By: Hridbina Chatterjee
India’s foreign policy has gone through a significant change—transitioning more away from “Strategic Equidistance” to “Multi-Vector Engagement.” For decades, New Delhi – in line with the Non-Aligned Movement – adhered to a sort of “passive balancing,” maintaining an objective and cautious distance from all major global power competitions in practice and theory, so as not to disrupt development. However, with a series of recent crises, including the weaponizing of trade through tariffs, energy shocks, ruptures to the global order, and great power competition, it is clear that India’s traditional neutral position is no longer defensible nor a strategic advantage. This transition is an active – and acknowledged – strategy. India no longer aims to evade confrontation; it actively seeks to engage with everyone – the US, Russia, China, and the EU – but under terms that India sets. The “active pivoting” is a pragmatic necessity, where India leverages its growing economic and demographic stature to establish roles in global governance, procure important resources, diversify supply chains and ultimately ensure that any new order advances India’s relevant national interests, positioning it as a central player in the world rather than a marginal balancer.
From Strategic Non-Alignment to Multi-Vector Engagement
Historically, India’s foreign policy was based on Strategic Non-Alignment that originated in a post-Cold War continuation of its original Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) philosophy. This strategy—which can be referred to as “Passive Balancing” or “Strategic Equidistance”—sought to maintain diplomatic neutrality (while avoiding overt alignment with large power blocs) and focus almost entirely on shoring up its developmental space. In a relatively stable, unipolar, or initially multipolar world, this provided India with important strategic autonomy. Today, however, a new era of dramatic instability (the weaponization of trade, energy, and finance) renders an approach based on “passive” equidistance inadequate for the new context. Geopolitical friction points such as the Russia-Ukraine war or increasing US-China tensions are decidedly incompatible with a passive watching-and-waiting approach that has characterized India’s previous foreign policy; these are choices.
The new context requires Multi-Vector Engagement, or “Active Pivoting.” This is an approach that is real-time, based on pragmatic considerations, and involves India engaging with all major and minor power centers—the West, Russia, the Gulf countries, Global South, regional groupings, and so on—all simultaneously but through a hard-headed lens of national interests. The goal is to maximize gains from each of these relationships as well as minimize vulnerabilities. It is not about taking sides, but about having a seat at every table and ensuring India’s voice is integral to any discussion on global governance, trade, or security.
Navigating the Tariff and Trade Turbulence
The global trade landscape has become increasingly protectionist, with tariffs being deployed as a geopolitical tool. India finds itself trying to manage rising pressures from trade partners, while navigating opportunities for economic advantage. Tariff shocks, where select major economies place heightened duties on certain Indian exports, often unrelated to the actual goods but to political decisions around energy sources, is a direct threat to India’s ambitions of growing manufacturing and its associated exports.
India is responding in clear sight of its Multi-Vector Engagement. Rather than giving in to pressures of trade partners, it is expanding its supply chain partners and building supply chain relationships in markets outside of trade partners. The drive for Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) is not an isolationist strategy, rather it is a strategic hedge against supply chain weaponization, with the desire to build resilience domestically and to be a reliable alternative to other manufacturing markets. India is also pursuing new free trade agreements (FTAs) with partners, working with new multilateral trade forums, and seeking to reform international trade rules in favour of emerging economies’ effective engagement.
Strategic Autonomy Amidst Energy Shocks
The volatility in global energy markets, particularly in the wake of geopolitical conflicts, poses threat to India, which is a significant energy importer, disrupting its rapid growth trajectory and spurring debilitating inflation. The energetic pivot that India is taking in the energy domain is a great example of pragmatic foreign policy that puts energy security and affordability ahead of ideological fit.
India has leverage, and it’s utilizing it. New Delhi made significant savings that shielded its domestic economy from international price hikes by greatly increasing its import of discounted oil from countries such as Russia after Western powers induced sanctions upon said country. While this was criticized, India stood by its decision to say its duty is to protect its 1.4 billion citizens. At the same time, India is strengthening strategic energy relations with Gulf nations, investing in renewable energy, and encouraging green hydrogen to lower its long-term reliance on fossil fuels. This balanced strategy results in securing immediate energy needs while preparing for a sustainable future, thereby strengthening its strategic autonomy.
Responding to Shifting Alliances and Geopolitical Crises
The contemporary world is characterized by an accelerating shift in global power and the formation of new, fluid alliances. Evidence of India’s active pivoting is most notable in its positioning on emerging alliances and global crises. The approach of the country is to join or participate in a number of sometimes conflicting groupings without committing entirely to one or another one’s side.
On one hand, India is an integral part of the Quad (with the US, Japan, and Australia), which orients itself towards a free and open Indo-Pacific and is an important balancing mechanism against assertiveness in the region and strengthened its bilateral defence and technology relationships with Western countries. At the same time, India is also at the forefront of initiatives such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which include the participation of China and Russia, among others. This dual engagement, often referenced as “Multi-Alignment,” enables India to influence dialogues both within the Western-led order and the emerging non-Western axis. In convening and taking leadership roles in major forums, such as the G20, India has successfully conceived its position as the “Voice of the Global South,” advocating for debt relief, climate finance, and proportionate representation in global governance institutions, and this active engagement in global normative processes is indeed the ultimate evidence of its efforts growing from passive balancing status to actively altering situations and outcomes.
The Decisive Shift from Balancing to Shaping
India’s choice to abandon Strategic Equidistance for Multi-Vector Engagement is an imperative born of necessity, marking its ultimate transition from a rule-taker to a rule-shaper. There is no longer a viable “wait and watch” regime; the time for passive neutrality is over. The intermix of economic pressures (tariffs, supply chain disruptions), security dilemmas (border issues, regional instability), and existential concerns (climate change, energy security) calls for a forward-looking, nimble, and interest-based foreign policy.
Multi-Vector Engagement requires relentless diplomacy in an adverse climate, compartmentalization of competing bilateral relationships (e.g., strong ties to the US, while also continuing the modality of defense and energy trades with Russia), and explicitness in advocating its national interests on the global stage. India desires to use its demographic dividend, economic growth, civilizational/soft power appeal, and developing defense capabilities to not only secure its future but to promote a genuinely multipolar, rules-based, and equitable order in the world to best position itself as a global pivot to a proliferated bipolar state, rather than a side-player in a new global order.
