India’s Rise to Great Power Status Under PM Modi: Aspirations and Challenges

By Manoj Kumar Mishra

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has left the shadows of non-alignment for the glare of great-power politics. It is a story of ambition honed by anxiety and confidence checked by constraint. Courted and contained, admired and admonished, India speaks for the Global South while bargaining with the North. A nation of 1.4 billion seeks autonomy in a world of alliances and demands reform of the UN, IMF, World Bank and WTO while mastering the rules it calls obsolete. This book assumes nothing inevitable: great powers are not crowned, they are forged under pressure. The Modi years gave these pressures a language (Vishwaguru, Atmanirbhar Bharat, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) and tools: assertive diplomacy, hard deterrence, diaspora reach and digital infrastructure. The chapters test India's material rise against its institutions, its global aims against domestic anxieties and its promise to the world against the cost of power, mapping the choices made, chances missed and crossroads ahead.