Prime Minister Narendra Modi has on a number of events referred to his nation as a “Vishwamitra,” — which translated from Sankrit and Hindi means “friend of the world” — a time period that he has utilized in current speeches and at rallies throughout India.

“It is a matter of pride for all that India has carved a place for itself as ‘Vishwamitra’ and the entire world is seeing a friend in India,” he instructed Parliament in September.

The marketing campaign is a mirrored image of the Modi authorities’s intent to grow to be the main voice of the Global South, Sreeram Chaulia, the director-general of the Jindal India Institute at O.P. Jindal Global University, instructed DW.

“The idea is to position India as an independent power, which is different from China, different from the US and different from the Europeans,” Chaulia mentioned, including that the idea covers friendship, cooperation, coexistence and mutual profit.

In 2023, India showcased its cultural and diplomatic ties when it hosted the G20 summit in New Delhi. Since then, nevertheless, the Indian authorities has seen a number of diplomatic rows play out.

Less than two weeks after the G20 assembly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of involvement within the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjaron Canadian soil. 

In December, officers mentioned they’d foiled a plot to assassinate on US soil an American who additionally advocated for a Sikh separatist state. Both circumstances are below investigation.

Closer to residence, India has introduced plans to fence off its border with Myanmar towards the backdrop of the escalating battle there because the navy coup in February 2021.

The newly elected authorities within the Maldives has ordered the removal of Indian troops whereas flaunting stronger ties with China. 

“In the past, India had the intention to be a friend but no real capability because we were dealing with domestic issues,” mentioned Harsh Pant, a global relations knowledgeable on the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, including that India has extra credibility as of late.

“It is unlikely any major player can ignore India,” Pant mentioned.

“At one point it looked like the war in Ukraine would destroy India’s ties with the West, but that did not happen. Western powers, especially the US, have a strategic partnership with India because China is the long-term problem,” he mentioned.

Though disagreeing with Russia’s war in Ukraine, Indian leaders refused to hitch the US-led sanction marketing campaign towards Moscow. Instead, New Delhi has accepted Russian oil at discounted costs resulting in an enhance in imports from Russia.

Despite this, India’s relations with the United States are stronger than ever. 

On a go to to Washington, DC, in October, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar declared that ties between India and the United States had been at an “all-time high.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reciprocated the sentiment, calling the ties an “extraordinary success story.”

Deepening ties

Chietigj Bajpaee, senior fellow for South Asia on the Chatham House suppose tank, instructed DW that the India-US partnership is embedded in a push to deepen relations within the protection, know-how and vitality sectors.

That is underlined by a long-standing US notion of India as a bulwark towards China’s rising affect.

India is the one main economic system with deep, favorable relations with Iran, Israel, Russia and the European Union on the identical time. Just inside the final month, Jaishankar has visited each Iran and Russia whereas PM Modi hosted French President Emmanuel Macron.

“It is clearly a Vishwamitra in that sense,” Bajpaee mentioned. “But what does it practically bring to the table beyond statements such as ‘now is not the time for war’?”

‘Neighborhood First’ coverage

After coming to energy in 2014, Modi signaled a revitalization of India’s Neighborhood First Policy (NFP) with an invite to the leaders of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations for his oath-taking ceremony.

“The future I dream for India is the future I wish for our entire region,” Modi mentioned in his speech at his first SAARC Summit in Nepal.

With the rising emphasis on India’s rise because the chief of the Global South, there’s a sense that India is making an attempt to “transcend” the area and its neighborhood, Bajpaee mentioned.

“Three countries in its neighborhood are in the middle of IMF bailouts,” he mentioned. “Some are failed states or near-failed states in the midst of civil war, others which are adversarial countries with which you have dormant conflict.”

Walking a tightrope

India is more likely to come below stress to take sides as conflicts proceed, Bajpaee mentioned.

“On forums where China plays an important role, for instance the BRICS nations, where countries are playing the anti-West agenda, India is going to be the odd man out,”  he mentioned.

“If push comes to shove, if we see a conflict break out in the Taiwan Strait or a direct conflict between Russia and the US, or an escalation in the Middle East,” he mentioned, “it will be at some point forced to choose.”

Sushant Singh, senior fellow on the Center for Policy Research and lecturer at Yale University, mentioned: “The bigger problem would arise if India were to have a military conflict with China. That is when India would have to call upon friends.”

“Because if you are friends with everyone,” Singh mentioned, “then you are friends with no one.”

Singh mentioned US and Indian values — equivalent to a dedication to human rights, democratic requirements, safety of minorities — had diverged considerably below Modi however the strategic imaginative and prescient retains the ties robust for now.

Though smaller diplomatic tussles aren’t a problem for India, Singh mentioned, however a potential battle immediately involving the US, India and China, “would really test India’s fine balancing act…”

Edited by: Keith Walker