India’s Indo-Pacific Gambit: An Awkward Power Striving for Status

It seems that the Indo-Pacific label has been deployed by India to validate its great power aspirations. Such operationalization of strategic region-building acknowledges positioning any international actor emerges as a in context –it is not entirely an intrinsic property actor, but depends on kind interactions it specific (temporal and spatial) contexts. This condition one key sources awkwardness India’s power. reflects simultaneously (i) contested nature standing –jostling between aspiring power, regional South Asian hegemon, begrudging middle power; (ii) neglect Indian aspirations (and self-perception) civilizational state. The paper examines these dynamics by, firstly, deploying discursive study foreign policy making, whose framework then provides analytical backstop assessment making region. As such, concluding section suggests case confirms assumption complex contestation frames awkward status world stage.