Praktical Economics

For much of the post-Cold War era, India projected itself as a restrained power — committed to dialogue, allergic to escalation, and deeply invested in moral legitimacy. Even when provoked, New Delhi preferred patience over pressure. That era is over. The defining shift of the 2020s is not just India’s rise in capability, but its transformation in posture. India no longer seeks approval before acting on issues it considers existential. Terrorism, sovereignty, and internal cohesion are no longer debated — they are enforced. This new normal was most visibly tested, and revealed, in the Indo-Canadian rupture of 2024–25. 1. The Origin: Nijjar and the Breaking Point The trigger was the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar , a known Khalistani figure, on Canadian soil. What followed was unprecedented: public allegations by the Canadian government of Indian involvement in a targeted killing abroad. India denied the charge outright. But more importantly, it rejected the forum in which the accusati...

India’s Swing-State Moment: How a Quiet Strategy Reshaped a Global Conflict For more than a decade, many of the world’s major think tanks – from Carnegie and Brookings to the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Lowy Institute – described India as a “potential swing state,” a country whose independent choices could one day shift the balance of power between warring blocs. This idea sat comfortably in policy papers, academic journals, and commentary platforms, but it remained largely theoretical. India was rising, yes. Its economy was expanding, its diplomatic weight was growing, and its strategic autonomy was celebrated in New Delhi as a point of civilizational pride. And yet, in most global crises, India was seen as an observer rather than a participant - a country whose position mattered symbolically, but rarely substantively. All of that changed with the Russia–Ukraine war. When the conflict began in early 2022, India was barely considered a stakeholder. In tele...