Is India still guided by a steady strategic compass and thoughtfulness and stature it exhibited after independence, or is confidence slipping into impatience?
The year 2026 has dawned creating a fresh structural global turbulence. The once‑predictable international order is visibly fraying. Power politics is blunt, norms are weakening, and internal upheavals now spill rapidly across borders.
Unrest in Iran, accompanied by sharp American rhetoric and the threat of sanctions or coercive measures, has once again unsettled West Asia. At the same time, Washington’s posture towards India—marked by tariff threats, trade pressure, and unease over India’s energy choices—has underscored a hard truth: partnership today often coexists with pressure.
India finds itself pitchforked into these cross‑currents. While at times it is courted for strategic reasons, it is now pressed economically, as well as scrutinised morally. In such a moment, when choices carry disproportionate consequences, India’s foreign policy instincts deserve careful reflection.
Time for reassessment
Undeniably, India today is more visible in world affairs than at any time since independence. It is at times projected as a voice of the Global South and a consequential power in a multipolar world. Yet beneath this confidence lies a quiet unease. One senses it in diplomatic conversations as well as among NRI well‑wishers abroad.
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The question now raised is, whether India is still guided by a steady strategic compass and the thoughtfulness and stature it exhibited in the immediate decades after independence, or has confidence begun to slip into impatience and at times undiplomatic dialogue?
Of course, the world India confronts is harsher than the one it entered at independence. President Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland, his casual talk of coercing Panama or punishing Cuba, and his reduction of alliances to transactional bargains reflect a wider expansion in global conduct. The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro are a clear indication that raw power has returned to centre stage.
It is in this unforgiving landscape that India must reassess both its inheritance and its instincts.
Nehru’s mistakes do not diminish him
Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy legacy is treated either with reverence or ridicule. Neither does justice to the man or the moment. Non‑alignment was not moral posturing; it was a strategy born of vulnerability. A newly independent and economically fragile country could not afford entanglement in rival power blocs. The policy of non-alignment that he developed and followed gave strategic room to judge, to speak, and to choose.
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Yet Nehru also misjudged. He underestimated China’s ambitions, overestimated Asian solidarity, and failed to prepare adequately for hard‑power realities, and India paid a price for these errors. But acknowledging them does not diminish Nehru; it humanises him. What remains striking is his understanding that power without credibility is brittle. India’s early diplomacy combined restraint with firmness, allowing it to speak across divides without being seen as partisan. That reputation became a form of quiet capital as his voice and stature gained international respect.
That capital today shows signs of erosion.
The China factor
China remains India’s most serious long‑term challenge. The unresolved boundary, the shock of the 2020 skirmish along the Line of Actual Control, and China’s expanding footprint across South Asia and the Indian Ocean have altered India’s strategic landscape irreversibly. Military firmness and external partnerships are unavoidable. Yet when a single rivalry begins to define every diplomatic choice, strategy risks becoming reactive and deterrence without dialogue is not strategy.
Geography ensures that India and China cannot wish each other away. Managing this rivalry will require patience, institutionalised diplomacy, and regional reassurance alongside strength. China’s influence has grown not only through power, but through persistence. India needs to figure out how to deal with this mighty economic and military power that is today acknowledged across the globe.
Volatile neighbourhood
India’s neighbourhood itself poses significant challenges. Pakistan remains trapped in military dominance and economic fragility, with hostility towards India deeply institutionalised. Undeniably, India has limited leverage over Pakistan’s internal evolution, but history suggests that calibrated engagement and strategic restraint have served it better than permanent freeze or public derision.
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s efforts at direct and Track 2 diplomacy must continue, as indeed Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhibited intent by inviting Nawaz Sharif at the 2014 swearing-in ceremony, or made an audacious surprise visit on Sharif’s birthday.
Bangladesh, one of India’s diplomatic successes for long, is undergoing a social churn. Economic progress coexists with rising religiosity, pressures on minorities, and strong nationalist sentiment. Heavy‑handed Indian rhetoric risks feeding resentment and encouraging strategic hedging, including closer ties with China.
Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives convey a similar message: reassurance is not weakness; it is the currency of leadership.
Turbulent West Asia
Developments in West Asia sharpen India’s dilemmas further. Iran’s internal unrest, deep economic distress, and the prospect of renewed American sanctions or coercive measures directly affect India’s interests. Iran remains vital for India’s energy security, regional connectivity, and access to Central Asia. Projects such as Chabahar were conceived precisely to preserve strategic options beyond Pakistan and China, not to forget that Iran sits on the world’s largest natural gas reserves in its South Pars that it shares with Qatar (North Dome).
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Yet India’s engagement with Iran is constrained by the US-Iran confrontation. Simultaneously, Washington’s stance towards India has grown more transactional. Tariff threats, pressure over discounted oil purchases, and sanctions‑related ambiguities serve as reminders that alignment does not eliminate coercion. Strategic convergence with the United States coexists with economic leverage.
India thus navigates multiple cross‑currents at once: Unrest in Iran, volatility in American policy, rivalry with China, and a sensitive neighbourhood. All this puts India in a piquant situation and none can be managed in isolation.
What India needs to do
To move ahead, first, India must recover strategic patience as a virtue. Strength lies not in constant signalling or tough talk but in consistency. Diplomacy requires institutions, memory, and the willingness to invest quietly when applause is absent.
Second, India must rebalance firmness with reassurance in its neighbourhood. Military preparedness is non‑negotiable, but humility in tone is equally essential. The stronger power must bear the heavier burden of restraint.
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Third, India must widen its global imagination beyond a single rivalry. China matters, but it cannot be the only lens. Deeper engagement with Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia—on development, climate, health, and technology—will anchor India’s role in a genuinely multipolar world.
Fourth, India must restore moral balance without moralising. Speaking against civilian suffering anywhere does not weaken national interest; it strengthens credibility. India’s pluralism has long amplified its voice abroad.
Finally, India must protect strategic autonomy as a lived practice, not a slogan. Alignments should expand choices, not narrow them. In a volatile world, autonomy is preparedness.
India is no longer a hesitant post‑colonial state, nor an impatient great power. It is a civilisation navigating a fractured world where restraint is weakening and power speaks loudly. Its challenge is not to shout louder than others, but to act with steadiness, judgement, and balance. That quiet maturity will define India’s place in the turbulent years ahead.
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