A global power should not only claim to be a global power—it must also behave like one.
India stands at several uneasy crossroads today, partly global and partly self-inflicted.
Geopolitically, it witnesses a blatantly transactional world order with a precarious balance between conflicting groups. Each week a new war breaks out, a new conflict pops up—leaving the foreign policy pundits to buttress their guarded positions dictated through ‘neutrality’ and ‘strategic autonomy.’
Economically, India still has a large population to tend to but continues to suffer from infrastructural deficits, income inequality, and “weak private investments”—all intensified under spillovers from global value chains, increasingly under a hegemonic world order led by a cabal of power-wielding oligarchs.
Diplomatically, India’s tightrope walking is in a knotty place—where the country’s strategic autonomy and the sovereign right to pursue its interests are routinely pitted against a world that demands polarized postures.
Socially and politically, the country remains divided, even on core issues—and its identity as a secular and plural republic, as envisaged by India’s founding guardians, is increasingly under threat.
Yet today, even as India projects itself as the world’s “fourth largest economy” (by nominal GDP) and a rising global power, its absence as a mature voice in decisive global developments is both evident and concerning.
Silence is Deafening.
The world today seems to have turned into a tinderbox of regional, ethnic, geopolitical, and ecological conflicts. While India has demonstrated its leadership on many fronts, particularly in rallying support for the Global South on shared concerns such as climate change, climate finance, and carbon taxation, the country seems to have underperformed on one crucial front: peace-building.
Consider the major geopolitical conflicts of our time where India’s silence—or absence—in peace discourse has become too significant to ignore. While the existence of mediation backchannels and sideline diplomacy does partake in diffusing tensions, albeit rarely, India’s lack of overt and explicit involvement in peace-building exercises in global conflicts points not only to the loss of the art of mediation in the country’s foreign policy but also to a loss of leverage, footing, and diplomatic craft in global affairs.
By contrast, where India’s stance in all the major conflicts has been calculated and measured, sometimes even too diplomatic, its peers have often been more vocal and visible.
Unrealized Destiny
The China-brokered ‘détente’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023 has enhanced both its role as a global peacemaker and China’s arrival in the peace process in international diplomacy, which until a few years ago remained a fiefdom of the Global North. As America recedes on the global stage, China, ironically, is keen to offer a viable alternative through emphasis on peace, diplomacy, and a rules-based international order.
To India’s north, as Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to reinstate diplomatic ties after having fallen apart earlier, China once again emerged as the common glue binding the two nations in diplomacy and dialogue—despite the frequent setbacks. Furthermore, China has also spearheaded the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMED), “the world’s first intergovernmental legal organization,” dedicated to bringing mediation to the heart of international disputes to further “promote world peace and the stability of the international order.”
India, despite its self-avowed ’56-inch’ wide global importance, has also been absent from other conflicts.
In the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, India’s stance remains neutral and balanced, with engagements on both sides of the conflict. Despite careful sloganeering, such as “on the side of peace” and “not an era of war,” India has failed to translate its bipartisan goodwill into a credible India-led dialogue, let alone broker a peace process. Per contra, countries such as Türkiye, along with the United Nations, have proactively engaged in brokering some semblance of ‘resolution’ between Russia and Ukraine, notably through the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) in 2022, which facilitated the export of food and fertilizer commodities. In the past, Türkiye, despite the setbacks, has also pushed for a ceasefire in the conflict.
Closer to home in West Asia, Oman, a country far smaller in geographical size than India, has quietly been at the forefront in brokering diplomacy and dialogue between America and Iran on the latter’s nuclear program. Today, Oman serves as more than a mere backchannel between the US and Iran; instead, it has become a credible mediator and facilitator between the two. Right from its initial role in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to the latest round of diplomacy in Rome, Oman’s willingness underlines its commitment to facilitating peace in its neighborhood and far beyond.
To India’s east, Indonesia has demonstrated its willingness in supporting peace-building measures. Under former President Joko Widodo, Indonesia became the first Asian nation to engage both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, underscoring its commitment to peace and dialogue as more than mere diplomatic niceties. In October 2024, Indonesia shored up support from the United Nations, ASEAN, the European Union, and the National Unity Government (NUG) in Myanmar to seek resolution to the civil war and the army-led coup of 2021. China too has entrenched itself in brokering ceasefires in Myanmar, albeit with modest success.
On the African continent, where India has massive stakes in both economic and infrastructural developments, its presence remains guarded and contained. India is Africa’s third-largest trading partner, with a trade basket hovering around US$ 83.34 billion. Even as the continent rages with conflicts, insurgencies, and civil wars—creating a vortex of humanitarian crisis—India’s role has remained painfully restrained, save for its participation in the UN peacekeeping missions, capacity building, and quiet diplomatic presence.
In the Israel-Iran conflict, India’s calculated distance from the SCO condemnation of Israel’s attack on Iran in 2025 was widely understood as part of India’s balancing act between two nations with whom India enjoys amicable ties. While the Ministry of External Affairs did express its concerns at the ongoing situation, India’s ‘strategic ambiguity’ yet again appeared to have diminished its possibility in conflict resolution.
In the ongoing mass slaughter in Gaza, India’s historical positioning too has experienced massive shifts. Breaking away from its past stance of anti-colonial solidarity with the Palestinian people, India has now pivoted to a “de-hyphenated” relationship with both Israel and Palestine, with deeper military, economic, and technological ties with Israel. This is reflected in its repeated abstentions from the UNGA resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza even as the country continued to support people in Gaza with humanitarian assistance, providing around “135 MT of humanitarian aid, including 81.5 MT of medicines and medical supplies.”
The optics of such tight balancing, eventually, have diverse interpretations. Some read it as yet another instance of India’s ‘fence-sitting,’ while others have asked, will India ever choose a side? The question, then, is can there be a middle path, a ‘madhaym marg,’ between “alignment” and “entanglement”?
Lastly, but not least
India’s measured absence in the global peace discourse is shaped by a complex interplay of historical and political legacies, security compulsions, and strategic autonomy in increasingly polarized global politics.
Admittedly, much like every country, India too does not owe any neat response to global conflicts—more so to divisive and ideologically manufactured fissures that remain unrelated to its core interests. The hallmark of India’s foreign policy since its independence has always been, and rightfully so, its refusal to be dictated by the rigidities of ideological bloc politics. That has its own merits.
However, deeper introspection is required in New Delhi as to how far it can go with its guarded silence. India’s policy planners must understand that visible peace-building during conflicts is different from turning partisan or getting entangled in unrelated conflicts, and that peace-building during conflicts can be achieved without losing strategic autonomy.
Going forward, if India is to shed its image as a silent giant, reduced at times to that of a ‘fence-sitter,’ it must do more than merely declare, “We are on the side of peace.” It must demonstrate credible commitment to building it.
