India: An Awkward Great Power?

This chapter highlights the paradoxes of India’s great power, namely: despite having the second largest population in the world, one of the fastest growing economies, and an expansive military portfolio, India’s global footprint barely registers outside of its South Asian locale. And even in the subcontinent, India’s outreach finds itself increasing challenged by China. To compensate for these shortcomings, India seems to have abandoned conventional metrics for an idiosyncratic self-perception of national and cultural greatness. Indian pundits have also actively engaged in the rearticulation of the notion of “great power.” Thus, the case of India confirms that it is the complex interactions between contestation and neglect that frames the awkward status of power on the world stage.