The United States has repeatedly sought to draw India away from Eurasian frameworks of cooperation and integrate it more firmly into the Western strategic orbit. Nevertheless, India has largely preserved a posture of neutrality in foreign and security policy. It has maintained diversified strategic relations with the United States, the European Union, and the Russian Federation, while simultaneously pursuing efforts to normalize ties with the People’s Republic of China—even during periods when Western powers attempted to leverage Sino-Indian border disputes for geopolitical advantage.
The “Atmanirbhar Bharat”
It appears that the West—particularly the United States—grew frustrated with India’s refusal to align fully with its agenda. This frustration culminated in Donald Trump launching a trade war against India, imposing an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods, which raised total duties to 50 percent. India’s Chief Economic Adviser, V. Anantha Nageswaran, noted in an interview with Bloomberg TV that „depending upon how long it lasts even in this financial year, it may translate into a GDP impact of somewhere between 0.5 to 0.6 percent”[1].
The tariffs were largely motivated by India’s decision to expand its oil imports from Russia rather than align with Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to the war in Ukraine. Imports of Russian mineral fuels, petroleum, and related products increased substantially after 2022. While India’s imports from Russia stood at approximately USD 9.13 billion in 2021, the figure rose to USD 67 billion by the end of 2024. Of this, crude oil accounted for the overwhelming majority, with India importing nearly USD 63 billion worth of Russian oil, positioning it as one of Moscow’s largest energy buyers.
In response to Donald Trump’s hostile move, Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India emphasized the “Atmanirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) initiative during his Independence Day address. He underscored the need to reduce import dependency, particularly in strategic sectors such as semiconductors and defense, considering rising U.S. tariffs. His policy announcements included domestic semiconductor programs, reforms to the goods and services tax (GST), and initiatives to promote local manufacturing.[2]
More broadly, India adopted an approach reminiscent of Russia’s strategy—prioritizing domestic production, reducing external vulnerabilities, and grounding policy in national security considerations—rather than yielding to external pressure. Through this initiative, India reaffirmed its commitment to neutrality and the principles of non-alignment.[3]
The New Indian Foreign Policy
India’s neutrality refers to its foreign policy approach of avoiding rigid alignment with any single global power bloc, while instead pursuing an independent, balanced, and interest-driven strategy. The essence of this neutrality lies in acting according to national interests and ethical considerations, while maintaining strategic autonomy.
This involves cultivating partnerships with multiple powers—including the United States, the European Union, Russia, China, and key actors in the Middle East—while preserving the flexibility to maneuver independently. Neutrality, therefore, does not signify military weakness or political dependency; rather, it represents a prioritization of national interest, economic security, and a commitment to multipolar diplomacy over exclusive alliances.
India balances its foreign relations with its strategic partners in four different directions: Indo-Pacific, Eurasian, Indo-US and Indo-EU. For India, Indo-Pacific is a maritime concept while Eurasia means a continental strategic shift. The practical Eurasian direction in India’s foreign policy has developed with its accession in the SCO. Since then, India is one of the great powers of the “Great Eurasian” concept alongside Russia and China advocating for the establishment of a new world order that challenges the U.S.-led international system consolidated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
India in Euroasia – The India-Russia connection
India’s shift toward Eurasia is not confined to its participation in the SCO alone. It extends into a broader and multidimensional partnership, particularly with the Russian Federation. The depth of Indo-Russian strategic cooperation was clearly reflected during the 2019 Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi served as the chief guest alongside President Vladimir Putin.
The two leaders convened the twentieth India–Russia Annual Summit and announced a series of bilateral agreements that expanded collaboration in energy, defense, and regional connectivity. Most significantly, both sides agreed to intensify consultations on the complementarities between their respective Indo-Pacific and Eurasian integration strategies. This commitment marked a diplomatic recognition that India’s Indo-Pacific outreach and Russia’s Eurasian vision are not competing frameworks but potentially convergent pillars of a wider continental-maritime order.
In this sense, India’s role within the Eurasian comprehensive cooperation model acquires strategic importance. Its presence in the SCO represents an institutional anchor for continental diplomacy, while its bilateral partnership with Russia consolidates its position as a pivotal actor linking Europe, Asia, and the Indo-Pacific.
Together, these engagements illustrate New Delhi’s capacity to function as a bridge between Eurasian and Indo-Pacific geostrategic spaces, reinforcing the logic of a multipolar world order. India’s balancing approach thus demonstrates that participation in Eurasian initiatives does not contradict its pursuit of strategic autonomy; rather, it strengthens the foundation of Atmanirbhar Bharat by promoting diversified partnerships and sustainable regional integration grounded in mutual respect and sovereign equality.
A principal constraint in India–Russia and India-Eurasia trade relations has historically been the absence of direct and efficient trade routes, which limited bilateral and multilateral engagement largely to geo-strategic considerations rather than robust economic cooperation specially between Russia and India. Overcoming these geographical limitations, India and Russia have actively pursued the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), aimed at facilitating access for Indian goods to Eurasian markets, enhancing connectivity, and fostering trans-Eurasian economic cooperation.
Spanning approximately 7,200 kilometers, the corridor links the Indian Ocean—including South Asia—and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran, and from there extends to St. Petersburg and Northern Europe through an integrated network of rail, road, and maritime routes. The INSTC now comprises three main corridors—the Western, Middle, and Eastern routes — each optimized for speed, cost, and geopolitical flexibility.
Key milestones include the completion of Iran’s Qazvin–Rasht rail link in June 2024, the Eastern Route Roadmap agreement among Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, and a 1.7-fold rise in eastern route trade volumes. The corridor has reduced transit times between Mumbai and Moscow from forty to approximately fourteen days, enhancing India’s access to Central Asia, Europe, and Northern Eurasia. Strategically, the INSTC complements India’s pursuit of multipolar engagement and Atmanirbhar Bharat by linking domestic industrial capacities to diversified international supply chains, while serving as a counterpoint to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. By bridging the vast geographical expanse that historically kept the two powers apart, the corridor represents a practical and geopolitical milestone, reinforcing India’s capacity to project economic influence across Eurasia.
The India-Russia Summit
During his two-day visit (22th India-Russia Annual Summit) to Moscow (July 8-9, 2024), Prime Minister Modi reaffirmed the “special and privileged strategic partnership” between India and Russia, placing bilateral ties at the forefront despite mounting Western and specifically U.S. pressure over India’s continued energy imports from Russia and its diplomatic stance on Ukraine.[4]
The summit co-led by Modi and Putin addressed a wide range of issues – from energy, trade, defence and infrastructure cooperation, to institutional coordination in forums such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS and the United Nations. On the economic front, the visit came amid trade between the two countries hitting historic highs. Modi used the platform to emphasise India’s energy requirements and thanked Russia for continued fertilizer and oil cooperation, even as New Delhi sought to diversify its supply chain and invest in domestic manufacturing under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
The two leader formalized nine agreements to strengthen bilateral cooperation across strategic sectors. These included a Program of Cooperation in Trade, Economic, and Investment Spheres (2024–2029), with a focus on the Russian Far East and the Arctic; long-term oil and gas collaboration between Indian firms (ONGC Videsh, Essar Oil) and Russian entities (Rosneft, Gazprom); and a joint feasibility study for a trans-China gas pipeline.
In the nuclear sector, the two countries committed to installing ten additional reactors over two decades, including expansions at Kudankulam. The summit also facilitated direct raw diamond exports from Russia to India, bypassing traditional intermediaries. Collectively, these agreements highlight India’s strategic pursuit of multipolar engagement and reinforce its role as an autonomous actor, while consolidating the India-Russia partnership across critical economic and technological domains.
In sum, Modi’s visit to Russia reinforced India’s strategic autonomy and multi-alignment policy, showcasing New Delhi’s ability to strengthen a long-standing partnership outside the direct orbit of Western influence. At the same time, it underscored the complex trade-offs of such autonomy: dependence on Russian energy and arms, exposure to Western economic penalties, and reputational risks in global diplomatic forums. India’s strategic path toward multipolar world order and multipolarity led to erosion of ties with the United States.
The US-India relationship
The deterioration of relations between India and the United States illustrates Washington’s perception of India’s neutrality as a potential threat, comparable to the civilizational and ideological sovereignty asserted by China and Russia. Both Beijing and Moscow advocate for the establishment of a multipolar world order that challenges the universality of Western—or specifically American—unipolar globalization.
The United States’ concerns in this regard are not unfounded. India’s current positions, along with its security, political, and economic engagements with Russia and China, reinforce the ideological, strategic, and philosophical foundations of multipolarity in direct opposition to United States global influence.
A contrasting interpretation of India’s strategic posture is advanced by Ashley J. Tellis in his influential essay “India’s Great-Power Delusions”[5].Tellis contends that India’s grand strategy—its persistent pursuit of multipolarity, non-alignment, and strategic autonomy—ultimately undermines its own ambition to emerge as a genuine global power. Despite sustained economic growth and decades of United States support, he predicts that India’s external behavior and internal political trajectory will continue to constrain its global influence well into the mid-twenty-first century.
According to Tellis, Washington has consistently sought to assist India’s rise since the early 2000s through nuclear cooperation, defense technology transfers, and intelligence sharing. The United States has envisioned India as a democratic partner and a long-term counterweight to China. Yet, in his view, New Delhi’s objectives diverge sharply from this American expectation. Rather than accepting a subordinate role within a U.S.-led unipolar order, India aims to sustain a multipolar balance that preserves its freedom of action while maintaining relations with diverse powers, including those opposed to the West such as Russia, Iran, and China.
Tellis acknowledges India’s impressive record of economic expansion—an average of 6.5 percent annual growth since the 1990s—but emphasizes the continuing disparity with China. He observes that China’s economy remains roughly five times larger, supported by a stronger manufacturing base, higher investment in research and development, and a more integrated global presence. Even under optimistic assumptions, India’s GDP by 2050 would reach only about half the size of China’s. From this standpoint, Tellis concludes that India may well become a great power, yet it will not attain superpower status; it will rank below the United States, China, and possibly the European Union in both material capability and strategic influence.
He further argues that India’s insistence on non-alignment prevents it from forming durable military partnerships. Surrounded simultaneously by China and Pakistan, India risks confronting a two-front security dilemma that it cannot manage alone. Tellis therefore maintains that New Delhi must deepen its defense cooperation with Washington if it wishes to balance Beijing effectively. The current pursuit of multipolarity, he warns, may prove self-defeating: instead of fostering equilibrium, it could leave India stranded between two dominant poles in an emerging U.S.–China bipolar order.
In addition to these structural concerns, Tellis links India’s domestic politics to its global limitations. He identifies an “illiberal turn” in Indian democracy, marked by rising Hindu nationalism, institutional pressure on minorities, and growing political polarization under the Bharatiya Janata Party. Such internal fragmentation, he argues, threatens both India’s credibility as a democratic model and its ability to mobilize national power coherently. For Tellis, an illiberal India would be a weaker and less influential one—undermining the liberal international order that has historically supported its prosperity.
Taken together, these arguments form a critical realist assessment of India’s contemporary trajectory. They portray New Delhi’s strategy of autonomy as conceptually outdated and practically counterproductive—a worldview that aspires to global leadership but refuses the alliances and domestic liberalism necessary to sustain it.
Ashley J. Tellis’s recent essay “India’s Great-Power Delusions” (Foreign Affairs, 2025) questions the logic of India’s strategic autonomy, arguing that New Delhi’s refusal to enter firm alliances and its pursuit of multipolarity undermine its rise as a genuine great power. From a Western realist standpoint, Tellis views power largely through material capabilities and alliance structures; he concludes that India’s avoidance of formal coalitions and its economic distance from China will confine it to a secondary global position.
India’s Strategy
Yet this diagnosis misreads the underlying intent of India’s grand strategy. Atmanirbhar Bharat and neutrality do not signify a “delusion of power” but rather a redefinition of sovereignty suited to a fragmented world order. India’s experience—of colonial subordination, Cold-War bipolarity, and twenty-first-century economic coercion—has produced a strategic culture that prizes independence of action over alliance dependency. As the article above shows, U.S. attempts to discipline India through trade tariffs and diplomatic pressure have only reinforced New Delhi’s commitment to self-reliance and diversified partnerships. The sharp expansion of energy cooperation with Russia and the simultaneous normalization of dialogue with China demonstrate that neutrality can operate as a strategy of resilience, not of hesitation.
Tellis’s critique also underestimates the political meaning of Atmanirbhar Bharat. By linking economic sovereignty with foreign-policy autonomy, India is pursuing what might be termed developmental realism—the belief that national strength arises first from internal capability. Rather than competing with China through military parity or alliance politics, India seeks to expand technological and industrial self-sufficiency, thereby reducing structural vulnerabilities to external shocks such as U.S. tariffs or Western sanctions. In this sense, the initiative reflects a non-Western paradigm of power grounded in autonomy, economic security, and civilizational identity.
Moreover, the portrayal of India’s neutrality as a threat to the liberal order assumes that stability requires alignment with the United States. In reality, the persistence of multiple autonomous poles—including India, Russia, China, and the European Union—creates a pluralistic equilibrium that prevents domination by any single bloc. India’s participation in both the Indo-Pacific and Eurasian frameworks is therefore not evidence of confusion, as Tellis suggests, but of sophisticated balancing within an evolving multipolar order.
Finally, while Tellis warns that India’s internal illiberalism will diminish its power, this critique conflates domestic political contestation with systemic decline. India’s democracy remains dynamic, contested, and adaptive; its plural political landscape continues to mediate between nationalist impulses and constitutional liberalism. The durability of democratic institutions—rather than their temporary polarization—has historically anchored India’s international legitimacy.
In short, a critical reading of Tellis’s thesis reveals that India’s strategic autonomy is neither delusional nor self-defeating. It represents a third pathway between alignment and isolation: a pragmatic, multidirectional diplomacy that safeguards national interests amid the uncertainties of great-power rivalry. Where Tellis sees fragmentation, India demonstrates flexibility; where he predicts constraint, India cultivates resilience. The pursuit of neutrality, grounded in Atmanirbhar Bharat, thus constitutes not the denial of power but the assertion of a distinct vision of it—one that aligns with the emerging logic of a truly multipolar world.
President Donald Trump sought to distance India from Russia and China; however, India has unequivocally demonstrated its ability to act as a genuinely sovereign and autonomous great power by further consolidating its relationships with both nations. Through these strategic engagements, India has reaffirmed that the pursuit of multipolarity is a central tenet of its foreign policy and national security strategy.
The outcomes of U.S. assumptions and policies regarding India have thus proven largely misguided, underscoring the limits of external pressure in shaping New Delhi’s strategic choices. Ultimately, India’s trajectory reflects a deliberate exercise of autonomy, balancing global partnerships while safeguarding national interests, and exemplifies a pragmatic model of multipolar engagement suited to the complexities of the twenty-first-century international order.
[1] Reuters, India’s chief economic adviser says Trump’s tariffs could shave 0.5% off GDP, Bloomberg News reports, Internet, https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-chief-economic-adviser-says-trumps-tariffs-could-shave-05-off-gdp-2025-09-08/?utm_source=chatgpt.com, 2025.09.11.
[2] Financial Times, Narendra Modi vows ‘self-reliant India’ in wake of Donald Trump’s 50% tariff, Internet, https://www.ft.com/content/b04ac590-34da-4408-b477-28bedfac7103?utm_source=chatgpt.com, 2025.09.11.
[3] After independence (1947), India was a founding leader of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) during the Cold War.
[4] Lee Ying Shan (2025),India’s Modi to meet Putin in Moscow as both sides seek to forge deeper ties, Internet, https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/08/india-pm-narendra-modi-meeting-russian-president-vladimir-putin-in-moscow.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com, 2025.10.19.
[5] Ashley J. Tellis (2025), India’s Great-Power Delusions, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2025.