Dear readers,
In this second issue of The India Way, we had quite the standard to live up to after a very well-received first edition.
When we first started putting this issue together, we couldn't shake a heavy sense of disillusionment. For anyone who has spent years closely watching global politics, arguing over international law, or even just sitting in committee rooms debating how the world should work, watching the actual breakdown of our global systems has been a tough pill to swallow.
Post the Second World War, the United Nations, amongst other institutions, was established with the primary objective of preventing a war of that magnitude from taking place. Ever so often, its objective, which sought to keep the peace and force countries to talk to each other should anything turn, feels less like pillars of stability these days and more like relics stuck in permanent gridlock.
That’s why we couldn’t look away from this year’s theme: India and the Future of World Order. For us, this isn't just an abstract, academic topic to debate from a safe distance. It feels incredibly personal. We are watching the rules-based order fracture in real-time, and it forces us to ask what kind of international landscape our generation is actually inheriting.
Much has been spoken about Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam by geopolitical experts around the world, and the idea that India must lead as Guru in such testing times. Any neutral force is only as effective as its moral roots, and thus India has perhaps the greatest moral duty in calling out acts or genocide and showing up where it matters the most. A mere show of a third front becomes a paper declaration the moment we don’t wield the responsibility it commands.
What we love most about this collection is that it doesn't just wallow in cynicism. Even in the sharpest critiques, there is a stubborn refusal to give up on the idea of cooperation. These essays look closely at where the machinery has broken down, but they also push hard on how we might actually fix it.
A special thanks to Abhinav, Kiran, and Ajitesh, who have together spent quite a lot of days and nights both worrying about the magazine’s publication and working on it. An additional appreciation of our editorial interns, Aditya, Aarushi, Shreeya, and Ananya, for their help in editing towards the end. We all together hope to keep this project going for many years to come, and to make this the second in a very long line of publications in the future.
With pride,
Aryan Rakhe
Editor-in-Chief 2025-26
A sneak peek into the cover of Breaking Point: India and the Future of World Order
