INDIA AND THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD ORDER: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

LAHIRY Sujit (Professor, Panjab University Regional Centre, Muktsar, India), sujitlahiry29@gmail.com

The contemporary world order is highly fluid and rife with uncertainties. Due to these shifts, the author’s main goal is to critically analyse the trajectories of the development of the contemporary world order and India’s place and role within it. Geopolitically, the world has undergone a massive metamorphosis. The old bipolar world order has given way to a new multipolar world order. The East-West conflict has paved the way for a new North- South conflict. Even though the US still remains the only superpower, especially from a political and military perspective, its supremacy has faced increasing challenges with the rise of China’s economic power. Both China and Russia have challenged the Western rulebased liberal international order. A clear demonstration of this is the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. At the same time, there is a perceptible shift from geopolitics to geoeconomics. Due to changing global circumstances, India has aligned itself with Western groupings like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad, whose member countries are the US, Australia, Japan, and India. In this paper, the author has examined and critically forecasted India’s futuristic role, albeit acknowledging its somewhat subservient role in the contemporary world order

Keywords: World order; India, bipolarity; unipolarity; multipolarity; East-West conflict.