In 2025, India’s vaunted strategic autonomy was tested in ways few foreign policy mavens in the country had imagined. Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the year with a foreign policy playbook built on multi-alignment, personalised outreach and a claim to be a bridge between great powers. By the year’s close, that posture had produced a string of diplomatic bruises: punitive tariffs from Washington, an ambiguous military episode on the western frontier dubbed Operation Sindoor, and a diplomatic sprint from arch foe Pakistan that culminated in a headline-grabbing defence pact with Saudi Arabia.

If India must attain a semblance of agenda-setting role in geopolitics, it must do more than sit equidistant from rival capitals. New Delhi must engage Europe with fresh urgency and recapture the moral leadership of the Global South -- while maintaining practical ties with Washington and Moscow and seeking cautious normalisation with Beijing.

President Donald Trump’s decision to levy heavy tariffs on India -- tied to trade imbalances and New Delhi’s purchase of discounted Russian crude -- punctured the illusion that personal chemistry between Modi and Trump could immunise India from the latter’s transactional instincts. The public humiliation and taunts that followed -- “dead economy”, “Russia’s laundromat” -- underlined a hard truth: influence is partly a function of perceived indispensability, and in 2025 India’s indispensability came under serious scrutiny.

Compounding the diplomatic sting was the spectacle of high-level U.S. outreach to Pakistan, epitomised by a two-hour White House lunch for Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir -- a gesture that hurt New Delhi’s sense of cultivated trust in Washington.

Operation Sindoor, the brief but intense May exchange that produced the worst India-Pakistan kinetic confrontation in decades, tested India’s military resolve and revealed limits in its diplomatic heft. New Delhi framed the operation as a precision move to restore deterrence. However, outside assessments and regional reportage painted a messier picture of aerial clashes, heavy ordnance, and contested accounting of losses. Islamabad’s damage control and outreach, distinctly aided by sudden U.S. coziness, at times outpaced New Delhi’s own public diplomacy.

Pakistan’s Diplomatic Theatrics

Pakistan’s recent success in weaving ties with China and Russia, resetting relations with Washington, and clinching a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia, has reshaped regional optics. By nominating Trump for the Nobel Prize for Peace, Pakistan craftly pampered the U.S. president’s ego. The Saudi pact carries real consequences for Gulf alignments, and by extension for India’s calculations in an energy-sensitive region where millions of its nationals work. Pakistan’s ability to stitch together patrons and partners – despite severe domestic vulnerabilities -- demonstrates the short-term payoff of bold, risk-taking diplomacy. New Delhi should examine why Islamabad’s activism has yielded headline gains while India’s cautious multi-alignment is read by many as distant.

The lesson for India is not to mimic Islamabad’s theatrics but to recalibrate and build indispensability. Two interlocking routes stand out. The first runs through Europe; the second, through a credible, action-focused leadership of the Global South. Both tracks can be pursued in parallel and will reinforce one another.

Why Europe Matters

Europe matters for reasons of principle and pragmatism. The transatlantic order is fraying amid an American presidency that prizes short-term leverage. European capitals from Paris and Berlin to Warsaw and the Nordic states are asserting strategic autonomy, investing in defence modernisation, and seeking partners to diversify critical supply chains. India offers market scale, engineering capacity and a politically palatable partner for technology and industrial cooperation.

India is hoping to conclude a trade and investment package with the EU in the next few weeks to be formalised during the India-EU annual summit scheduled to begin on 27 January in New Delhi. The two sides will also firm up a defence framework agreement and a strategic agenda, bringing the mutual relationship much closer at a time of major trade disruptions amidst Washington's tariff policy.

By deepening ties with Europe, New Delhi would gain a constituency that values multilateral norms and is often sceptical of hegemonic binaries. That would help amplify India’s voice in global institutions and make India a safer economic and technological partner for democracies seeking alternatives to over-reliance on any single great power.

Leadership Of Global South

The Global South is where India’s moral credentials remain strongest. Leadership here means acting as an honest broker in conflicts where New Delhi has credibility, and rolling out practical programmes to tackle shared vulnerabilities. 

Nevertheless, it is not the only actor vying to mediate or shape outcomes in the Global South. Qatar and Turkey have been notable in recent years for active mediation in regional crises, often filling gaps left by great powers. Likewise, South Africa and Brazil have reasserted their global roles. Johannesburg’s activism in African and multilateral fora and Brasília’s outreach across Latin America and the Global South have demonstrated how middle powers can shape norms on climate equity, trade, and peace processes. India should seek partnerships with these states by collaborating on mediation, climate justice platforms and trade reforms.

This twin strategy -- institutionalised engagement with Europe and practical leadership of the Global South -- would broaden India’s repertoire. A strengthened European partnership would sharpen India’s industrial and technological edge; robust South-South initiatives would deepen its diplomatic capital and soft power. Together they would blunt the effect of whimsical shifts in U.S. policy and give New Delhi greater leverage with Moscow and Beijing.

But first India must repair frayed relations with Washington without becoming a vassal state. New Delhi must feel satisfied that the latest National Security Strategy unveiled by the White House positions India as a critical partner, signalling deeper cooperation across economic, technological and defence sectors.

India should preserve defence and energy ties with Moscow while diversifying suppliers. The recent visit to New Delhi by President Vladimir Putin was well received by both countries. India should also cautiously explore normalisation with Beijing without minimising unresolved border and security concerns. Nimble diplomacy, credible deterrence and patient coalition building are prerequisites.

India’s assets -- scale, a dynamic market, technological depth in software and a vast diaspora -- remain real. The task is to convert them into projects and institutions that others can rely upon. Practical initiatives that reduce vulnerabilities for others -- whether through reliable supply chains with Europe, vaccine and food security with the Global South, or transparent infrastructure finance -- will build durable interdependence.

The outgoing year has taught a blunt lesson: posture can be mistaken for indifference, and domestic narratives of strength can unravel quickly when external pressures mount. If New Delhi walks the two-pronged path -- deeper, institutional engagement with Europe and reinvigorated, action-oriented leadership across the Global South, including partnerships with BRICS countries like South Africa and Brazil -- it could regain what was lost in 2025. That will lead to the kind of indispensability that turns strategic autonomy into genuine influence.

(The writer is a former UN spokesperson. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at edmathew@gmail.com/tweets @edmathew)