De-Hyphenation And India’s Geopolitical Climb Up As A Global Pole

One's status is known by the company one keeps, whether friend or foe. For much of its independent history, India found itself involuntarily paired with Pakistan in the imagination of the world.

The Old Frame: India–Pakistan

The phrase "India–Pakistan" rolled off headlines and diplomatic cables as if the two were permanently joined at the hip. So entrenched was this view that in the 1990s, US President Bill Clinton called the Line of Control between India and Pakistan "the most dangerous place in the world." Insider accounts reveal that new US Presidents were routinely briefed that the India–Pakistan border was the hottest flashpoint on earth.

This framing trapped India within a regional rivalry, defined by the unresolved trauma of Partition, endless skirmishes over Kashmir, and the perpetual threat of nuclear confrontation. Despite India's demographic and economic heft, its global identity remained tethered to its smaller neighbour. Pakistan's provocations often set the terms of India's diplomatic engagements. New Delhi found itself answering questions shaped less by its aspirations and more by Islamabad's disruptions.

The world saw India as half of a fraught dyad, not as a civilization-state with ambitions to shape the wider global order.

Strategic Shift Begins (2014–2017)

This narrative began to shift meaningfully after 2014. With a new government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India made a conscious strategic choice to de-hyphenate from Pakistan. New Delhi expanded its diplomatic canvas beyond the subcontinent, revitalizing ties with Southeast Asia through the Act East policy, deepening strategic convergence with the United States, Japan, and Australia, and stepping firmly into frameworks like the Quad.

Equally important was India's deliberate broadening of its global engagements. It intensified partnerships with Africa through initiatives like the India–Africa Forum Summit, expanded its presence in West Asia by strengthening ties with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, and played an increasingly assertive role in multilateral forums like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This diversification reduced India's strategic overdependence on any single geography and signalled an intent to act as a bridge between different parts of the world.

At the same time, India's economic divergence from Pakistan widened dramatically. While India pursued structural reforms and attracted major foreign investments, Pakistan grappled with internal instability, international isolation, and repeated scrutiny by the Financial Action Task Force. By 2016, the difference between a rising India and a stagnant Pakistan was no longer aspirational; it was visible across every economic and strategic metric.

India–China Frame Emerges (2017–2020)

While India and China have often been mentioned together since the early 2000s, especially after the coinage of BRICS, the typical connotation was very different. China was seen as the established heavyweight, while India was viewed as the aspirant—a promising but distant runner-up. The two were discussed in parallel, but not in the same strategic category.

Today, that framing has shifted. India is increasingly seen not as a follower, but as a competitor and a counterweight. The India–China pairing now carries the connotation of two powers contending for influence in overlapping arenas, rather than one leading and the other aspiring.

The 2019 Balakot airstrikes against terrorist camps inside Pakistan also demonstrated a new strategic maturity. India showed it could act forcefully without being dragged into an extended regional war. While Pakistan’s strategic relevance shrank, India’s reputation for assertiveness and restraint grew.

The watershed moment arrived with the 2020 Galwan Valley clash. The deaths of Indian and Chinese soldiers in brutal hand-to-hand combat stunned the world. For the first time, India was perceived internationally not through the lens of South Asian rivalry, but as a frontline actor in the global contest between China and the democratic world.

Subsequent US Indo-Pacific strategies, European Union policy documents, and strategic dialogues like the Quad Leaders' Summit began to explicitly position India as a critical balancing force in the Indo-Pacific.

Media Coverage Reflects the Transformation

This geopolitical shift is vividly evident in how major global publications have covered India over the past decade. An analysis of headlines from four influential outlets—The Economist, South China Morning Post, New York Times, and Financial Times—reveals a measurable transformation in India’s global framing.

When comparing the periods from 2015 to 2019 and from 2020 to 2025, a clear pattern emerges. References to India and Pakistan have either declined or remained flat, while mentions of India and China have increased significantly across all four publications.

The South China Morning Post shows the most dramatic change, with headlines referencing India and China rising from 80 to 229. This growth suggests a fundamental reorientation in the way China itself views India’s position. The Economist shows a similar pattern. India and China headlines increased from 8 to 27, more than tripling, while India and Pakistan mentions remained largely unchanged.

The Financial Times offers perhaps the most strategic insight. Mentions of India and Pakistan fell from 32 to just 10, while India and China references nearly doubled from 29 to 54. For one of the world’s most influential business newspapers, this signals that India’s role in the global economy is increasingly understood in relation to China, not Pakistan.

Even the New York Times, traditionally more focused on the South Asian conflict landscape, reflects this shift. Mentions of India and China rose from 25 to 43, an increase of over 70 percent, while India and Pakistan headlines dropped from 40 to 24. This reversal in a major American outlet points to a broader reassessment in the West of how India is positioned globally.

These numbers validate what many have sensed intuitively. India’s global narrative has undergone a foundational transformation. The country is now discussed primarily as a strategic and economic counterweight to China rather than as a rival entangled in a long-standing regional dispute with Pakistan.

The change is not rhetorical. It is structural and widely acknowledged.

India’s Geopolitical Ascent (2020–2025)

The structural forces deepening this shift have only intensified. The deterioration of US–China relations, marked by escalating tariff wars and strategic decoupling, opened a critical window. India emerged as the principal scalable alternative for global supply chains seeking resilience beyond China.

Global corporations from Apple to Foxconn began repositioning manufacturing investments toward India. Foreign capital inflows surged, reflecting a growing consensus that India was no longer just a regional economy but a future global pole.

New Delhi's active role in shaping Indo-Pacific frameworks, G20 leadership, and expanding partnerships in digital, defence, and technology sectors signalled that India's ascent was systemic and broad-based.

Beyond economic rebalancing, India also moved toward becoming a norm-setting power. Its leadership in building digital public infrastructure, its advocacy for data sovereignty, and its proposals for trusted supply chain frameworks placed it at the forefront of global rule-making conversations. India is no longer just participating in global governance; it is helping to define it.

By 2025, India is no longer merely one of the players in South Asia. It has become a consequential actor in the shaping of the global economic and strategic order.

Pahalgam Attack: A Desperate Attempt to Revert (April 2025)

The April 2025 terror attack in Pahalgam appears to be a calculated effort by militant actors, likely with cross-border backing, to drag India back into the India–Pakistan frame. By targeting Hindu tourists, the aim seems to inflame and revive outdated global anxieties about Kashmir.

India’s growing economic scale, its role in global supply chains, and its overall leadership make it unlikely the world will revert to older frames, even if there is any military engagement between the two. Pakistan’s weakened diplomatic and economic position only reinforces this irrelevance.

A New Company, A New Stage

Today, India stands not as Pakistan's rival but as China’s competitor—and more importantly, as a rising global actor in its own right.

The hyphenation has changed because India has changed. The company it keeps, the contests it engages in, and the alliances it builds now reflect its aspirations and growing capabilities.

Hyphenations are never just linguistic habits. They reflect power, perception, and prestige. India's climb up the geopolitical ladder is visible not only in numbers and treaties but in the way the world now thinks about India. The shift is not cosmetic; it is strategic and permanent.

The task ahead is more demanding. India must consolidate this climb by sustaining its economic momentum, strengthening its institutions, and navigating the fierce competition among great powers with strategic maturity. It must avoid the twin risks of internal complacency and external overreach.

If it succeeds, India will not merely join the ranks of great powers but will shape the emerging global order on its own terms.