Opinion | Is the World Underestimating India?

What is Indian grand strategy? That is an argument that India doesn’t have a grand strategy. I don’t believe in that. But let me say, Indians don’t want to be a superpower in the same sense as China. India just wants to have status. And the key word is “status” — as a great power, status as respect in the international community, what it used to have. And I think that means a little more of realistic view of what India can do. But on the other hand, some Indians see their economy growing — I mean, overtaken its former colonial master, Britain — and they see India as a large country, No. 1 in terms of population. Many projections put India within the top, at least, three leading economies in the world, after the United States and China or China and the United States. So they see a potential to be recognized as a great power. However, they look around the world, and they see that they’re not getting that respect. And because everybody is obsessed with China, everybody is obsessed with — at the moment, China is the name of the game. So Indians, you can say there is a complex here. I won’t say “inferiority complex” but a sense that they are not getting the fair recognition that they deserve, and that’s what they want.