Over the past decade, Prime Minister Modi’s tenure has relentlessly focused on redefining India’s material and spiritual significance on the world stage. The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi by T.V. Paul gives us invaluable context to this era of political discourse, providing a meticulously detailed analysis of India’s ongoing attempt to establish itself as a major power in the global arena. Spanning several decades of Indian foreign policy, the book examines the aspirations and realities of India’s geopolitical rise, offering insights into the factors that have both enabled and constrained its pursuit of great-power status. By emphasizing the interaction between domestic factors—such as economic constraints, political fragmentation, and ideological shifts—and external pressures, Paul provides a holistic view of why India’s path to major power status remains incomplete. The key one, he notes, is that India’s development model has not paid enough attention to inclusive human development.
Paul organizes The Unfinished Quest into a well-structured, chronological narrative, tracing the evolution of India’s foreign policy over nearly seven decades. Yet the fundamental through-line is his conceptual mobilization of what he calls India’s “status anxiety.” Beyond simply an aspirational paradigm, Paul’s use of the term refers to histories of psychological, political, and economic imperatives that form India’s pre- and post-colonial identity. The countries that India has, over the years, compared itself favorably to has varied over time. In this context, India’s more contentious bilateral relationships, such as with China and Pakistan, are manifestations of larger contestations for international recognition. Each chapter is devoted to a distinct period in India’s political history, reflecting the changes in leadership and the corresponding shifts in international strategy. Beginning with Nehru’s idealistic approach to nonalignment in the Cold War era, Paul carefully analyzes how successive Indian administrations navigated global challenges while maintaining autonomy. The chronological progression allows Paul to highlight both continuities and divergences in policy, particularly as India transitioned from the more defensive, socialist-driven policies of the Cold War to the economically liberalized, assertive diplomacy seen in the 21st century.
At the core of this analysis lies the tension between India’s ambitions and its capabilities. The early post-independence years were characterized by a commitment to nonalignment and a moral high ground in international affairs, an approach that allowed India to avoid entanglement in Cold War geopolitics but limited its ability to forge strategic alliances or assert itself as a major military power. Subsequent Indian administrations, particularly during Indira Gandhi’s tenure, embraced a more inward-looking strategy focused on national security, especially in the context of regional conflicts with Pakistan and China. The Indo-Pakistani wars and the Sino-Indian border conflict heightened India’s sense of vulnerability, prompting shifts toward military modernization and nuclear deterrence. Yet, these moves were often constrained by economic challenges and bureaucratic inefficiencies, preventing India from fully capitalizing on its geopolitical advantages.
The liberalization of the economy in the 1990s under P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh marked a turning point in India’s global engagement. Economic reforms paved the way for a more outward-looking foreign policy, with India actively seeking partnerships with global powers and participating in multilateral institutions. However, despite this shift, India’s global influence remained limited by its inability to resolve internal challenges, such as poverty, inequality, and political fragmentation. Modi’s government has positioned India as a key player in the Indo-Pacific region, seeking to counter China’s growing influence while building partnerships with Japan, Australia, and ASEAN nations. Nevertheless, this assertiveness has not fully resolved the deeper structural issues—such as bureaucratic inertia and inconsistent policy implementation—that continue to hinder India’s rise.
The book places significant emphasis on India’s relationships with major global and regional powers, particularly its complex and often adversarial relationship with China. The Sino-Indian rivalry, marked by both military clashes and economic competition, represents one of the most enduring challenges to India’s aspirations for global power status. China’s rapid rise has consistently outpaced India’s slower trajectory, intensifying strategic anxiety and compelling India to strengthen its defense capabilities while seeking new alliances to balance Chinese influence in Asia. As India and the U.S. have developed closer ties—evident in defense cooperation and diplomatic exchanges—the partnership has evolved into a key pillar of India’s global strategy. Yet, this relationship remains complex, with India maintaining its strategic autonomy even as it benefits from U.S. support in countering regional threats.
India’s role in multilateral institutions further illustrates its desire for a greater leadership role in global governance. However, Paul crucially suggests that India’s participation in these organizations has often been reactive rather than proactive. India has been effective in championing issues such as climate change and sustainable development, but its overall leadership in these forums remains limited by its domestic constraints and a lack of clear strategic direction.
Domestic Constraints on Global Ambitions
A recurring theme in the book is the internal contradictions that have hindered India’s rise as a major global power. While India possesses many of the attributes of a great power—large population, military strength, and economic potential—its ability to project influence has been stymied by persistent domestic challenges. These include bureaucratic inefficiency, political instability, and socio-economic inequality, all of which limit the government’s capacity to implement long-term strategic goals.
India’s complex democratic framework, while a source of national pride, has also contributed to these limitations. The frequent turnover of political leadership, coupled with regional fragmentation, caste and coalition politics, has made it difficult to pursue consistent foreign policy objectives over time. Economic constraints have further complicated India’s ambitions, as large segments of the population continue to live in poverty, and efforts to modernize the economy are often uneven. Moreover, the book highlights the tension between India’s global aspirations and its domestic policy. The increasing centralization of power under Modi’s leadership, for example, has raised concerns about the erosion of democratic norms, potentially undermining India’s soft power and its image as the world’s largest democracy. As India seeks to balance its international ambitions with domestic challenges, these internal contradictions remain a significant obstacle to achieving major power status.
Contributions
The Unfinished Quest offers a nuanced and comprehensive analysis of India’s long-standing pursuit of global power status, emphasizing both its aspirations and the structural challenges that continue to hinder its rise. One of the key strengths of the book is its thorough historical grounding, which allows Paul to weave a coherent narrative of India’s foreign policy development. His attention to detail is evident in his exploration of the motivations behind key policy decisions and the geopolitical contexts in which they were made. By blending historical analysis with international relations theory, Paul provides a robust framework for understanding why India’s rise has been slow and uneven.
Moreover, Paul’s critique of the gaps in India’s foreign policy is both fair and balanced. While acknowledging the country’s many achievements—its leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement, its growing role in international organizations—Paul remains critical of the persistent challenges that have undermined its ambitions. His focus on internal factors, such as the inertia of India’s bureaucracy and the persistent and widening economic inequality within the country, adds nuance to the analysis and avoids the pitfall of blaming external forces alone for India’s limitations. The book provides a rich theoretical context for understanding the complexities of India’s international engagement.
While The Unfinished Quest is a highly valuable contribution to the literature on Indian foreign policy, it does have certain limitations. One area where the book could have gone further is in its engagement with the perspectives of India’s neighbours, particularly Pakistan and Bangladesh. While Paul discusses India’s broader regional strategy and, indeed, focuses an entire chapter on India’s shifting relations with its neighbours, there is relatively little attention given to how neighbouring countries perceive India’s quest for power beyond hostility. More focus could have been given to India’s relations with other rising powers, such as Russia and the EU, to provide a more holistic picture of India’s global strategy. Additionally, the book could have expanded its focus on non-state actors and civil society’s role in shaping foreign policy. While Paul provides a comprehensive account of state-driven policies, the role of India’s private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and the Indian diaspora in promoting India’s global aspirations remains underexplored. Given the increasing importance of these actors in global governance, a more extensive analysis of their contributions would have enriched the discussion.
Lastly, Paul’s discussion of Modi’s foreign policy, while insightful, occasionally lacks critical depth in assessing the long-term impact of Modi’s strategies. While Paul acknowledges Modi’s success in raising India’s global profile, particularly through initiatives such as Act East and the strengthening of ties with the United States, his assessment of the risks involved—such as the potential alienation of certain regional powers and the internal erosion of democratic norms—is somewhat limited.
Paul’s work revolves around the question he continues to return to: why does India have a desire for global status, and how has this quest, as such, seen failures and successes over the last century? An incisive follow-up he asks in Chapter 2 is, “Is the notion of ‘great power’ an outdated European-era concept?” (Paul 33). Indeed, India’s ongoing fight for global status assumes a legitimate, if ever-shifting, global hierarchy: one determined by military aggression, conquest (whether soft or hard), and resource dominance, rather than mutual accountability, interdependence, and cooperation. While the book consistently deconstructs the terms through which the discipline more specifically, and geopolitical discourse more generally, understands global power, we must collectively reckon with new categories of analysis that prioritise international community and responsibility for the future, particularly as we tackle imminent and catastrophic shared global challenges.
