India, Aug. 24 -- As Prime Minister Narendra Modi travels to Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit later this month, and India prepares to host Russian President Vladimir Putin later this year, New Delhi is signalling a decisive shift-asserting itself as an independent pole in global affairs, shaped as much by its own historical impulses as by the disruptions of the Trump era.

The Strategic Autonomy

India's foreign policy has consistently avoided subordination to any single global bloc. From Nehru's early advocacy of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the 1950s to the present era of multi-alignment, New Delhi has sought to preserve independence of judgment. The term "strategic autonomy," which gained currency in ...