Vijay Prashad is a historian, journalist, and the Executive Director of Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.
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In a recent discussion on India’s geopolitical trajectory, historian and journalist Vijay Prashad offered a detailed assessment of India’s increasingly complex international position. As the world’s largest democracy and a central actor in Asia’s economic transformation, India now finds itself navigating a fraught strategic landscape shaped by intensifying U.S.–China rivalry, shifting energy markets, and the fragmentation of the global economic order.
At the heart of the conversation was what Prashad described as India’s “horns of a dilemma.” On the one hand, New Delhi has deepened its geopolitical coordination with Washington, notably through its participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), alongside the United States, Japan, and Australia. On the other hand, India remains embedded in alternative multilateral organizations such as BRICS, reflecting its economic interdependence with Russia and China and its longstanding identification with postcolonial multilateralism.
This dual orientation is not merely tactical; it reflects structural constraints. India’s foreign policy doctrine of “strategic autonomy,” historically rooted in the Non-Aligned Movement, is today circumscribed by material realities—most notably energy dependence. India imports a substantial share of its energy from the Gulf states, Russia, and, increasingly, global markets shaped by U.S. sanctions regimes. While the current government under Narendra Modi is widely perceived as more closely aligned with Washington and Tel Aviv, Vijay argues that energy vulnerabilities limit the extent to which India can adopt unequivocal geopolitical positions.
Sanctions have further distorted Asia’s energy architecture. Projects such as the long-discussed Iran–India “peace pipeline” have been impeded by U.S. pressure, constraining India’s ability to diversify energy corridors and stabilize long-term supply. In this sense, foreign policy autonomy is increasingly mediated by hydrocarbon flows and the geopolitics of sanctions.
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The discussion also turned to recent trade arrangements between India and the United States. Vijay noted that these agreements overwhelmingly benefit large corporations while exposing Indian farmers and workers to heightened precarity. Rather than signaling a durable ideological shift toward U.S. alignment, he characterized these deals as extensions of domestic crony capitalism. The economic consequences, he warned, could prove severe, potentially reshaping India’s electoral landscape should rural distress intensify.
Defense spending constitutes another axis of contradiction. India is among the world’s largest importers of arms, despite not being engaged in a major interstate war. Although the “Make in India” initiative was designed to bolster domestic manufacturing capacity, including in defense production, the country has instead seen a sharp increase in weapons imports—particularly from the United States. Vijay questioned the strategic rationale behind certain acquisitions, including high-cost missile systems, suggesting that procurement patterns are misaligned with contemporary warfare and domestic priorities. In a country where food insecurity persists, allocating vast resources to military imports raises pressing normative and developmental concerns.
India’s fraught relationship with China forms the geopolitical backdrop to these trends. While border tensions and historical grievances endure, Vijay emphasized that these disputes are not inherently intractable. Diplomatic mechanisms exist, and past periods of rapprochement illustrate the possibility of stabilization. Yet the broader U.S.–China rivalry risks hardening regional divisions, potentially drawing India into confrontations not of its own making.
In this moment of global transition, India’s choices will not only shape its own development path but also influence the evolving architecture of the international order.
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