Sinha, Aseema, and Jon Dorschner. "India: Rising Power or a Mere Revolution of Rising Expectations?". Polity, Vol.42, No.1 (2010): 74-99.

Sinha, Aseema, and Jon Dorschner. "India: Rising Power or a Mere Revolution of Rising Expectations?". Polity, Vol.42, No.1 (2010): 74-99.

• In the 2010s, India faces new and different foreign policy challenges. It must develop a response to the transformation of the international order that allows it to respond to domestic demands and responds to potentially destabilizing security threats in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka (75).
• After independence, India primarily concentrated on issues within South Asia, especially its rivalry with Pakistan. The changes in India foreign policy only emerged after accelerated economic growth following liberalization in 1991 (85-86).
• The collapse of the USSR, the establishment of the USA as the sole superpower, and successful nuclear tests in 1998 led to profound changes in Indian foreign policy. Most crucial, the rise of China has resulted in greater US support for India, fundamentally changing the US-India relationship (76).
• Indian economic growth in the 21st Century has attracted increased international interest and respect for the country, especially due to its status in the BRIC nations. This has led to expectations that India will play a larger role internationally in the future (75-76, 80, 82). India itself sees its economic growth as intimately connected to its global status (83-84).
• The Indian economy is mainly internally focused, with relatively few international connections and most growth driven by internal investment. This means that Indian economic strength has not generated coercive economic power over other states, nor does this economic power help India accomplish its foreign policy goals (80, 83).
• India's massive and growing population creates a natural and sustainable potential for economic growth that underlies hopes for Indian 'great power' status. Scholars hope that the increased involvement of India in international trade in the future will result in the expansion of Indian power and influence (81).
• The transformation of economic power into diplomatic power is not natural, but requires direct action. Other aspects of power, namely a clear vision for the future, are needed to turn raw power into great power status (84).
• India is not prepared, either developmentally, political, nor foreign policy-wise to be a 'great power'. Western pipe dreams of a strong India countering Chinese influence and Indian economic growth have generated unrealistic expectations of Indian power that India cannot fulfill. Indian foreign policy lacks any coherent strategy, and is instead led by a general commitment to non-alignment and lack of meaningful participation in international institutions, both of which undermine any significant role it might play in international politics. It will fail to become either a strong ally or a responsible international stakeholder (77-78).
• Any Indian attempts to become a great power will be crippled by a lack of domestic capacity, endemic poverty, shoddy infrastructure, high inequality, and intense caste, regional, and religious conflicts. Domestically, India needs to muster all of its resources just to provide for its poor and burgeoning population, prevent an imminent ecological collapse, and deal with a number of powerful insurgencies, including those by Maoists (97-98).
• Indian regional foreign policy will also prevent its rise to great power status, as its obsession with Pakistan both prevents it from engaging in a meaningful leadership role in South Asia and distracts India from any broader foreign policy goals it might pursue (98).
• The scholarly community is divided on whether the world order will be multipolar or unipolar, centered around the US (78).
• Parag Khanna, Fareed Zakaria, and others argue that the strength of China, the EU, India, and Russia -- particularly the first three -- will create a multipolar world in which power is balanced and shared between multiple great powers. These changes are expected to be driven by economic growth in India and China (78-79).
• Other scholars, like Charles Kupchan, argue that the declining rates of economic growth in Europe and Japan during the 1990s, combined with the immense power of the US military will ensure that no significant challenges emerge to the US-led international order. Additional challenges to this order will emerged, but no replacement will develop (79-80).
• "India today lacks great power in that, [...] it cannot make other important states comply with Indian demands. Nor can India obtain all that it desires in the international arena. It cannot compel or persuade technology suppliers to ignore non-proliferation strictures and supply new power reactors to the country, nor can it alone win preferred trade terms in World Trade Organization negotiations. India cannot persuade others to isolate Pakistan and probably cannot gain a permanent seat on the United Nations council [..]. Yet, India does have the capacity to resist most if not all demands placed upon it by the other states, including the recognized major powers" (80-81, original quote from Pekrovich, George. "Is India a Major Power?". Washington Quarterly, Vol.27, No.1 (2003): 129).
• India has a considerable military force compared to its South Asian neighbors, but it is still weak by global standards. Although its military influence in Southeast, South, and East Asia are recognized, India's military is not generally seen as one of the factors making it a great power (81).
• India has become increasingly integrated into the global economy, both in terms of exports and involvement into international financial markets. Moreover, this economic integration has expanded enormously just within the 21st Century (82-83).
• Jawaharlal Nehru, and a select number of Indian leaders after him, have had a fully developed strategic vision for India's role in the world. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh articulated some element of a vision that sees India as a democratic market-economy, projecting peace and stability in South Asia and not expanding beyond the region (84-85).
• The essential element of a great power is a coherent vision of what to do with its power on the global stage. India lacks this element. It wants to have a permanent UNSC seat for prestige, but does not have any plans for what it would do with this newfound power (84).
• India is poorly prepared to implement any foreign policy goals or strategy that it does develop, as its foreign service is poorly managed and underfunded, its think tanks and universities fail to produce quality research, and its other institutions, including businesses and the media, are poorly educated about international affairs (85).
• India has consistently advocated for the creation of a multipolar world, beginning with Prime Minister Nehru's leadership of the non-aligned movement. During the Cold War this meant opposition to the US-USSR bipolar relationship, whereas now it manifests as a support for other alliances, like BRIC, that could counter US influence (86).
• Most Indian political parties are united in their support for multipolarity. The Communist Party supports stronger ties with China to counter US influence, and Congress clings to the non-alignment policies of Jawaharlal Nehru. The BJP is divided on the issue, as some pragmatists want to pursue an alliance with the USA, but the more nationalist, and dominant, wing of the party also supports non-alignment (86, 96).
• Despite this general support for multipolarity, India has not undertaken any initiatives that could serious result in a multipolar world. Indian foreign policy is noncommittal, with the government pursuing better relations with both China and the USA. Those Indian foreign policy initiatives that do involve non-US coalitions, like BRIC, are not considered serious challenges to the US-led world order (86-88).
• The BRIC group does not pose any serious threat to the USA, as its membership has been mainly conciliatory towards the USA. Indian membership in BRIC is designed to raise Indian prestige, not pursue actual foreign policy goals, as India seems distinctly uninterested in challenging US power (87-88).
• Greater Indian involvement in international institutions, like the WTO, results in its greater enmeshment in the US-led world order, reducing the incentives for the country to try and remake this order. While India is not pursuing closer integration with the USA, it is also not challenging its power (88-89).
• India seems to expect that US power will naturally wane and be replaced by the multipolar world order that India desires. India seems content to wait for a predicted replacement of American unipolarity with multipolarity. India assumes that this multipolar shift, and the establishment of India as one of these poles, will be natural and inevitable (89-90).
• The government of George W. Bush attempted to bring India into a formal alliance with the USA as a means of countering the rise of China. President Bush Jr. removed many sanctions relating to the Indian nuclear program, but abandoned other plans for an improved relationship following the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the War on Terror (90-91).
• The Indian government welcome this developed and believed that this represented recognition of India as a legitimate world power rather than a rogue nuclear-weapons state. The move also removed restrictions on Indian access to military, nuclear, and civilian technologies (91).
• Indian foreign policy continues to be focused on countering the alliance between China and Pakistan. This issue has decreased in salience in recent decades, however, as the deterioration of Pakistani military capabilities are rendered it less of a threat and warmer relations with China have lessened the chance of military conflict (91).
• Indian security concerns in the 21st Century have focused more on terrorism than on traditional state threats. This includes not only Islamic terrorists, but also far-left Maoist terrorism committed by groups like the Naxalites and a range of separatist groups (91-92).
• India considers the US relationship with Pakistan to be a major cause of Indian instability and strongly criticize the US-Pakistan alliance for enabling Pakistani terrorism against India. This has led to mixed response to US actions in Afghanistan, as it supports the War on Terror, but strongly opposes Pakistani involvement (92).
• Originally, much of the tension between India and the USA stemmed from Prime Minister Nehru's rejection of free market capitalism in favor of state-led industrialization. Since liberalization in 1991, this tension has dissipated, but Indian policymakers still remain deeply skeptical of US-led free market policies and rebuffed US encouragement to reduce its protectionist tariff system (93-94).
• Indian engagement with the global economy is selective and targeted, with India adopting economic policies that promote Indian business interests and open markets abroad without exposing the Indian domestic market to competition (94, 96).
• The reticence of Indian policymakers to open Indian markets to global competition is driven by the importance of the extremely inefficient Indian agricultural sector, which employs over 60% of the population. Any reduction in internal demand for Indian agricultural good would create mass unemployment that could not be alleviated through growth in other sectors (94-95).
• India is only interested in increased relations with the USA, Russia, or China because it believes it can gain something from the alliance. A relationship with Russia would be about access to arms and nuclear expertise, not politics. Similarly, the relationship with the USA is calculated to garner benefits for India, like assistance with nuclear energy, without granting concessions to the US, like participation in carbon emission reduction schemes (96-97).