India’s foreign policy is undergoing a significant recalibration in light of structural shifts in its relations with the United States, an increasingly assertive China, and a transformed Europe seeking a more geopolitical role.

Traditionally, India’s external engagement since independence has oscillated between idealistic non-alignment and pragmatic strategic hedging. While the post-1991 period brought closer ties with the US and integration into global markets, the re-election of Donald Trump has exposed the vulnerabilities of overreliance on Washington.

Trump’s policies—tariff threats, coercive diplomacy during India-Pakistan clashes, and conditional approaches to defence and trade—have prompted New Delhi to double down on its “multi-alignment” strategy. This doctrine seeks maximum flexibility through a web of ad hoc partnerships that strengthen India’s autonomy and ability to manoeuvre in a multipolar world, while avoiding rigid entanglement in alliances.

The China factor remains India’s core strategic challenge. The relationship has deteriorated sharply since the 2020 Galwan clashes, escalating mutual distrust and leading New Delhi to impose restrictions on Chinese investment, apps, and technology penetration. The competitive dynamic is structural: Beijing’s growing military superiority, its inroads across South Asia through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Indo-Pacific maritime footholds, and its consolidation of Pakistan as a close defence partner create persistent insecurity for India.

Even as Narendra Modi’s government has experimented with limited fence-mending—such as bilateral discussions with Xi Jinping at SCO summits—India views substantive trust-building with China as improbable. Instead, it pursues a careful strategy of balancing through diversified external partnerships, most importantly with US allies like Japan, Australia, and France, but also with middle powers in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Washington’s recent unpredictability, however, risks undermining this balancing strategy by removing the assumption that the US will consistently support India’s rise.

With Russia, the partnership is caught in flux. Moscow has historically been a trusted partner, supplying critical defence hardware and supporting India during diplomatic crises. Yet today, Russia’s economic weakness, dependence on China, and near-total preoccupation with the Ukraine war diminish its value as a sustainable long-term partner. India continues to purchase discounted Russian oil and legacy defence systems, but New Delhi recognises that Russia cannot provide the advanced industrial-technological collaboration necessary for Indian aspirations of becoming a “leading power”.

Instead, recent Indian signalling—such as Modi’s first state visit to Moscow in 2024 followed by balancing trips to Poland and Ukraine—suggests that while historical ties endure, strategic diversification is imperative. Russia is now leveraged more as a hedge and symbolic counterweight to US pressure rather than as a central pillar of Indian foreign policy.

In this evolving landscape, Europe emerges as a critical but underutilised partner. Historically, Indo-European relations underperformed due to bureaucratic frictions, mismatched visions of global order, and European discomfort with India’s ties to Russia and Iran. Yet several converging trends are reshaping prospects. Europe’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hardened its geopolitical posture, with increased defence spending, a commitment to strategic autonomy, and a willingness to reduce dependency on US leadership.

This transformation resonates with India’s worldview, which values capability-driven partnerships over normative lectures on democracy or human rights. Europe’s advanced industrial base, green technology leadership, and diversified supply chains also match India’s developmental needs. Moreover, Europeans increasingly see India as a counterbalance to China’s distortive economic policies and coercive regional behaviour. Modi’s emphasis on promoting India as a hub for digital public infrastructure, AI, and semiconductor manufacturing meshes with European industrial priorities, providing fertile ground for co-investment and technology transfer.

The economic dimension of India’s rise magnifies the attractiveness of Indo-European cooperation. Despite ongoing constraints—protectionist tendencies, regulatory hurdles, and gaps in infrastructure—India’s large market, demographic dividend, and rapid expansion of digital and pharmaceutical industries make it a global growth pole. Modi’s ambitions of reaching $2 trillion exports by 2030, though unlikely in scale, underline the structural direction of policy: integration into global supply chains.

Already, “early harvest” deals with Australia, the UAE, and the UK display pragmatism, and ongoing EU-India negotiations for a free-trade agreement are the most significant economic agenda item between the two. European investment in India remains relatively low compared to its potential, but the creation of dedicated business councils and the EU-India Trade and Technology Council demonstrate institutional momentum. The sectors most primed for cooperation include renewable energy, defence co-development projects, critical raw material processing, and digital infrastructure.

Security and defence cooperation represent the second pillar where Europe complements India’s needs. India remains the world’s largest arms importer, unable to fully indigenise its defence production while facing capacity gaps in naval and air warfare vis-à-vis China. France has already become a privileged defence partner, supplying Rafale fighters, Scorpène submarines, and engaging in joint stealth-jet technology research.
Expansion of such cooperation into a wider EU framework—potentially through PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation) projects—could further embed India into European defence ecosystems, offering alternatives to US or Russian systems. This diversification would align with New Delhi’s vision of strategic autonomy, providing credible defence capabilities without the political strings often attached to American transfers.

India’s engagement with Europe is also shaped by broader philosophical visions of global order. Whereas Europe favours a rules-based multilateral world anchored in institutions, India envisions a multipolar order combining respect for sovereignty, civilizational pride, and reformed governance reflecting emerging powers. This gap remains a barrier but also a space of negotiation. Modi’s civilizational framing of Bharat as a Vishwaguru (teacher of the world) and leader of the Global South is not necessarily incompatible with Europe’s aspirations for a more balanced multipolarity, provided the EU adapts by prioritising shared interests over ideological differences. Already, Jaishankar has explicitly framed the EU as a “major pole” in the multipolar world, suggesting readiness for deeper alignment.

Yet barriers persist. India’s reluctance to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights strategic divergences. Europe’s pursuit of secondary sanctions risks spilling over onto Indian companies. Domestic governance, from increasing centralisation under Hindutva to frequent internet shutdowns and human rights controversies, poses reputational risks for European engagement.

Economic protectionism and bureaucratic regulatory hurdles still hinder investment at scale. Meanwhile, competing foreign suitors—from the US and Japan to Middle Eastern powers—limit Europe’s leverage in Indian calculations. To overcome these frictions, Europe must demonstrate consistency and reliability. If European leaders are seen as bending too readily to Trump’s aggressive economic or NATO demands, trust in Europe as a distinct and credible pole of global stability may collapse in New Delhi’s eyes.

Ultimately, India’s trajectory is one of cautious expansion towards “leading power” status—short of great power equivalence, but a step above middle power influence. Its sources of clout lie in demographic momentum, growing economic heft, technological innovation, and diplomatic centrality across both Western-led and non-Western platforms like the G20, Quad, BRICS, and SCO. Yet India’s path is constrained by capability gaps, regional instability stemming from China and Pakistan, and domestic political polarisation. In this context, Europe represents both an alternative to overreliance on America and a pragmatic partner less threatening to China than Washington.

If Europe continues its shift towards strategic seriousness, with greater investment in defence, green technologies, and diversification of supply chains, it can become an indispensable partner in India’s multi-alignment architecture. New Delhi, for its part, must seize this window of opportunity before divergence or complacency causes the prospect of a fuller EU-India partnership to recede once again.

IDN (With Agency Inputs)