The assertion that ‘in a new multipolar world, India is an outlier’ is an uncomfortable one, particularly for those who have long viewed India as an ascendant strategic power. Yet discomfort has value. It forces introspection, challenges assumptions and sharpens analysis. This article is not a rebuttal driven by sentiment, but an inquiry into whether India’s global positioning has limits—and if so, whether those limits are structural, self-imposed or transitional.
For much of the past two decades, India has been described—by itself and by others—as a rising power. Economic growth, demographic weight, military modernisation, and diplomatic reach have reinforced this belief. Yet recent developments invite a more sober assessment. India’s uneven visibility in Indo-Pacific deliberations, its absence from key Middle East peace initiatives, and a growing tendency among global powers to see India as important but not central raise legitimate questions about how India is positioned in today’s strategic order.
India’s strategic culture has always prized autonomy. During the Cold War, non-alignment preserved independence. In the post-Cold War unipolar moment, India avoided entanglement. Today, in a multipolar system, it continues to resist alliance. This instinct has served India well. It has allowed policy flexibility, insulated decision-making from external pressure, and prevented premature commitments.
But autonomy also carries costs. Global power management—particularly by the US—favours predictability and alignment. India offers convergence, not compliance. It is therefore valued, consulted and courted; but not always embedded at the centre of coalition politics. This creates a paradox: India is strategically significant, yet operationally peripheral in certain theatres.
In effect, India has chosen to remain outside rigid power blocs. That choice preserves sovereignty, but it also limits the roles others expect India to play.
This tension is most visible in the Indo-Pacific. India is geographically central to the Indian Ocean, militarily capable, and essential to any long-term balance against China. Yet the Indo-Pacific narrative remains dominated by East Asian flashpoints—Taiwan, the South China Sea, and alliance management in the Western Pacific. India’s threat perception differs. Its security challenges are dual: maritime competition in the Indian Ocean and persistent continental confrontation along the northern borders. This divided focus limits India’s ability to concentrate strategic energy eastwards. While the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue underscores India’s importance, New Delhi has ensured it remains consultative rather than a military alliance, reflecting a refusal to subordinate priorities to escalation dynamics shaped by others.
India’s absence from recent Middle East peace initiatives—particularly around Gaza—has similarly fuelled perceptions of marginality. Yet, this interpretation confuses visibility with influence. India has never sought a mediatory role in active conflict zones. It lacks the coercive leverage, financial inducements, or military presence that mediation demands—and it has consciously avoided acquiring them.
India’s engagement with West Asia is built on political acceptability across divides, economic interdependence, energy security, diaspora protection and historic goodwill. These interests are best served through stability, not protagonism. To mistake restraint for irrelevance is to misunderstand India’s strategic temperament. India is present in the region; it simply does not perform theatric diplomacy.
Where the critique gains traction is closer home. India’s global bandwidth remains constrained by an unsettled regional environment. Two nuclear-armed adversaries, an unresolved continental confrontation with China, persistent proxy conflict with Pakistan, and internal security commitments continue to absorb attention. These are not episodic distractions but enduring realities. Historically, States that shape global outcomes do so from positions of regional equilibrium. India does not currently enjoy that condition. Its diplomacy, military planning, and political focus are repeatedly drawn back to the subcontinent. This constraint is not a failure of ambition, but a consequence of geography and history. The experience of Operation Pawan remains instructive. Poorly conceptualised, ambiguously mandated and inadequately terminated; it did more than strain relations with Sri Lanka. It created deep institutional aversion to regional military entanglement alone.
Within these constraints, India has begun to adapt—not by seeking global dominance, but by expanding influence through selective, low-risk domains. Humanitarian assistance and disaster response have emerged as one such avenue.
This should not be misread as a substitute for hard power or diplomacy. Rather, it is an instrument that allows India to remain engaged despite unresolved regional tensions. Disaster response confers legitimacy without alignment, presence without intimidation, and leadership without coercion.
Importantly, it also avoids the political minefields that doomed earlier interventions. It builds trust, familiarity, and operational cooperation without entangling India in the domestic politics of neighbouring states.
That this approach has found resonance in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region is not accidental. It reflects a region where vulnerability, not ideology, is the common denominator.
Seen in totality, India’s so-called ‘outlier’ status is less a verdict than a phase. We are not absent from global affairs; we are just being selective. And India is not declining in relevance; it is redefining how relevance is exercised.
The real strategic challenge ahead lies in converting autonomy into initiative—moving from principled restraint to selective leadership. That transition will require greater regional stability, enhanced expeditionary confidence, and a clearer articulation of where India intends to lead, rather than merely where it chooses to abstain.
For those raised on a strong diet of patriotism and strategic optimism, such introspection can feel unsettling. But realism does not make us unpatriotic. It prepares us for contingencies.
India’s rise has not stalled—but it has encountered friction. Understanding that friction, rather than denying it, is essential if India is to move from being an indispensable power to an agenda-shaping one. In a multipolar world, not all influence is exercised loudly. Some of it is accumulated patiently within constraints, until conditions permit ambition to expand.
That moment may not yet have arrived. But recognising why is the first step towards ensuring that it does.
Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) | Former Commander, Srinagar-based 15 Corps; Chancellor, Central University of Kashmir
(Views are personal)
(atahasnain@gmail.com)