Non-Alignment to Strategic Autonomy India’s Engagement with the Liberal International Order
Non-Alignment to Strategic Autonomy India’s Engagement with the Liberal International Order

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores India’s strategic positioning vis-à-vis the liberal internationalorder (LIO), examining how India has historically both engaged with and as-serted autonomy from the Western-led order. It argues that India’s evolving for-eign policy—from Nehru’s non-alignment to Modi’s strategic autonomy—re-flects a deliberate use of specific approaches to create space within the LIO forits unique national interests. The main argument of the paper is that India’s en-gagement with the LIO has not involved wholesale rejection of the extant LIOframework but rather the selective leveraging and reimagining of liberal princi-ples to preserve India’s strategic interests while promoting a multipolar, more in-clusive global order. India’s approach to the LIO from its independence to nowhas been marked by continuity. Since 1947, India has sought to uphold sover-eignty while benefiting from liberal principles, particularly in institutional andeconomic domains. The paper draws on the theoretical framework of defensiverealism and institutional neoliberalism to deconstruct and highlight India’s poli-cy approach to the LIO, which is characterized by pragmatism and suggests thatIndia could be described as a transactional power.

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