Dr. Sunil Khilnani, Director of South Asia Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, spoke at an FPC event on the 14th December on India's rise and the international system. He argued that to make an impact globally, India must invent a new role for itself as a 'bridging power', reconfiguring "hard" and "soft" capabilities to advance its interests within international institutions and the world order.

"Part of what it takes to be a great power is the capacity, not just to conform to existing definitions, but to re-define – as Gandhi did for another age - what power and greatness are" he said.

As a bridging power, India can have a unique role: poised between the rich states and the poor, and between two countries today sizing each other up: the most powerful state in the world, the US, and the most populous, China. Such a bridging role in the global order would assure both independence and indispensability. Encompassing elements of both hard and soft, India could become a power that provides the connectivity that a fragmenting world requires.

To do so, India will need to be prepared to enlarge its repertoire of techniques – its leadership will need to be able to judge, according to circumstances, when to use its economic resources, 'coercive diplomacy', moral legitimacy, or capacity for dialogue, to serve its interests. Nevertheless, the tools India will rely on to become a bridging power in the new century – while perhaps more expansive in range - are essentially the ones it has possessed for centuries: wit, moral discipline, and faith in the power of example to persuade.