The rise of India as a global power
How Delhi's ruthless brand of strategic autonomy sees Modi play the United States and Russia for maximum benefit
In April, India made headlines worldwide as it surpassed China to become the most populous country on Earth.
Though a high unemployment level remains a tricky problem to solve, India's young population, combined with its status as one of the world's fastest-growing economies, have led many analysts to predict that the 2000s will be the 'Indian century'.
Now, India's evolution into a rising global power means it is being referenced ever more frequently in the same breath as Russia, China and the United States.
But unlike those superpowers locked in fierce ideological, economic and in some respects military competition, India finds itself in a privileged position - and is making the most of it.
Uncle Sam is seemingly desperate to capitalise on a period of warm relations by cementing India as a close partner and future strategic ally, hoping to leverage its sheer size, as well as its geographically and economically strategic position, to counteract China.
Russia meanwhile has shared decades of largely positive ties with India and is intent on keeping it close as Indian rupees flow into Moscow's sanction-stricken coffers in exchange for huge oil and gas exports.
The current Indian government under PM Narendra Modi has proven extremely adept at leveraging the competing interests of East and West - much to its own benefit - and has so far managed to navigate a path between them without alienating one or the other in the process.
But how exactly is Delhi managing to pull this off - and how long can it last?
To answer those questions, we first need to understand how India's relationships with the US and Russia have evolved over time, and what changes occurred in India's domestic political landscape that encouraged Modi's government to adopt such an opportunistic strategy on the world stage.
Indo-US relations, from independence to 2023
Indo-US relations have traversed a fascinating and at times rocky road, but the two nations are now firm friends.
The US lent crucial support to India's struggle against colonial rule in the run-up to independence in 1947, but new PM Jawaharlal Nehru then set about pursuing a foreign policy that centred around non-alignment.
Delhi committed to following a doctrine of mutual non-aggression, respect for the sovereignty of all territories, and peaceful cooperation without close association - the aim being to guard its independence and prevent it from being dragged into a polarised conflict between major powers.
In 1950, it became one of the first signatories of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a group which still exists today and espouses these same ideas.
But throughout the 1950s and 1960s, India developed a closer relationship with the Soviet Union, and by the 1970s began its first nuclear weapons tests, which stoked tensions with the US.
Not even the collapse of the Soviet Union was able to entice India and America into working more closely together through the 90s, and Washington later levied economic sanctions on Delhi after it conducted a series of underground nuclear tests in 1998.
By the 2000s though, Indo-US relations were beginning to thaw.
Under the administration of President George W. Bush - who was extremely popular among Indians with sky-high approval ratings for much of his two terms - Delhi and Washington began to forge new strategic agreements which facilitated increased cooperation.
America's global war on terror in the wake of the 9/11 attacks incentivised closer cooperation in defence and counterterrorism, while India's promising economic trajectory encouraged the US to pursue bilateral agreements in trade and energy.
The signing of the Civil Nuclear Agreement in 2008 was one particular watershed moment.
It created the foundation for the US and India to cooperate on nuclear technology and authorised transfers of nuclear fuel and materials to Delhi for civilian projects - in doing so reversing decades of American nuclear non-proliferation policy and legitimising India as a nuclear power.
Fast forward to 2023, America is now India's largest trading partner, racking up a whopping $128.55 billion in the last fiscal year, and the pair enjoy a multifaceted relationship based on mutual interests in security, trade, and regional stability.
Indo-Russian relations, from Stalin to Putin
India's relationship with Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, is one that has endured the test of time.
It has weathered the storm of the Cold War, significant political shifts and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, demonstrating the depth of an enduring friendship spanning economic cooperation, defence ties and cultural exchanges.
Trade between India and the Soviet Union was flourishing well before the Cold War as the Soviet Union had undergone a period of relative economic liberalisation in the years following Stalin's death in 1953.
Then in the Cold War era, India and the Soviet Union forged a closer relationship.
Though India's non-alignment policy prevented it from siding strongly with one superpower or the other, the Soviet Union provided considerable support to India, both economically and militarily.
Pre-existing ties were strengthened when the two countries signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation in 1971, and the Soviet Union later that year was willing to lend military support to India amid its short-lived December war with Pakistan.
India returned the favour almost a decade later by refusing to condemn the Soviet Union's military intervention in Afghanistan in spite of widespread criticism from the US, China and Pakistan.
These events brought the duo closer together and the Soviet Union became the leading provider of arms to India - a major factor which has dramatic implications in 2023.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies assesses that more than 90 per cent of armoured vehicles, 69 per cent of combat aircraft and almost half of the Navy ships currently operated by the Indian armed forces are Russian-supplied, much of that Soviet-era tech that has been maintained and upgraded.
As Russia transitioned into a new era amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two nations maintained positive relations, and in 2000 newly minted president Vladimir Putin visited Delhi to sign the Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership. This saw a raft of agreements on politics, security, defence, trade and economy, science & technology take effect, as well as a renewed effort to revitalise cross-cultural recognition and activities.
Ten years later, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev - with Putin stage managing from his temporary position as Prime Minister - travelled to India to cement the partnership.
Now, though India has pursued a closer relationship with the US, Delhi and Moscow maintain close links, particularly in the economic and defence realms with bilateral trade between the two nations reaching an all-time high in 2022.
The dawn of strategic autonomy and the Modi era of Indian politics
By the turn of the millennium, India's longstanding policy of non-alignment had begun to show its limits.
The policy generally functioned as intended in the second half of the 20th century and allowed India to develop good relations with the Soviet Union despite its commitment to maintain equidistance from major power blocs.
But in the post-Cold-War era, the dissolution of the USSR, China's developing strength and India's rapidly expanding population necessitated a shift towards a more proactive and pragmatic approach to foreign policy.
By the time India's current Prime Minister Narendra Modi ascended to office in 2014, India was already turning away from non-alignment, and Modi quickly set about ushering in an era of strategic autonomy.
Strategic autonomy has its roots in the non-alignment movement in that it maintains a commitment to ensuring India's decision-making remains free of external pressures.
But it encourages far deeper engagement with the international community, allowing Delhi to forge strategic partnerships - and exploit key geopolitical tensions - for India's benefit.
The foreign policy doctrines of any country are largely an extension of the governing administration's domestic values and objectives, and India under Modi has been ruthlessly committed to economic and technological development.
At home, initiatives like Make In India and Digital India were introduced in an effort to supercharge industrialisation, reward entrepreneurship and boost GDP while attracting foreign investment, and recent years have seen Modi's government work to urbanise India's vast rural population.
These efforts have made India one of the world's fastest-growing economies, as Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), intent on cementing India's position as a rising global power, has built its foreign policy on the principle of strategic autonomy to complement those domestic priorities.
Modi started close to home. One of the linchpins of his prime ministerial campaign was the policy of 'Neighbourhood First' - the notion that India cannot achieve its lofty goals alone and must become a regional hub of commerce and economic prosperity by taking the lead in fostering cooperation among its neighbours.
This formed the basis of Modi's Act East initiative which saw him tour South and East Asian nations in his first few months in office, with India taking on a leading role in forums like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
This approach has unquestionably improved India's influence and has seen it emerge as a leader of developing nations in the Global South - a primary goal of Modi's government - and it has also served to redress regional economic and defence shortcomings that were exploited by China during the non-alignment era.
But, as we are about to explore, the principle of strategic autonomy has also allowed India to exploit geopolitical developments and reap huge benefits on a global scale.
Strategic autonomy in action - How India walks the tightrope between East and West for maximum benefit
Today's geopolitical landscape is characterised by great power rivalries and major international rifts.
The two largest economic superpowers, the US and China, are spiralling into an ever more intense economic and military competition, with Beijing's soaring investment in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America, expansionist tendencies in the South China Sea and aggressive rhetoric in relation to Taiwan proving cause for grave concern in the White House.
At the same time the US and the European Union are facing off with Russia as a result of Putin's war in Ukraine. The Western allies may not have deployed troops, blasted Russian MiGs out of the sky or sunk Putin's warships, but in every other sense they are effectively at war with Moscow.
Together, the US and the EU have contributed billions in military funding for Ukraine while introducing a raft of sanctions designed to cripple the Russian economy and drain Putin's war chest.
With these conditions in place, India approach to foreign policy of late has exemplified a highly opportunistic form of strategic autonomy.
Modi's government is deftly walking a tightrope, extracting huge benefits from its relationship with East and West - almost ruthlessly so - without committing itself one way or another.
On the Western side, India has played upon Washington's wariness towards Beijing and positioned itself as an essential regional partner.
Fearful of China's technological dominance in the east, Washington and Delhi announced a joint initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET).
This will see the US make considerable investments in India's telecommunications and consumer technology industries, even as India maintains control over their manufacture under its 'Make In India' campaign, and the two territories will also cooperate on research into AI, quantum computing and semiconductor technology.
Washington has also bumped up its supply of US arms to Delhi to record levels in an attempt to ween India's armed forces off their dependence on Moscow's weaponry - capitalising on the increasing technological obsolescence of Russia's defence output and the Kremlin's inability to meet its arms delivery commitments due to the Ukraine war.
And India is taking more of a commanding role diplomatically, participating in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue - commonly referred to as the Quad - which sees India converse on equal footing with America, Australia and Japan on security issues in the Indo-Pacific - although it is widely seen as an international pact to monitor China.
The White House is set to welcome Modi for in-person talks in June, with Biden then expected to make the return trip in September when India hosts the G20 conference.
But Modi has no interest in a world commanded by US hegemony, and India cannot live up to its promise as a future global leader if the world is dominated by any one power.
So, while Delhi signs new arms deals with Washington, meets to discuss how to manage China and reaps the rewards of an all-time high in Indo-US trade and investment, Modi continues to massage his relationship with the Kremlin.
The Indian Prime Minister has called for peace in Ukraine and told Zelensky at the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May his country will do 'whatever it can' to end the crisis.
But Delhi has remained silent on the war and has abstained from United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia's actions, highlighting its commitment to neutrality and its historic ties to Moscow.
In economic terms, not only has Delhi refused to join US and EU sanctions targeting Moscow, but it has capitalised on Europe's move to end its energy dependency on Russia by becoming the leading importer of Russian oil and gas.
More than 20 per cent of crude oil imported by India comes from Russia - up from just 2 per cent two years ago - and at a considerable discount.
And in what is arguably the most opportunistic move of all, India is refining that crude and selling on the products, for example, diesel and jet fuel, to Europe and the US, thereby helping to lessen the impact of sanctions on Putin and pocketing some extra profits in the process.
The BBC claimed India was saving about $89 per tonne of crude imported from Russian in the 2022-2023 financial year thanks to the discounts.
And a report by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that India was exporting some 1,600,000 barrels of diesel per day in March 2023 - triple the quantity of exports from just one year ago.
When it comes to defence and security, India may participate in the Quad - but it is equally as involved in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), an international political and security bloc headed up by both China and Russia.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan make up the rest of its membership, with Iran slated to join in the near future.
And though Delhi has branched out to purchase more arms from the likes of the US and France in recent years, Russia still accounts for the majority of India's defence imports.
Moscow continues to help maintain and upgrade India's existing Russian-made stock, and provides licences to allow Modi's weapons manufacturers to produce their own version of Russian-designed defence equipment.
What's next for India?
As things stand, there is no reason whatsoever for India to change its approach to foreign policy and Modi's government will continue to take advantage of the war in Ukraine, the resulting East-West tensions, and the US' desire to monitor China.
But as India seeks to consolidate its position as a leader of the Global South, cement ties with South Asian and Pacific Island nations and reinforce its security vis-a-vis China, Modi's government is likely to focus on fostering cooperation with the United States, and by extension Europe, over Russia.
It is foolish to expect Delhi to completely cut ties with Moscow.
Russia is useful politically - India can count on Russia's support at the UN - and it is a source of cheap and readily available oil and gas. Delhi is also still heavily reliant on Moscow for its defence needs and must maintain a positive relationship to ensure its armed forces are not compromised
But it is undeniable that Russia's current trajectory under Putin has seen the Indo-Russian relationship become increasingly transactional, and Moscow's new status as somewhat of a junior partner to Beijing is not one that Delhi enjoys.
The US on the other hand is crucial in strategic terms for counterbalancing China and for economic and technological modernisation. Modi knows that it is also in America's interest to become firm economic and military partners with India, and recognises his privileged negotiating position.
Washington cannot order India to abandon or change its relationship with Russia and must be willing to accept Delhi's rise to prominence as a global power centre if it is to truly forge a strong alliance against China.
With this in mind, we are likely to see India and the US grow ever closer in the coming years, while Moscow becomes more of a supplier of resources and political backstop for Delhi.