By – Mansi Khetan
Abstract
This article examines how International Relations remains intellectually Western despite political decolonisation. It highlights the marginalisation of Global South perspectives and traces alternative Indian traditions of thinking on power, ethics, and strategic autonomy. By linking these ideas to contemporary Global South cooperation and multipolar politics, the paper argues for decolonising International Relations to create a more inclusive and accurate understanding of global affairs.
Introduction
Decolonisation formally ended the rule of the Western Empire over the world. After years of struggle, countries gained sovereignty to promote originality of thought and make independent decisions. However, decades of dominance left a lasting imprint on the collective psyche of post-colonial societies. Nowhere is this more visible than in International Relations. The western powers had great influence over the thought process of the post-colonial countries. The coming generation is deconstructing such a view by rejuvenating the original ideas and popularising them. The theory of international relations was first legitimised by western philosophers, scholars and readers. But that does not dismiss important theories developed by regional scholars who did not have enough reach to legitimise them. While postcolonial states exercise sovereignty, conduct diplomacy and assert strategic autonomy, the intellectual frameworks through which global politics is understood remain overwhelmingly Western. The result is a paradox: the Global South often acts independently but thinks dependently.
This article proceeds in four parts. Section II traces the historical origins of International Relations as a discipline, highlighting how its Western foundations emerged within an imperial and racialised global order and became institutionalised as universal theory. Section III examines Indian traditions of international thought, drawing on Kautilyan, Gandhian, and Nehruvian ideas to demonstrate how non-Western perspectives offer alternative understandings of power, ethics, and strategic autonomy. Section IV situates these debates within the contemporary global order, analysing how Global South assertiveness and multipolarity challenge Western-centric frameworks in practice. Through this structure, the article argues for a more inclusive and pluralistic International Relations that reflects the intellectual diversity and political realities of the postcolonial world.
Historical legacy of International Relations
Modern International Relations emerged in Europe and North America in the early twentieth century within a deeply imperial and racialised global order. Yet it continues to represent its foundational theories as neutral and universal. Classical realism, liberalism and later structural theories were developed primarily to explain European experiences of state formation, war, and balance of power, while treating empire, race, and colonial violence as peripheral or irrelevant. The development of such theories discounted or whitewashed the atrocities conducted over the global south countries, contradicting and empowering the assumption that Western states were rational, modern actors and colonised societies were backward or incapable of self-rule.
These assumptions were gradually stripped of their explicit racial language and repackaged as objective theories of anarchy, sovereignty, and rationality. In this process, South Asian and other Global South ideas of power, order, and political community were excluded from the canon, not due to lack of depth, but because they did not conform to Western standards of knowledge. This intellectual hierarchy created a form of knowledge dominance, in which postcolonial states were trained to interpret both their own histories and global politics through Western conceptual frameworks. Consequently, International Relations continued to reproduce colonial influence by teaching formerly colonised societies to view the world through inherited imperial perspectives. Thus, it becomes of great importance to understand the cultural and regional philosophy of International Relations and rewrite it, identifying the ‘black holes’ in the historical narrative.
Indian conversation of International Relations Theory
The scholar Kanti Bajpai notes that India has long traditions of thinking about order and justice in international affairs that do not fit neatly into Western categories. Indian theories of International Relations offer an important corrective to the presumed neutrality of dominant Western frameworks by establishing historical context, ethical pluralism, and strategic autonomy as central features of global politics. Rather than reducing power to material capabilities like military strength alone, relational power, moral restraint, and strategic autonomy within asymmetrical systems. Drawing from Kautilya’s Arthashastra, these traditions illuminate dimensions largely missing from mainstream International Relations, particularly the legacies of empire, global inequality, and asymmetry between states. The mandala theory, explains international politics as a dynamic web of relationships where alliances, enmities, and interests shift based on proximity, capability, and circumstance. Power, in this lens, is exercised through intelligence, economic tools, and strategic restraint as much as through force. Gandhian ethics introduce moral restraint into international relations by prioritising non-violence, ethical conduct, and justice over domination.
This perspective challenges the assumption that coercion and military strength are the primary markers of rational state behaviour, instead emphasising legitimacy and moral authority. Nehruvian non-alignment, in turn, conceptualises autonomy within unequal international systems, rejecting rigid alliance politics in favour of strategic independence. It recognises global power asymmetries while seeking to preserve decision-making freedom for postcolonial states. Together, these traditions offer an alternative understanding of international relations that moves beyond Western notions of power as dominance, security as militarisation, and order as hierarchy. In this sense, Indian IR enriches the discipline by filling conceptual gaps and offering more inclusive and context-sensitive ways of understanding power, order, and global governance.
The Current Global Order on International Relations
In recent years, countries from the Global South have been asserting themselves more prominently in shaping international relations, challenging Western dominance and offering alternative visions of cooperation and governance. The expansion of BRICS, which now includes over 22 member and partner states, representing a significant share of the global population, trade, and resources, signals a collective push by emerging economies to influence global economic governance and multilateral decision-making beyond Western-centric frameworks. At the 2025 BRICS Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro, leaders articulated a commitment to strengthening Global South cooperation, promoting inclusive governance and advocating for fairer rules in areas such as artificial intelligence and sustainable development; notably, India is set to chair the bloc in 2026. Additionally, India’s diplomatic outreach across Africa and Latin America illustrates South-to-South cooperation in action, deepening partnerships on issues such as technology, vaccines, critical minerals, and climate governance, initiatives that traditional Western diplomatic agendas often overlook. These developments show the Global South not only challenging inequities in the international system but also shaping practical policies and alliances that diversify global leadership to a multipolar world order.
Conclusion
Formal decolonisation ended imperial rule, but it did not unsettle the intellectual foundations through which global politics is interpreted. International Relations continues to privilege Western historical experiences as universal, even as postcolonial states increasingly assert autonomy in practice. This disconnect helps explain why the Global South often navigates a changing international order using conceptual tools that overlook its histories, inequalities, and strategic realities. Indian traditions of international thought demonstrate that alternative ways of understanding power, order, and autonomy have long existed but remained marginal to the dominant canon. In a contemporary global order marked by multipolarity and expanding South to South cooperation, the limits of a singular Western framework are becoming increasingly apparent. Decolonising International Relations, therefore, is not about rejecting existing theory, but about pluralising the discipline so it can better reflect the diversity of actors shaping global politics today.
About the Author:
Mansi Khetan is a third-year B.B.A. LL.B. student at Jindal Global Law School with research interests in constitutional law, international trade, and corporate litigation. She has interned with leading practitioners, published on contemporary legal issues, and writes on foreign policy and global governance.
NICKELED AND DIMED 