability. To put it
simply, strategic autonomy is not “India will decide for itself.” It is
ensuring that “India possesses sufficient capability that others cannot easily
decide for India.”
This capability is broader, and more than just military
power. It includes economic resilience, manufacturing depth, energy and food
security, critical minerals, financial strength, infrastructure, defence
production, space and cyber capacity, human capital, institutional competence, and
the diplomatic weight that flows from all the above. Autonomy is expensive. In
a more uncertain world, it is becoming even more expensive.
India has begun to practice this approach through targeted
de-hyphenation, modular partnerships and multi-alignment or engaging multiple
partners independently, building sector-specific coalitions rather than rigid
alliances, and participating simultaneously in forums that sometimes pull in
different directions. India’s membership of the UN, WTO, G-20, BRICS, ADB, Quad,
and other international fora are the means to give the above doctrine an
operational form.
Progress, The Demographic Clock, and The Gap
That Remains
India is no longer India of 1991, even less of 1947.
Macroeconomic resilience has improved. A large digital economy has emerged.
Infrastructure has been built at a scale once unimaginable. Defence production
and exports are rising. The efforts to involve private industry, start-ups and
academia in defence innovation and manufacture have started to bear fruit.
India’s handling of COVID demonstrated the country’s
capacity to mobilise at speed under extraordinary pressure. It rapidly expanded
domestic vaccine manufacturing, became substantially self sufficient in vaccine
production, and not only vaccinated a large population base in India, but also
supplied vaccines and other medical assistance to other countries through the Vaccine
Maitri programme. This was an important demonstration of national capability –
a reminder that countries possessing critical technologies and supplies can
contribute to global resilience rather than merely competing for scarce
resources.
India remains one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies.
The World Bank’s October 2026 India Development Update projects 7.1
percent growth for FY27, supported by robust domestic demand and strong
exports, despite global headwinds. This follows robust recent performance. These
are not trivial achievements. Nor can these become a reason for complacency. The
World Bank Update recommended strengthening workforce skills, establishing a
more business enabling environment and improving the physical and digital infra
structure. In addition, energy diversification and continued reform are a must
to retain freedom of action.
Even with the above progress, the gap with China has
remained very wide. In 2025 China’s nominal GDP stood at roughly US$19.5
trillion against India’s approximately US$4 trillion; manufacturing value
added was more than nine times larger, and manufacturing’s share of GDP was
about 25 percent in China versus roughly 13 percent in India. These numbers
matter. Economic power eventually translates into strategic choice. China’s
rise was not overnight. It was the product of decades of sustained investment,
industrialisation, technological learning, human-capital development and state-directed
execution. India has been travelling a different road.
There is another important marker for India. It’s roughly
three-decade demographic-dividend window is running in parallel with
intensifying great-power rivalry, deglobalisation and technological disruption.
India is projected to be the world’s largest source of energy demand growth by
2035. The window will not stay open forever. Delay now carries a rising
strategic cost. India thus faces an immediate challenge.
One Challenge, Three Models
The first model is China, a country that along with India emerged
from poverty in the late 1940s. Its progress since 1978 has been commendable
and shows what concentrated central authority can achieve when paired with
long-term continuity, enormous investment and capable execution. China’s
success cannot simply be reduced to authoritarianism, as some suggest. Its rise
also involved economic reform, openness to global markets and technology,
infrastructure, manufacturing, education, entrepreneurship and institutional
learning. Nor should the Chinese model be romanticised, as it also shows the
risks. Concentrated power can accelerate decisions, but it can also magnify the
consequences of wrong decisions. Political centralisation may reduce friction
of governance while simultaneously reducing the mechanisms through which dissent
and policy failures are exposed.
The United States shows that a democracy can mobilise
industrial, scientific, financial power and human resources on a vast scale,
when a genuine sense of common national purpose is present, as it did during
the Second World War. And thereafter the country did not return to the pre-war
world after victory. It helped construct a new international architecture,
including the United Nations, Bretton Woods institutions, GATT, which later
morphed in to WTO, while continuing to build its own economic, technological
and military capabilities. The United States emerged as a leader after WW-II
and helped shape the international order that followed.
The lesson is that India must find a third way, an Indian
way of generating the urgency, discipline and a common national purpose of a crisis
without waiting for a catastrophe or war forcing it to create the same. That is
the central challenge of Indian democracy.
India’s Democratic Challenge
India’s democracy and its political system is vibrant,
argumentative and intensely competitive, which is both its strength, and at
times, its weakness too. Political competition is essential in a democracy. It
delivers accountability and prevents the concentration of power. But when
competition consumes all national bandwidth, vital long-term projects, like industrial
capacity, education reform, technological ecosystems, energy security, defence
industrialisation become challenging to execute effectively. Building these
projects does not happen in one election cycle of five years. These are
generational tasks. China can pursue them with continuity by the nature of its
system. The United States has historically found consensus in moments of
crisis. Can India develop the capacity for sustained national purpose while
remaining fully democratic? That is the real question.
The answer does not lie in blaming democracy for governance
failures. Bureaucratic inertia, judicial delays, regulatory unpredictability,
tolerance for mediocrity, and uneven state capacity are governance problems. Thus,
the challenge for India is to make democracy produce high state capacity, not
to dilute democracy in the name of efficiency.
From Potential to Capability
Scale is India’s great advantage in terms of a huge population
of 1.4 billion, large domestic market, young talented workforce, sophisticated technology
sector, a large volunteer military and growing civilisational confidence
increasingly visible in the world. But potential is neither capability nor power.
A billion plus people do not automatically equal national power. A large
economy does not automatically deliver technological sovereignty. A young
population does not automatically become a demographic dividend. A large
military does not automatically produce military capability.
The next phase of India’s development thus must be about
converting this potential into capability. That means manufacturing at scale
not just assembling of products; creating technology rather than only consuming
and servicing it; building deeper research capabilities in artificial
intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology, space, quantum and advanced
materials. It means reducing critical dependencies without pursuing an economically
inefficient version of self-sufficiency. It means building defence systems and
creating their ecosystems rather than merely buying platforms and systems.
It also means deliberate resource and financial autonomy:
diversifying energy and critical-mineral sources across multiple geographies to
manage inflation and industrial needs; advancing the internationalisation of
the rupee; and reducing vulnerability to financial coercion. Defence
modernisation must shift toward indigenous platforms and subsystems, with an
eventual export dimension that makes the research effort sustainable. Dual-use
and digital supply chains; semiconductors, AI, data centres, space,
next-generation communications, all of these must be treated as strategic
priorities equal to traditional hardware.
All this implies that the state must execute better. Not
from democracy towards authoritarian efficiency, but from democracy with
limited state capacity towards democracy with high state capacity. This demands
a change in how the state functions, which would require - performance-oriented
bureaucratic reforms, multi-year funding for critical technologies, stronger
independent regulators, faster commercial dispute resolution, and mechanisms
that allow political competition to coexist with continuity on long-term
national goals.
Risks And the Outward Face of Autonomy
Autonomy is not risk-free. Modular engagement can produce
overstretch. Technology denial, restricted financial access or trade friction
remain possible if capability-building lags. Domestic reform bottlenecks in
land, agriculture, bureaucracy and state capacity can constrain foreign-policy
room for manoeuvre.
Yet autonomy also has an outward face. As India grows
stronger it can become a net security provider and developmental partner from
East Africa to Southeast Asia - offering connectivity and capacity-building as
a less coercive alternative to existing models of influence. In a multipolar
world, major powers having a stake in India’s success can itself become a
source of stability.
An Indian Synthesis
India does not need to copy China or America models. Indeed,
neither is desirable or completely transferable. China offers lessons in long
term planning, industrial policy, infrastructure and execution, but its
political system is fundamentally different from India’s. United States
demonstrates that democracy and enormous state capacity can coexist, particularly
when a society is able to generate a compelling sense of common national purpose.
India’s own COVID model has re-enforced this belief. India needs its own
synthesis incorporating democratic legitimacy with high state capacity;
political pluralism with the ability to pursue generational goals; individual
freedom, technological competence, economic dynamism, with the power to shape
its own future. This could become India’s distinctive, hybrid model, which should
ensure that democracy and efficiency, freedom and development, state power and
individual liberty can all co-exist and thrive.
A government’s job is to legislate and enforce legislation,
not to get into providing goods and services, except for the essential
services. Private sector should be the main producer of goods and services,
duly regulated through relevant laws and enforcement action. This frees the
government band width to pursue all means of increasing national power. The aim
is strategic autonomy, which is the freedom to choose. National capability is
what makes that freedom real, else it can best be described only as an intent.
The India that Must Emerge
The world has become more transactional. Great powers are
competing more intensely. Multilateral institutions are struggling to reconcile
power with principle. The emerging G2 dynamic adds another layer of uncertainty
for countries that do not belong to that inner circle. In this environment, strategic
autonomy for India cannot remain just a slogan. It is more necessary than ever;
it means having enough strength to engage with everyone without becoming tied
to anyone. It means being able to cooperate with the United States without being
dependant on it. It means being able to compete with China without being
consumed by China. We should be able to trade with any country in the world
without surrendering critical capabilities. It also implies that we should actively
participate in international institutions while working to reform them to
reflect the present realities of the world.
Most importantly, when necessary, India should have the
strength to say no – and possess the capacity to live with the consequences.
This is the actual price of sovereignty in a world in flux. India’s aim should
not be to become another superpower, but it should be to become a country that
can think about the betterment in the lives of all its citizens; become a
country which could make the choices that matter, towards that end. In short, a
country that can choose its own trajectory; a country strong enough to compete,
confident enough to cooperate and resilient enough to withstand coercion.
Looking at the political situation in the country this one seems
like wishful thinking, but is a needed pre-requisite for an emerging India,
which genuinely values strategic autonomy; become a country where political
competition does not prevent national cooperation. We have done it in the past
and can do it again. The time has come. We need to transform our democracy from
our present state to a democracy which can build a better version of itself,
every year.
The United States emerged from WW-II with a renewed sense
of national purpose and set about building a new world. China spent decades
building economic and state capacity that transformed its place in the world.
India has an opportunity to build its future without being
first broken by a catastrophe. This could be the most demanding part of India’s
democratic experiment. Can a hugely diverse country generate a shared national
purpose without suppressing its diversity and freedom? Can political competition
coexist with strategic cooperation? Can India learn from China’s capacity to
execute without surrendering the freedoms that define its own civilisational
ethos?
The world is in flux. Can India build the kind of state
capacity that turns strategic autonomy from an aspiration to a reality? India
cannot control the direction of the current. But it can decide how capable it
will be when it reaches the next bend in the river. Strategic autonomy gives
one the freedom to choose, but only national capability is what makes that
freedom real.
The task is clear, though difficult. It is to become a
nation able to choose its own future and be ready to build the capability that underpins
that freedom.
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