Diplomacy rightly describes 2025 as a “year of rupture", a period when global alignments cracked, assumptions collapsed, and the old grammar of international relations stopped working. But from a nationalist and right-of-centre perspective, this rupture must not be read as a setback for India.

On the contrary, it validates what the BJP-led government and the broader Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ecosystem have argued for over a decade: India cannot outsource its destiny to any bloc, power, or alliance. Strategic autonomy rooted in civilisational self-confidence, rather than post-Cold War dependency, is the only sustainable path forward.

As New Delhi steps into 2026, the question is not whether India has been diplomatically isolated — it has not — but whether India is finally shedding the psychological hesitations of the Nehruvian era and embracing a foreign policy aligned with its civilisational interests, national security imperatives, and economic resurgence.

2025: The End Of Illusions, Not The End Of Options

Much commentary in the liberal strategic community treats the turbulence of 2025 — strained India–US ties, tariffs, the Pakistan conflict, and China tensions — as evidence of diplomatic overreach. This reading is flawed. What 2025 actually exposed was the bankruptcy of dependency-driven diplomacy.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House and his decision to impose steep tariffs on Indian goods shattered the myth that ideological proximity with the West guarantees equitable treatment. For decades, Indian elites assumed that “shared democratic values" would automatically translate into economic fairness. Trump’s America reminded the world, brutally, that national interest — not moral posturing — drives global politics.

From a BJP–RSS worldview, this was not a shock but a confirmation. The RSS has long argued that India must engage the world without seeking validation from any external power. The Modi government’s refusal to retaliate impulsively, while simultaneously diversifying trade and deepening ties with Europe,........

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