Yesterday it was the G20. Today it is SAARC. Tomorrow it could be another global grouping where Bharat is not merely a participant but a power shaping the conversation. This is not diplomatic coincidence. It is the visible outcome of a fundamental transformation in Bharat’s foreign policy.
The secret is simple: Bharat no longer picks sides. It picks its interests.
For decades, foreign policy was often viewed through the prism of ideological loyalties and Cold War equations. The Nehruvian approach, despite its historical context and achievements, increasingly became inadequate for a Bharat seeking greater economic and strategic weight in a dramatically changing world. Non-alignment gradually acquired the limitations of an old geopolitical vocabulary in a world that was no longer simply divided between two superpowers.
That mindset has changed decisively under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The defining feature of Modi’s foreign policy is not hostility towards any power, nor blind loyalty to one. It is the unapologetic pursuit of Bharat’s national interest. The guiding question is no longer, “What will Washington think?” or “What will Moscow say?” It is: What does this mean for Bharat?
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has articulated this new confidence repeatedly. And the Modi-Jaishankar combination has given Bharat’s diplomacy a clarity, muscularity and flexibility rarely seen before.
Look at the map.
Bharat works with the United States, Japan and Australia through the Quad to strengthen the Indo-Pacific. It remains a major voice in BRICS alongside Russia, China and other emerging powers. It participates in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation while maintaining a deeply complicated relationship with China and Pakistan. It works with Israel on defence and technology, engages the Gulf on energy and investment, cooperates with Iran on connectivity, including Chabahar, and maintains substantial economic relations with Europe.
And then comes Russia.
While Western countries have sought to reduce Moscow’s economic space, Bharat has continued to purchase Russian energy and maintain long-standing defence ties—while simultaneously deepening strategic, technological and defence cooperation with the United States.
To those accustomed to bloc politics, this may look contradictory.
It is not.
It is strategic multi-alignment.
Bharat is deliberately refusing to become dependent on any single power centre. It wants multiple sources of energy, technology, capital, defence equipment, markets and connectivity. It wants multiple diplomatic doors open—and, crucially, the freedom to walk through whichever door serves its national interest.
That is sovereignty in practice.
BRICS, therefore, should not automatically be interpreted as an anti-Western project. Nor should Quad be interpreted as an anti-China alliance in every respect. Bharat’s participation in different platforms reflects a much larger objective: ensuring that its interests are represented wherever global decisions are being made.
The same logic applies to trade and technology.
Bharat wants American and European technology, Russian energy, Gulf capital, Israeli expertise, Iranian connectivity and access to Asian and Eurasian markets. It will compete with China where national security demands it, cooperate where economic interests permit it, and refuse to allow either relationship to dictate its wider foreign-policy choices.
That is not diplomatic confusion.
That is leverage.
The old geopolitical world often forced countries to choose a camp. The emerging multipolar world allows Bharat to become a pole in its own right.
And that is perhaps the biggest change.
Bharat is no longer seeking the comfort of being somebody’s junior partner. It is seeking the confidence of being an independent power that can speak to everyone without surrendering its own voice.
Of course, this strategy is not without risks. Managing simultaneously rising tensions between the United States and China, Russia and the West, Iran and Israel, or China and Bharat requires extraordinary diplomatic dexterity. One miscalculation can have economic, military, or strategic consequences.
But that is precisely why strategic autonomy matters.
Bharat does not need permanent friends dictated by geopolitical fashion. It needs permanent interests backed by capable diplomacy.
The message from New Delhi is increasingly unmistakable: cooperate with Bharat, compete with Bharat if necessary, disagree with Bharat if you must—but do not expect Bharat to subordinate its interests to yours.
For decades, the world was accustomed to asking Bharat to choose.
Bharat has chosen not to choose.
Instead, it has chosen itself.
And that may well be the defining principle of Bharat’s foreign policy in the 21st century.
