“India does not aspire to be a balancing power in someone else’s game. It aspires to be a leading power in its own right — one that helps write the rules of the new world.” — S. Jaishankar
Throughout most of its independent history, India’s foreign policy ambition was primarily defensive: to prevent any single power from dominating the region, to maintain enough relationships to resist pressure from any direction, and to preserve the space for independent development.
This was a reasonable ambition for a newly independent, resource-constrained state in a dangerous world. It was not, however, a vision of leadership.
Jaishankar articulates something more ambitious for India in the 21st century: not merely to balance among great powers but to become a leading power in its own right — one that helps define the rules of the emerging international order, not just adapt to rules written by others.
This is a significant elevation of India’s stated ambitions. And it raises a serious question: what would Indian leadership actually look like?
Leading powers in the international system do several things that balancing powers do not:
India has historically done some of these things in limited domains (the Non-Aligned Movement, South-South cooperation) but has not consistently aspired to leading-power behavior across the board.
Jaishankar identifies several domains where India is already exercising or can develop genuine leading-power influence:
Climate and environment: As the world’s third-largest emitter and simultaneously one of the most climate-vulnerable countries, India’s positions on climate finance, technology transfer, and differentiated responsibility matter enormously. India’s National Solar Mission and International Solar Alliance demonstrate active agenda-setting.
Digital governance: India’s Digital Public Infrastructure — Aadhaar identity system, UPI payment system, DigiLocker — represents a genuinely innovative model for how developing economies can build inclusive digital infrastructure. This model is relevant to dozens of countries and gives India real influence in discussions of digital governance.
Global health: COVID-19 demonstrated India’s capacity as the “pharmacy of the world” — producing the majority of the world’s vaccines and supplying them at scale to developing countries. This capacity is both a commercial asset and a significant source of soft power.
Development finance: India’s development partnership model — building infrastructure, providing technical assistance, training diplomats and military officers from partner countries — offers an alternative to both Western conditionality-laden development finance and Chinese debt-heavy BRI investments.
Global governance reform: India is the most prominent voice calling for reform of the United Nations Security Council, the Bretton Woods institutions, and other post-WWII governance structures to reflect the realities of the 21st-century distribution of power. This reform agenda has genuine support across the Global South.
India’s G20 presidency in 2023 provided a concrete demonstration of what Indian leading-power behavior looks like.
India’s G20 presidency was notable for several reasons:
The G20 presidency demonstrated that India could organize and lead at the highest level of global governance — not just participate.
Jaishankar and the Modi government have articulated India’s global aspiration through the concept of Vishwabandhu — “Friend of the World” in Sanskrit.
The Vishwabandhu concept positions India as a power that:
This framing explicitly positions India as an alternative to both Western liberal prescriptivism and Chinese authoritarian developmentalism — a third model that is democratic, developing, and non-prescriptive.
India’s leading-power ambitions still outpace its capabilities in important areas:
Economic size: At approximately $3.5 trillion, India’s economy is significant but still less than one-fifth of China’s or the United States’ in absolute terms. The GDP per capita gap — India at ~$2,500 versus China at ~$12,500 — is even more challenging.
Military reach: India’s military is formidable in its region but limited in its capacity for sustained power projection beyond South Asia and the Indian Ocean.
Institutional capacity: India’s diplomatic corps, foreign aid agencies, and multilateral engagement capacity are smaller than its ambitions require.
Domestic unity: India’s internal divisions — economic inequality, communal tensions, democratic quality concerns — can undermine its soft power claims and distract from external engagement.
Building genuine leading-power status requires sustained investment over decades — in economic development, military modernization, diplomatic capacity, and the domestic governance that gives India’s international positions credibility.
The India Way, as Jaishankar describes it, is not a destination — it is a direction. It is the commitment to engage the world with confidence, to assert India’s interests without apology, to build partnerships on the basis of mutual benefit, and to contribute to a world order that reflects not just Western or Chinese priorities but the full diversity of human civilization.
India’s moment is arriving. The question is whether India will seize it.