India's Strategic Autonomy: Balancing Global Partnership Between BRICS and the IPEF

ABSTRACT India's simultaneous engagement with BRICS and the Indo‐Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) exemplifies its strategy of multi‐alignment in a multipolar world. This article argues that India's dual membership is a deliberate, neorealist‐informed balancing act designed to maximize strategic autonomy, counterbalance hegemonic influences, and advance its national interest. While BRICS serves as a platform to challenge Western‐dominated global governance, the IPEF functions as a strategic counterweight to China's regional dominance. Navigating the inherent contradiction of partnering with China in one forum while implicitly balancing it in another requires a sophisticated application of issue‐based alignment and pragmatic diplomacy. This article employs neorealist perspective to deconstruct India's calculus, concluding that its ability to sustain this equilibrium is central to its ambition of shaping a more diffuse and inclusive international order.