India in the emerging multipolar world order
The architecture of global power that took shape after the Cold War no longer holds. Nations are regrouping and realigning under the pressure of geopolitical upheaval and domestic imperatives, while technology is rewriting the very meaning of sovereignty and economic interdependence buckles under new strategic rivalries. As the world’s largest democracy, India’s choices now carry weight far beyond its borders — shaping international security, trade, technology governance, climate action and the development priorities of the Global South. Its simultaneous engagement with the G20, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the QUAD, alongside bilateral partnerships spanning divergent geopolitical camps, is the clearest expression of this multi-aligned approach.
The institutions built to manage global affairs no longer mirror today’s distribution of power. The UN Security Council needs reform, and the Global South deserves a stronger voice in international financial and trade bodies. India’s push for a permanent seat should be framed not merely as a claim to status commensurate with its growth trajectory, but as part of a broader effort to ensure Asia, Africa, Latin America and the wider developing world are properly represented in institutions whose decisions shape peace, finance, trade, technology and sustainable development.
That role as a rule-shaper extends into climate diplomacy. India’s position rests on common but differentiated responsibility — climate justice demands real climate finance, technology transfer and resilient infrastructure, not just ambitious pledges, particularly for communities most exposed to environmental change. Development that hollows out its own ecological base cannot last, and environmental policy that ignores jobs, poverty and energy access will not hold public trust either. The task is to fuse economic progress with environmental and social responsibility, not treat them as competing goals.
In an emerging multipolar order, India is positioning itself as one of its central poles, drawing on capability, relationships and geography rather than choosing sides. Its foreign policy can no longer be framed as East versus West; it must engage East, West, North and South at once, without surrendering strategic autonomy. That requires diplomacy supple enough to bend with circumstance — recalling Henry Kissinger’s observation that nuance, flexibility and occasional ambiguity are the tools of the trade.
Technology has become one of the sharpest instruments of geopolitical power. Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, telecommunications, satellites, digital platforms and cross-border data flows now shape a nation’s economic, strategic and military weight — and whoever controls critical technology and data infrastructure will command disproportionate influence over the coming order. India’s Digital Public Infrastructure — its identity, payments and public-service systems — has already shown what this can look like at scale, drawing global attention. But modern economies run on interconnected digital networks for banking, energy, transport, healthcare and governance, which makes them vulnerable: a single cyberattack on critical infrastructure can cause disruption no army could match, demanding constantly evolving cyber defences. Data, meanwhile, is both an economic asset and a matter of identity and privacy, and reconciling innovation with security and individual rights is arguably the hardest of these challenges - with artificial intelligence posing the most complex test of all.
Trade and economic resilience are now inseparable from national security.
Recent global shocks exposed how dangerous it is to depend on narrow sources for energy, medicines, semiconductors, critical minerals and defence equipment, pushing economic diplomacy from a supporting role into a central strategic instrument. India’s exports are already feeling the strain of US sanctions, sharpened by the Sanctioning of Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which hands President Trump discretionary power to penalise not just Moscow but any country - India and China included — buying Russian energy. Yet confident, steady leadership can weather such headwinds: India remains the world’s largest sovereign democratic republic, on course to become its third-largest economy, and no external pressure can indefinitely check that trajectory.
A stronger global voice also demands an impenetrable shield of national security - secure borders, freedom from infiltration and the capacity to respond decisively to emerging threats. That no longer means conventional military readiness alone; nations now face cross-border terrorism, cyberattacks, organised transnational crime, information warfare, economic coercion, infrastructure attacks and threats from space, all under the umbrella of hybrid warfare that no single armed force can handle alone. It demands tighter coordination among security agencies, technology institutions, financial regulators and civil society, rather than leaving the burden to the armed forces alone, while space itself - vital to communications, navigation, weather forecasting, banking, disaster response and defence —becomes a domain India must actively protect through responsible conduct and hardened assets. As Kautilya wrote two millennia ago, the treasury is the foundation of the army, and the army the instrument that protects the state; economic strength remains the bedrock of both security and strategic autonomy, and no nation sustains the latter without the former.
India’s ambition to become a developed nation by 2047 depends on growth that is not just high but fair — avoiding a K-shaped economy that widens disparities and breeds discontent. Spending on education, health, research and defence should be read as investment in national capability, not expenditure, since economic development, technology, human capital and security reinforce one another.
Ultimately, India cannot shape global rules without economic and technological strength, and it cannot sustain that strength without secure borders, resilient supply chains, energy security and dependable partnerships. Its influence will be measured not by GDP, military size or seats at the table, but by the principles it upholds, the trust it earns and the solutions it delivers to a fracturing world.
The writer is former Additional Secretary, Lok Sabha, and a Member of the Supreme Court Bar Association. The article is an abridged version of the keynote address delivered by him at the National Seminar held by Amity Law School, Noida; Views presented are personal.
