Book review: T. V. Paul, India’s Unfulfilled Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi

Published date01 March 2025
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/23477970241298787
AuthorNikhil Godbole
Date01 March 2025
Book Reviews 169
Acknowledgement
The author wants to thank Dr Stephen Westcott, D. Kumari Mansi and Dr Aleksandra
Jaskólska for reviewing initial drafts and support.
ORCID iD
Nihar Kodandpani Kulkarni https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2582-0465
Reference
Jaishankar, S. (2020). The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World. New Delhi:
Harper Collins.
Nihar Kodandpani Kulkarni
Faculty of Political Science and International Studies,
University of Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: n.kulkarni@uw.edu.pl
T. V. Paul, India’s Unfulfilled Quest: India’s Search for Major Power
Status from Nehru to Modi. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2024,
263 pp. (hardback) ISBN: 9780197669990.
DOI: 10.1177/23477970241298787
India uniquely shares land borders with two nuclear-armed adversaries. One of
them has a de-facto anti-India national identity whereas the other has become the
penultimate global power. India’s other neighbours are much smaller, but they do
not accede to India’s hegemony and occasionally try to subvert Indian interests.
Despite such a hostile geopolitical environment, it is not only the world’s largest
democracy but also a multi-ethnic, multilingual country with a thoroughly plu-
ralistic civilisational ethos; the sheer diversity found within this single country is
unparalleled anywhere across the globe. Consequently, its trajectory of rising to
a higher status in the international system too has unique features. In his book,
India’s Unfulfilled Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to
Modi,T. V. Paul takes the reader on a deep-dive into how the Indian elite has nav-
igated the last 77 years in pursuit of becoming a major player on the world scene.
The first chapter provides a brief introduction to India’s post-independence
history. In this chapter, the author lays out the basic theme of the book that along
with the goals of security and prosperity, a more intangible status aspiration in the
international system has driven the policy choices of the elites in New Delhi. The
second chapter contains a discussion on why countries seek higher status in
the international system. In the third chapter titled ‘Hard Power’, the author iden-
tifies military power, economic strength, scientific prowess and the demographic
dividend as the markers of hard power for India. In the fourth chapter titled ‘Soft

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