Other countries' policies & the diaspora

With over 37 million overseas Indians (MEA, January 2026) spread from the Gulf to North America, India has the world's largest diaspora and, by the World Bank's count, the largest remittance inflow: $125 billion in 2023.

Economic factor and knowledge network

• Remittances steady the balance of payments and household incomes, especially in Kerala, Punjab and the Gulf corridor; diaspora investment and trade links follow.
• Knowledge: Indian-origin leaders in global technology and academia, returnee entrepreneurs and schemes such as VAJRA for visiting researchers connect India to frontier science.

Living bridge and strategic leverage

• Festivals, yoga, cinema, cuisine and language communities build familiarity with India in host societies, the soft power the statement describes.
• Diaspora advocacy helped secure the India–US civil nuclear deal; institutionalised engagement through OCI cards and Pravasi Bharatiya Divas turns heritage into networks that host-country politicians court.
• Persons of Indian origin in legislatures and city halls abroad give India interlocutors who understand it, converting cultural familiarity into political access.

Critical examination

• Not a monolith: the diaspora spans Gulf labourers, Caribbean descendants and Silicon Valley executives; interests and loyalties differ.
• Vulnerability: Gulf workers face labour abuse and depend on host-state rules, which limits India's leverage on their behalf.
• Costs: brain drain of doctors, engineers and researchers; tightening immigration regimes narrow the bridge.
• Liabilities: separatist extremism in some diaspora pockets has strained ties with host governments, showing that heritage can cut both ways.
• Influence needs substance at home: governance, growth and pluralism; a diaspora amplifies India's standing but cannot manufacture it.

The diaspora is an asset to be engaged respectfully and protected, not an instrument to be deployed; its strategic value grows in step with India's own strength.

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Since 2013 the BRI has brought Chinese ports, highways, power plants and loans into almost every South Asian country, turning the region into an arena where China, India and Western partners compete for influence.

From regional space to great-power theatre

• Chinese finance gave small neighbours an alternative to dependence on India; the US, Japan and the EU answered with alternative connectivity and Indo-Pacific frameworks, making India one competitor among several.
• Neighbours now bargain between suitors, so domestic politics in Colombo, Kathmandu, Dhaka or Malé carries great-power stakes.

Security implications for India

• Sovereignty: the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which is why India has not endorsed the BRI.
• Maritime encirclement: Hambantota (leased to a Chinese firm for 99 years in 2017), Gwadar and Kyaukphyu raise dual-use port concerns astride India's sea lanes.
• Surveillance: Chinese research vessels in the Indian Ocean and port calls at neighbours' harbours strain India's maritime domain awareness.
• Two-front logic: connectivity through Pakistan and presence in the Bay of Bengal complicate India's continental and maritime planning together.

Implications for regional influence

• Leverage: opaque loans deepened debt distress, most visibly in Sri Lanka's 2022 crisis, giving Beijing political leverage over policy and assets.
• Erosion: neighbours use Chinese finance to bargain with India, diluting the primacy assumed under Neighbourhood First.
• Nuance: BRI lending has slowed since 2020, projects have stalled, and neighbours hedge rather than choose, leaving space for Indian diplomacy.

India's response

• Neighbourhood First with lines of credit; emergency assistance to Sri Lanka in 2022; Chabahar; BBIN connectivity; IMEC; and Indo-Pacific partnerships with the US and Japan.
• The comparative advantage is trust and proximity: grant-based, transparent, quickly delivered projects that neighbours can own.

India cannot out-lend China, but it can out-deliver: faster projects, transparent finance and partnerships that keep South Asia open, plural and sovereign.

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India's engagement with Africa has moved from aid to partnership, and digital cooperation — from tele-education to payments and identity — is its newest and fastest-growing pillar.

Mutual respect

• Demand-driven and open: India offers open-source, low-cost digital public infrastructure that leaves data and control with the partner state — no debt trap, no vendor lock-in.
• Sovereignty respected: MOSIP-based digital ID systems such as Ethiopia's are built and owned by the host country; India shares code, not control.

Co-development

• Payments: UPI and RuPay launched in Mauritius; NPCI International is helping Namibia's central bank build an instant payment system.
• Legacy and continuity: the Pan-African e-Network, followed by e-VidyaBharti and e-ArogyaBharti for tele-education and tele-medicine.
• Global agenda: India's G20 presidency secured the African Union's permanent membership and put digital public infrastructure on the global agenda (2023).

Long-term institutions

• Capacity: ITEC training, the IIT Madras campus in Zanzibar and India–Africa Forum Summit commitments give the partnership institutional depth.
• Gaps: connectivity and financing shortfalls, implementation delays, cybersecurity risks, and competition from China's Digital Silk Road.

Built on openness and capacity rather than dependency, digital cooperation can make India a trusted co-developer of Africa's digital future — provided delivery keeps pace with promise.

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The post-1991 consensus of open markets and shared rules is yielding to a 'sovereignty-first' politics in which states put national control of trade, technology, borders and identity ahead of integration.

Signs of sovereign nationalism

• Trade: tariff wars, including sweeping US tariffs in 2025; Brexit; the return of industrial policy and export controls on chips and critical technology.
• Security-first economics: friend-shoring, critical-mineral rivalry and sanctions after the Russia–Ukraine war treat interdependence as vulnerability.
• Weakened multilateralism: the WTO Appellate Body paralysed since 2019; Security Council deadlock on major conflicts.
• Identity: anti-immigration sentiment and populist nationalism across democracies.

Why it is happening

• The 2008 crisis and rising inequality within nations, China's rise as a strategic competitor, and COVID-19 exposing supply-chain dependence.

How far the claim holds

• Globalisation is changing shape, not ending: digital trade, services and regional FTAs keep growing; supply chains are being re-routed, not dismantled.
• India's response is strategic autonomy with openness — Atmanirbhar Bharat alongside trade agreements with the UAE, Australia, EFTA and the UK.

The world is moving from rules-first to sovereignty-first globalisation rather than to autarky; India's task is to guard its autonomy while staying open to the world.

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India imports more than four-fifths of its crude oil, much of it from the Gulf, so energy runs through its West Asia policy. It is a core driver of India's influence there, though not the only one.

The energy–West Asia linkage

• Supply: Gulf producers provide a large share of India's crude and LNG; the UAE and Saudi Arabia are strategic partners, and Qatar a long-term LNG supplier.
• Beyond barrels: about nine million Indians work in the Gulf and send home large remittances; sovereign funds from the region invest in India; sea lanes through Hormuz and the Red Sea carry the trade.
• Qualification: security cooperation, trade, technology and diaspora welfare also drive policy — energy is a pillar, not the sole kingpin, and India engages Israel and Iran alongside the Gulf.

Integrating energy security into foreign policy

• Diversify sources: keep Russian, US, Guyanese and African crude in the basket alongside the Gulf; lock in long-term LNG contracts such as the one with Qatar.
• Own the upstream: overseas equity oil and gas, strategic petroleum reserves built with Gulf partners, and rupee or local-currency settlement to cut dollar exposure.
• Secure the routes: the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, the International North–South Transport Corridor and Chabahar for connectivity; naval deployments in the Gulf and Red Sea to protect shipping.
• Lead the transition: the International Solar Alliance, the Global Biofuels Alliance, green hydrogen partnerships with Gulf states, and critical-mineral supply chains through the Minerals Security Partnership.
• Regional grids: cross-border power trade with Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh, and One Sun One World One Grid, turn neighbours into energy partners.
• Institutionalise: an energy-diplomacy cell linking the External Affairs, Petroleum and Renewable Energy ministries, and an energy chapter in every strategic partnership.

Energy security should run through India's diplomacy as a diversified, transition-ready portfolio — West Asia central to it, but no longer its only anchor.

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The pandemic and US–China rivalry pushed Western economies to 'de-risk' from China; India, with a large market and a democratic polity, has become their preferred alternative for manufacturing and for strategic partnership.

Supply-chain alternative

• Electronics: Apple's suppliers have expanded iPhone assembly in India, aided by production-linked incentive schemes; Micron is building a semiconductor assembly and test plant in Gujarat.
• Technology and minerals: the US–India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET, 2023), India's entry into the Minerals Security Partnership (2023), and the EU–India Trade and Technology Council.
• Resilience: the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative with Japan and Australia.

Strategic partner against Chinese dominance

• Security: the Quad, foundational agreements (LEMOA, COMCASA, BECA), 2+2 dialogues, and the GE–HAL plan to co-produce fighter-jet engines in India.
• Connectivity: the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (2023) as an alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative.

India's caveats

• India guards strategic autonomy — ties with Russia, BRICS and the SCO — and rejects an alliance framework.
• Dependence persists: China remains a major source of electronics and pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), so de-risking is gradual.

Western de-risking gives India an opening; converting it into lasting gain needs domestic capacity, ease of doing business and a foreign policy that stays autonomous rather than aligned.

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Spread across about 1,200 coral islands south-west of India, the Maldives sits astride the Indian Ocean's east–west sea lanes that carry Gulf energy and Asia–Europe trade, close to Lakshadweep and India's western seaboard.

Geopolitical and geostrategic importance

• Sea lanes: the Eight Degree Channel between Minicoy and the Maldives and the One and a Half Degree Channel are choke points for shipping between the Gulf, the Malacca Strait and East Asia.
• Energy and trade security: disruption or hostile control of these waters would threaten India's crude imports and export routes, so a friendly Maldives is a strategic buffer.
• Policy anchor: the Maldives is central to Neighbourhood First and SAGAR, and to India's role as first responder — Operation Cactus (1988) against a coup attempt, Operation Neer (2014) after Malé's water crisis, and vaccines during the pandemic.
• Development partnership: the Greater Malé Connectivity Project, the coastal radar network, aircraft for surveillance and rescue, the Uthuru Thila Falhu harbour project, and lines of credit.

Maritime security and regional stability amid competition

• China's footprint: infrastructure loans and debt, research-vessel visits and political outreach; the 'India Out' campaign and the 2024 replacement of Indian military personnel with civilians showed how domestic politics can swing alignment.
• Security stakes for India: deny a hostile naval presence near Lakshadweep, maintain maritime domain awareness through the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region and coastal radars, and counter piracy, drug trafficking and terror.
• Regional stability: the Maldives' climate vulnerability, radicalisation and fiscal stress affect the whole neighbourhood; the Colombo Security Conclave with Sri Lanka and Mauritius provides a coordination platform.
• Recalibration: later in 2024 India extended currency-swap support and the two sides adopted a vision for a comprehensive economic and maritime security partnership, showing that engagement outlasts a hostile election cycle.

A stable, friendly Maldives is a frontline of Indian Ocean security; consistent partnership that respects Maldivian sovereignty is India's best answer to strategic competition in its own neighbourhood.

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People of Indian origin lead global firms, universities and hospitals in the West and hold high office: Rishi Sunak became Britain's Prime Minister in 2022 and Kamala Harris the US Vice-President in 2021. This rise gives India ready-made assets.

Economic benefits

• Remittances: the World Bank ranked India the largest recipient in 2023 at $125 billion, supporting the balance of payments and household consumption.
• Capital: NRI deposits, venture and angel funding and diaspora-led firms channel Western savings into Indian start-ups and enterprises.
• Knowledge: circulation of skills, research links and returning professionals built the IT, pharmaceutical and start-up sectors; Indian-origin heads of global technology firms open doors for Indian talent.
• Trade and tourism: diaspora networks market Indian goods and services and drive heritage and medical tourism.

Political benefits

• Lobbying: organised diaspora groups and congressional caucuses in the United States helped win support for the India-US civil nuclear deal (2008).
• Bridge diplomacy: Indian-origin legislators, officials and voters in the US, UK and Canada shape their governments' attitude to India and amplify its positions in multilateral forums.
• Soft power: yoga, cinema, cuisine and festivals build public goodwill that eases diplomacy.
• Caveat: diaspora activism can also strain ties, as the dispute with Canada in 2023 showed.

The diaspora is an economic and diplomatic bridge; India should nurture it through consular care, Pravasi Bharatiya Divas and OCI facilities, and a two-way relationship.

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My view: a stronger transatlantic partnership works for India where it widens India's choices, in technology, trade and the Indo-Pacific, but works against India where it hardens blocs, pushes Russia towards China and demands that India take sides. The statement is true in part, not in full.

Where it works for India

• Indo-Pacific convergence: NATO's 2022 Strategic Concept named China's coercive policies a challenge, aligning Western threat perception with India's own; France, the US and the EU now have Indo-Pacific strategies that treat India as a partner.
• Technology and defence: the India-US Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (2023), jet-engine and drone cooperation, and European defence suppliers reduce dependence on a single source.
• Trade and capital: negotiations with the EU and EFTA, the India-EU Trade and Technology Council, supply-chain shifts away from China, and Western capital for Indian manufacturing.
• Security cooperation: counter-terrorism, maritime domain awareness, cyber security and intelligence sharing with the US and European partners.

Where it does not

• Russia factor: NATO's expansion, with Finland joining in 2023, deepens Russia's dependence on China, threatening India's defence supplies, spares and energy ties, and complicating its position on Ukraine.
• Economic shocks: the war and sanctions brought inflation, fertiliser and food price spikes and payment problems for Indian trade with Russia.
• Pressure to align: expectations that India condemn Russia or join sanctions strain its strategic autonomy; India abstained on several UN votes and instead called for dialogue.
• Multilateral strain: bloc confrontation paralyses the UN Security Council and complicates the G20, forums India needs; the G20 Delhi Declaration (2023) needed careful bridging language on Ukraine.

India's approach

• Multi-alignment: deepen the Quad and Western partnerships while keeping Russia, Central Asia and the Global South engaged, and judge each issue on Indian interests.

A stronger West is useful to India but not sufficient; India gains most when the partnership adds to its options and loses when it is asked to choose, so balanced multi-alignment remains the right course.

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Africa's young population, resources and markets make it central to the next phase of global growth; India frames its engagement as a demand-driven development partnership rather than a race for resources.

India's influence

• Diplomacy: India-Africa Forum Summits (2008, 2011, 2015), the ten guiding principles announced at Kampala (2018), new missions across the continent (since then, India backed the African Union's G20 membership, 2023).
• Development finance: at the third Summit India committed a concessional line of credit of US$10 billion and US$600 million in grants for power, railways, water and health projects.
• Capacity building: ITEC training, scholarships and the Pan-African e-Network build skills that African partners value over turnkey infrastructure.
• Trade and investment: Africa supplies energy and minerals; Indian firms are active in telecom, pharma, autos and agriculture.
• Health and climate: affordable medicines, Covid-19 vaccines under Vaccine Maitri (2021) and solar projects through the International Solar Alliance.
• Security: UN peacekeeping in Congo and South Sudan, maritime cooperation, training and defence exports.

Limits

• China's far larger finance and infrastructure footprint, slow project delivery, limited private investment and trade concentrated in a few commodities and countries.

India's influence rests on trust and capacity building rather than money; to match Africa's rising weight it must deliver faster, invest more and work with Africa in multilateral forums.

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The Soviet Union rivalled the United States militarily and ideologically but stood apart from the world economy; China combines a large, integrated economy, technological ambition and growing military power, a harder competitor to contain.

Why China is more challenging

• Economic integration: China is a leading manufacturer and a top trading partner of the US and its allies, so decoupling is costly; the Soviet economy could be isolated at little cost.
• Technology: rivalry in artificial intelligence, 5G, semiconductors and space is led by globally competitive Chinese firms, not a closed military-industrial system.
• Military: rapid modernisation of the navy, missiles and nuclear forces, and assertiveness in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, where US primacy mattered most.
• Global reach: the Belt and Road Initiative, development finance and growing weight in international institutions offer a state-led model attractive to many countries.
• Alliance dilemma: the US relies on the Quad, AUKUS and treaty allies, yet most Asian states trade heavily with China and avoid choosing sides.

How far 'existential'

• China leads no Warsaw-Pact-style bloc, faces demographic and debt pressures, and remains interdependent with the US; the rivalry is strategic and systemic rather than a threat to America's survival.

China is a more multi-dimensional competitor than the Soviet Union ever was, but deep interdependence makes managed competition, not a repeat of the Cold War, the likelier course.

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AUKUS, announced on 15 September 2021, is a security pact of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines and to share advanced military technology, aimed squarely at China's growing naval power.

What AUKUS is

• Pillar one: nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines for Australia; the March 2023 pathway plans US sale of three Virginia-class boats from the early 2030s, then a jointly built SSN-AUKUS class.
• Pillar two: cooperation in artificial intelligence, quantum, cyber, hypersonic and undersea capabilities.

Will it supersede existing partnerships

• No: the Quad is a consultative, multi-domain forum on vaccines, technology, infrastructure and maritime awareness; Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance; ASEAN-led forums remain the region's diplomatic core.
• AUKUS is a narrow, three-member defence-technology pact; it deepens the hard-security layer beneath these arrangements rather than replacing them.

Strengths

• Long-range, stealthy deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, and deeper allied interoperability and defence-industrial integration.
• A clear signal of Anglo-American commitment to the region after doubts about US staying power.

Limits and impact

• Delivery: submarines arrive over decades at very high cost, and political sustainability across election cycles is uncertain.
• Regional reaction: China calls it destabilising; some ASEAN states fear an arms race; the cancelled French submarine contract strained Western unity.
• Non-proliferation: transferring naval nuclear propulsion to a non-nuclear-weapon State tests IAEA safeguards, though the partners have promised the highest standards.
• For India: it complicates China's calculations and complements the Quad, but India stays outside, valuing strategic autonomy and an inclusive regional architecture.

AUKUS strengthens the military side of Indo-Pacific balancing but supplements, rather than supersedes, the Quad and ASEAN-centred architecture; timely delivery and regional acceptance will decide its real impact.

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The Indian diaspora is among the largest and best-educated immigrant communities in the US and Europe; income, professional standing and political participation have made it a visible force.

Economic role

• United States: Indian Americans are prominent in technology, medicine and start-ups and head firms such as Alphabet, Microsoft, Adobe and IBM.
• Capital and links: India is the world's largest recipient of remittances; diaspora networks channel investment, business ties and returning talent into Indian technology and start-ups.

Political role

• United States: Kamala Harris was elected Vice President in November 2020, several Indian Americans sit in Congress, and community donors and voters count in close contests.
• Lobbying: the community helped build support for the India–US civil nuclear agreement (2008); 'Howdy Modi' (Houston, 2019) showed its mobilising power.
• Europe: Rishi Sunak (UK Chancellor 2020, Prime Minister 2022–24), Priti Patel (Home Secretary 2019–22), Leo Varadkar (Ireland) and António Costa (Portugal) reached the top.

Limits: influential, not decisive

• It is a small share of electorates, diverse and divided on issues such as the CAA, and its members act first as citizens of their host countries.
• It faces discrimination and visa limits, and its influence works only where Indian and host-country interests align.

The diaspora is a real asset for India's economy and diplomacy, but its power is that of a bridge, not a bloc: it shapes outcomes through shared interests rather than deciding them.

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Russia has equipped India's forces for decades, but the United States has become a leading partner through foundational agreements and big-ticket purchases (since then, SIPRI has recorded a 53% fall in Russian arms exports to India between 2011–15 and 2016–20, while India remained the world's second-largest arms importer).

Significance of Indo-US deals

• Framework: GSOMIA (2002), LEMOA (2016), COMCASA (2018) and BECA (2020) enable logistics support, secure communications and geospatial sharing, backed by Major Defence Partner status (2016).
• Platforms: P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, C-17 and C-130J transports, Apache and Chinook helicopters, M777 howitzers and MH-60R helicopters, with exercises such as Malabar and Yudh Abhyas.
• Character: high technology and interoperability with the world's strongest navy, but with end-use conditions and exposure to CAATSA sanctions over Russian purchases.

Indo-Russian deals

• Su-30MKI fighters, T-90 tanks, submarines, the co-developed BrahMos missile and the S-400 system (2018) under a 'special and privileged strategic partnership' (2010): cost-effective, with technology transfer and few political strings, but with sanction and delivery risks.

Indo-Pacific stability

• US ties: interoperability, maritime domain awareness and the Quad help deter coercion and keep sea lanes open as China grows assertive, from the South China Sea to Galwan (2020); a capable India anchors the Indian Ocean balance.
• Russian ties: Moscow's closeness to Beijing and its Eurasian focus limit its role in the Indo-Pacific, yet Russian equipment still forms much of India's frontline against the very threats the region faces.

India's approach

• Multi-alignment: buying from the US, France, Israel and Russia, refusing an alliance, and pushing self-reliance through positive indigenisation lists (2020).

Indo-US defence deals matter more for shaping the Indo-Pacific balance because they bring technology, interoperability and a shared maritime purpose; Russian deals give continuity and autonomy; India's interest lies in diversifying suppliers while building its own industrial base.

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India and Japan upgraded their Global Partnership (2000) to a Special Strategic and Global Partnership (2014), a sign that both see the relationship as central to a free, open and rules-based Indo-Pacific.

Why the partnership matters

• Strategic convergence: shared concern over maritime security and China's rise, expressed through the Quad (revived 2017), Japan's place in the Malabar exercise and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision.
• Economic weight: CEPA (in force since August 2011) and Japanese loans and investment in the Delhi Metro, the Dedicated Freight Corridor and the Mumbai–Ahmedabad high-speed rail.
• Connectivity: Japanese projects in the North-East and the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (2017) tie India's Act East policy to Japan's quality-infrastructure agenda.
• Defence and technology: the civil nuclear agreement (2016), a 2+2 ministerial dialogue agreed in 2018 and first held in November 2019, and cooperation in defence equipment, space and digital technology.
• Global role: joint pursuit of Security Council reform through the G4, and cooperation on disaster relief, climate action and resilient supply chains.

Gaps

• Bilateral trade remains modest beside Japan's trade with China; projects face land and delay problems; differences persist on non-proliferation and India's strategic autonomy.

The statement is broadly right: the ties are strategic and global in scope, but their significance for Asia will be measured by faster project delivery, deeper defence-industrial links and joint work in third countries.

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The United States, once UNESCO's largest contributor, stopped paying dues in 2011 after Palestine's admission, notified its withdrawal on 12 October 2017 citing arrears, the need for reform and ‘anti-Israel bias’, and left on 31 December 2018.

Too little cash

• The US had supplied about a fifth of the budget; its default forced cuts, hiring restraint and reliance on earmarked voluntary funds.
• Earmarked money lets donors steer priorities in education, science, culture and heritage, weakening the organisation's own agenda.

Too much politics

• Middle East disputes, Palestine's membership and resolutions on Jerusalem and Hebron's heritage, turned technical decisions into bloc votes.
• Washington read these as bias against Israel; Israel announced its own withdrawal alongside the US.
• Politicisation is not new: the US left in 1984 over politicisation and mismanagement and returned only in 2003.

Fighting for life?

• Losing a major member dented UNESCO's universality and finances, yet its standard-setting on heritage, education and science continued.
• The US rejoined in July 2023, then in July 2025 announced a fresh withdrawal, showing how exposed the body remains to one member's politics.
• India, which gains from UNESCO's heritage, education and science work while balancing ties with Palestine, Israel and the US, needs a depoliticised, well-funded UNESCO.

UNESCO's crisis is as much political as financial; predictable contributions from many members and consensus-driven technical decisions would protect its mandate better than dependence on one power.

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Nehru's India spoke for the colonised: it raised South Africa's treatment of Indians at the UN in 1946, helped shape the Bandung conference (1955), the Non-Aligned Movement (1961) and the G-77 (1964); today's India is also a large economy, a nuclear power and a partner of the major powers.

The older image

• India led opposition to colonialism and apartheid and pressed for a fairer economic order through the G-77 and the NAM, giving it moral standing far beyond its material power.

How the new role has changed it

• Post-1991 liberalisation and new strategic partnerships shifted priorities from solidarity to interests; the Quad and the bid for a permanent Security Council seat mark a great-power orientation.
• On trade, nuclear and security questions India now weighs national interest as much as Global South solidarity, and it is courted by major powers rather than leading the marginalised against them.
• In a multipolar contest India balances the US, Russia and China through the Quad, BRICS and the SCO, acting as a swing power rather than a bloc leader.
• Asymmetry with smaller neighbours breeds suspicion, weakening its claim to speak for them.

What remains

• India still defends developing-country interests at the WTO (the G-20 bloc of 2003, food security) and on climate justice, and founded the International Solar Alliance (2015).
• Development partnership through lines of credit, capacity building and disaster relief in Africa, Asia and the neighbourhood sustains goodwill.

Assessment

• The image has changed rather than vanished: India now speaks for the Global South from a position of influence, but its credibility depends on consistent stands, development finance and pressing for reform of multilateral bodies.

India's voice for the marginalised survives, but it is now one of interest and capacity rather than solidarity alone; the older image endures only where action matches rhetoric.

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India–US ties have grown into a global strategic partnership, yet Washington tends to see India as a balancer against China or a market to be opened, while Delhi seeks recognition as an autonomous power in its own right; that gap is the friction the statement describes.

The friction, with examples

• Status: designation as a Major Defence Partner (2016) and Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 status (2018) fall short of the equal treatment India expects and are read in Delhi as instruments of US strategy rather than recognition of India's standing.
• Strategic autonomy: the threat of CAATSA (2017) sanctions over the Russian S-400 purchase, and the end of waivers on Iranian oil in May 2019, clashed with India's independent choices on defence and energy.
• Trade: the US withdrew India's GSP benefits in June 2019 and imposed steel and aluminium tariffs in 2018, while pressing India on tariffs, data localisation and e-commerce rules.
• Regional: US talks with the Taliban and its dealings with Pakistan sidelined India in Afghanistan, and President Trump's offer to mediate on Kashmir (July 2019) irritated Delhi.
• Multilateral: differences at the WTO on subsidies and public stockholding, and on climate after the US announced its exit from the Paris Agreement in 2017 (it rejoined in 2021).

The convergence

• The civil nuclear deal (2008), LEMOA (2016), COMCASA (2018), the first 2+2 dialogue (2018) and the Quad show deep alignment on the Indo-Pacific.

Way forward

• Treat India as a co-equal shaper of Indo-Pacific strategy, respect its autonomy on Russia and Iran, settle trade disputes through a negotiated package, and deepen defence-technology co-production.

The statement captures a real strain: convergence on China is strong, but friction persists because India wants recognition as an equal and room for autonomy that US policy does not always allow.

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Tariff walls and competitive devaluations by major economies disturb global demand, prices and capital flows; India, more integrated with world trade and finance than ever, feels the spillovers in its growth, prices and external balance.

Effects of protectionism

• Exports and growth: tariffs in large markets and a trade war between major economies shrink world demand and hit India's exports of steel, textiles, gems, engineering goods and services, slowing growth and jobs.
• Trade diversion: goods shut out of one market may be dumped in India, hurting domestic industry and forcing anti-dumping and safeguard duties; retaliation cycles raise uncertainty.
• Investment: uncertainty delays foreign and domestic investment, though some exporters gain as buyers diversify supply chains.

Effects of currency manipulation

• Competitiveness: when rivals hold their currencies weak, Indian exports lose price advantage and cheaper imports widen the trade deficit.
• Capital flows and the rupee: a stronger dollar and global risk aversion trigger portfolio outflows, a weaker rupee, a higher oil import bill and imported inflation.
• Macro stability: a wider current account deficit, pressure on foreign exchange reserves and interest rates, costlier external borrowing, and volatility in equity and bond markets.

What India should do

• Diversify products and markets, and use trade agreements and WTO dispute settlement against unfair barriers.
• Hold adequate reserves and manage the exchange rate flexibly to smooth volatility, not to fight fundamentals.
• Strengthen domestic demand and competitiveness through logistics, ease of doing business, skills and lower export costs, so that firms leaving tariff-hit countries choose India.
• Keep fiscal discipline and inflation targeting credible, so that shocks do not become crises (the Economic Survey 2023-24 still flags renewed protectionism as a risk to the external sector).

India cannot wall itself off from trade turbulence, but sound fundamentals, diversified trade, adequate reserves and steady reforms turn a global shock into a manageable disturbance.

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After slavery was abolished in the British Empire in the 1830s, plantation colonies needed cheap labour, and from 1834 Indians were shipped under contract to Mauritius, the Caribbean, Natal, Fiji and elsewhere as 'girmitiyas'.

Why indentured labour was taken

• Pull: sugar, tea, cotton and rubber plantations needed disciplined, cheap labour once slaves were freed; India, under British control and with a vast rural workforce, was the convenient source.
• Push: poverty, famines, indebtedness, land-revenue pressure and the ruin of handicrafts drove peasants and artisans to accept fixed-term contracts, often after deceptive recruitment by agents.
• The system: harsh work, low wages, penal labour laws and poor housing led historians to call it a 'new system of slavery'; nationalist campaigning helped end it in 1917–20.

Have they preserved their cultural identity?

• Preserved: religion was the anchor, through temples, Ramcharitmanas recitation and festivals such as Diwali, Holi (Phagwa) and Muharram (Hosay); Hindi-derived tongues such as Fiji Hindi and Sarnami survive.
• Adapted: shared voyages and plantation life loosened caste and regional divides; food, music (chutney, baithak gana), dress and family ties blended with local cultures into new creole identities.
• Eroded: Christian conversion, English and creole replacing Hindi, onward migration to Europe and North America, intermarriage and ethnic politics, as in Fiji and Guyana, have diluted identity.
• Links today: Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (since 2003), OCI cards, ICCR cultural centres and Hindi promotion sustain ties with the descendants of the girmitiyas.

Judgement

• Preservation has been selective: core religious and cultural practices endure, but in hybrid, locally rooted forms rather than as a replica of nineteenth-century India.

Indenture arose from colonial labour demand meeting Indian distress; its descendants kept the core of their culture while building new identities, which is why their heritage is both recognisably Indian and distinctly their own.

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Tariff escalation from 2018, led by the US and China, and the paralysis creeping over WTO dispute settlement have raised doubts about the survival of the rules-based trading order; reform must restore trust without sacrificing development.

Key areas of reform, and India's stake

• Dispute settlement: restore the Appellate Body, blocked by the US refusal since 2017 to approve new members; address concerns about overreach and delay while keeping binding two-tier adjudication, which shields developing countries like India from power-based settlement.
• Negotiating function: consensus makes decisions slow and some members push plurilateral deals; India insists on inclusive multilateral outcomes and opposes plurilateral agreements being written into WTO rules without consensus.
• Agriculture: subsidy rules favour rich countries; India seeks a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security (MSP-based procurement), a special safeguard mechanism against import surges, and cuts in developed countries' trade-distorting support.
• Special and differential treatment: flexibilities for developing countries are under attack, with demands that large economies 'graduate'; India argues that low per capita income and development needs justify continued flexibility.
• Unilateral measures: tariffs justified on 'national security' grounds, such as the US steel and aluminium tariffs of March 2018, and tit-for-tat retaliation strain the system; discipline on the security exception and better notification and transparency are needed.
• New issues: e-commerce, investment facilitation, industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises are on the table; India wants policy space for digital and industrial development, and progress on Mode 4 movement of professionals in services.

The WTO can survive by restoring its dispute system, securing balanced rules on agriculture and development, and settling new issues by consensus; India's interest lies in a rules-based order that keeps policy space for food security and development.

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The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (2015) capped Iran's nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief; the US withdrawal in May 2018 and the return of sanctions put India's energy, connectivity and strategic interests under strain.

Effects on India's national interest

• Energy security: Iran is among India's main crude suppliers; pressure to cut purchases raises import costs, disturbs supply and prices, and hurts the current account and the rupee.
• Trade and payments: restrictions on banks, insurance and shipping complicate trade; Indian firms with US exposure risk secondary sanctions.
• Connectivity: Chabahar port, the planned Chabahar–Zahedan rail line and the North–South corridor to Afghanistan and Central Asia face delay and investor caution.
• Regional stability and diaspora: Gulf instability threatens the safety of millions of Indians working there and their remittances, while Iran–Saudi and Iran–Israel rivalries force India to balance its ties.
• Strategic autonomy: deepening defence, technology and investment links with the US mean American pressure must be handled without surrendering independent choices.

How India should respond

• Sanctions policy: follow UN-mandated sanctions but not unilateral ones, as India has consistently done, and seek waivers for oil purchases and Chabahar.
• Energy hedging: diversify crude sources, build strategic reserves and explore rupee-linked payment arrangements with Iran.
• Diplomacy: urge dialogue and continued compliance, since the IAEA had verified Iran's compliance, and work with the EU, Russia and China to keep trade channels open.
• Balance in West Asia: keep ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states even-handed, protecting the diaspora and energy interests.
• Protect connectivity: ring-fence Chabahar as a regional-stability project serving Afghanistan and speed up its development.

India should safeguard its energy and connectivity interests through waivers, diversification and diplomacy, keep its strategic autonomy and support a negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue.

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China's trade surpluses finance infrastructure abroad and a modernising military at home; through the Belt and Road Initiative and port investments it has turned economic reach into strategic presence across Asia.

Economics as a tool of power

• Surplus capital funds ports, roads and loans in India's neighbourhood, buying influence with small states and access for its navy.
• A rising defence budget and naval expansion follow the money.

Impact on India

• Trade: India runs a large deficit with China and depends on it for electronics, machinery and pharmaceutical inputs, a vulnerability in any crisis.
• Sovereignty: the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir; India stayed away from the Belt and Road Forum of May 2017 on this ground.
• Encirclement: Chinese-financed ports such as Gwadar are read in India as a 'string of pearls'.
• Border: the Doklam standoff of 2017 showed economic strength turning into military pressure.
• Diplomacy: China blocked India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2016 and held up the UN listing of Masood Azhar until May 2019, using its weight with smaller neighbours.

India's response

• Neighbourhood connectivity and Chabahar, Act East, partnerships with Japan, the United States and Australia, and Make in India to cut import dependence.

India must trade with China without depending on it: competitiveness at home, connectivity in the neighbourhood and partnerships abroad are the answer to economic coercion.

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People of Indian origin reached South-East Asia through ancient trade, colonial-era labour migration and modern professional migration; today they form significant communities in Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar and other countries.

Economic role

• Historical foundations: labourers on plantations and railways, and traders and financiers such as the Chettiars, whose credit financed agriculture and trade in Burma.
• Today: professionals and entrepreneurs in finance, IT, medicine and trade; Indian-origin business is a visible part of the economies of Singapore and Malaysia.
• Bridge for commerce: they channel trade, investment and tourism between India and ASEAN and give Indian firms local partners.

Social, cultural and political role

• Culture: temples, Deepavali and Thaipusam, cuisine, language and cinema enrich plural societies and extend India's soft power.
• Civic life: they take part in politics, unions and community bodies; citizens of Indian origin have held high office, for example S.R. Nathan as President of Singapore.
• Voice for minorities: Indian-origin leaders have raised the concerns of their communities within host-country politics.

Value to India and challenges

• Diplomacy: the diaspora underpins India's Act East policy and ASEAN engagement, and is engaged through Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.
• Challenges: questions of identity and integration, uneven economic status within the community, and episodes of discrimination or restrictive policy, as in the expulsions and nationalisation in Myanmar in the 1960s.

Way forward

• Cultural exchange, education and skill links, channels for diaspora investment, and consular support that respect their citizenship of the host countries.

The Indian diaspora in South-East Asia is an economic and cultural bridge of real value; India gains most when it engages them as citizens of their own countries rather than as an extension of itself.

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The WTO, established in 1995, administers trade agreements, hosts negotiations and settles disputes so that trade flows predictably in a globalised economy. Its Doha Round, launched in 2001 as a 'development round', remains unfinished fifteen years on.

WTO's aims

• Rule-based, non-discriminatory trade through most-favoured-nation and national treatment; progressive liberalisation; binding dispute settlement; and special and differential treatment for developing members.

Why Doha stalled

• Agriculture: developed countries retain large farm subsidies while pressing emerging economies for market access; developing countries want subsidy cuts first.
• NAMA and services: demands for steep industrial tariff cuts from India, Brazil and China met little movement on farm support.
• Changed approach: the Nairobi Ministerial (December 2015) recorded that some members no longer reaffirm the Doha mandates and prefer 'new approaches' and new issues such as e-commerce and investment, while developing countries insist on finishing Doha first. Nairobi did agree to eliminate agricultural export subsidies.

Indian perspective

• Livelihoods: with millions of small farmers, India and the G-33 demand Special Products and a Special Safeguard Mechanism against import surges.
• Food security: MSP procurement and public stockholding can breach WTO subsidy limits; the Bali peace clause (2013) is interim, and a permanent solution is still pending.
• Strategy: defend policy space, hold developed countries to the development mandate, support trade facilitation, and build coalitions with other developing countries; the government also pursues regional and bilateral options in parallel.

The Doha impasse reflects a real North–South divide rather than a failure of the WTO itself; India's interest lies in keeping multilateral rules alive while securing farm livelihoods and food security within them.

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