India's Diplomatic Test: All Power, No Playbook?

Dr. Shreya Upadhyay

On May 11, 2026, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at a public event in Hyderabad  asked 1.4 billion Indians to carpool, work from home, and stop buying gold. The image is striking. Riding high from a historic electoral sweep in West Bengal after 46 years, a landslide victory in Assam, and continuing on the path of quietly increasing vote share in Kerala,  Modi is in a position of rare domestic strength. He can now appeal to citizens to conserve cooking oil and cut back on foreign travel without the political cushioning. But this is a moment of exposure where foreign policy has a bearing on domestic economic realities.  

Has India's strategic ambiguity stopped being a diplomatic asset and quietly become a liability?

A recent US-based think tank’s report observed that India resists binding commitments that subordinate its autonomy. This worked for India for decades where it could carve relationships with Washington, Moscow, and Tehran simultaneously. This was an achievement that even big powers could not replicate. Strategic autonomy for India was seen as a reasonable stance of a pluralist democracy on terms of its own choosing. But, now this is being tested by circumstances that do not wait for principled positions. The Council on Foreign Relations report comes at a time when the world is facing several crisis in parallel. The Russia-Ukraine war entered its fourth year, Israel-Gaza conflict has dragged onto third year. And 2026 has brought the US-Iran conflict which has shut the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping. For India, the consequences have been grave. The rupee has fallen to record low of 95.63 against U.S. dollar. Brent crude has risen sharply, with India holding roughly 60 days of crude oil stock. Moody has slashed India’s growth forecast to 6 per cent.

Strategic autonomy was designed to work for a world with some room to breathe. The world in 2026 has very little. India is dependent on Moscow, Washington, and Tehran. All of these currently standing at opposite spectrum of geopolitics. India imports $134.7 billion of crude petroleum. Roughly 45 per cent of those come from the Strait of Hormuz. When the supply shock hit, India secured Russian crude under the US waiver, and negotiated direct transit rights from Tehran. Under Operation Sankalp, the Indian Navy evacuated India-flagged LPG and oil tankers. That was a quiet, effective diplomacy.

However, the American asterisk struck. India does not want to antagonize the US. And the US blockaded the Strait of Hormuz to arm twist Iran. India realised that it was deeply reliant on a region it could not influence! India has been in strategic stress with the US since April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack. India launched Operation Sindoor demonstrating real military capability and political resolve. However, US President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed the credit for ceasefire between the two countries, much to India’s irritation. Pakistan on the other hand, rather than diplomatically isolated expanded its regional footprint. It has been playing a role in US-Iran mediation conversations.

While India has deepened its security ties with the US in the last decade, it does not want to form binding alliances. Pakistan on the other hand has seen ups and down in its relationship with Washington. But in the last one year has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace prize, joined his Board of Peace and launched a collaboration with his World Liberty Financial crypto platform.

 India today aims to be an indispensable voice of the Global South.  It has a strong government at the centre with a clear domestic mandate which positions it to take swifter, difficult decisions even at international level. The current elections have provided that security. However, how can the electoral strength be converted into international credibility? The most important way is to attain sovereignty. Whether in data, defence or most urgently energy. India needs to accelerate domestic energy alternatives at a speed that matches its strategic exposure. Energy security is the economic foundation of a nation. It needs to transition from a non-renewable export oriented energy to making progress on solar power and ethanol blending. While a lot of developments are underway in this regard, India is still not in a position to absorb the oil shock without significant fiscal strain and a direct impact on citizen purchasing power.

Along with that it is imperative that India invests heavily in building partnerships and coalitions that give strategic autonomy its substance and credibility.  It requires India to lead visibly on the issues of Global South, on climate finance architecture, on multilateral reform etc. India’s diplomacy needs to find its place. It arguably holds a lot of power but has not yet written the playbook on how to use that. Our task is to match the capability with the institutional depth, the energy independence, and the coalition-building that would make India's autonomy a lasting influence

Dr. Shreya Upadhyay is Faculty at Department of Political Science, Christ University Bangalore and a Non-Resident Fellow at KIIPS. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author.