Why has space become India’s preferred terrain of practising the diplomacy it preaches to the world - building goodwill without deep commitment, aligning power without giving up autonomy, and allowing foreign capital without ceding control?
BCE in India’s Space Trajectory
In 2014 itself, the newly elected PM harboured a new wave of ideas, harnessing India’s minds to build a space satellite called the GSAT-9, a triumph in India’s space trajectory. To put into perspective what this entailed for India at the time, imagine building a geostationary communications satellite at a frugal cost of 235 crores INR, without a smidgen of foreign aid. This was pivotal because it laid down the basic skeleton of India’s carefully maneuvered doctrine: a generous bilateral gift from India to its South Asian counterparts, with a deep commitment to further telemedicine, broadcast technology, and disaster management with the deployment of the satellite. Critics have always labelled India as having an innate anxiety for regional dominance, and this was the first of many clever moves that India played, ignoring Pakistan and pre-empting China with a mere ‘gift’ to its neighbours, no strings attached. True, the generosity was there, but why did India invest so deeply in a project that turned out to be a white elephant? It was almost as if the government thought of substituting sustained economic prestige over the SAARC nations with a low-cost, locally developed satellite, feasting off the diplomatic publicity and the hushed access to data.
Lift Off; GSAT-9 (Source: ISRO)
If this satellite gift laid the foundation for India’s doctrine, the years after it were far more sophisticated, planned and well-timed. In December 2022, as a member of the UNGA assembly discussing a moratorium on destructive anti-satellite missile tests (those which generate debris clouds that can endanger any future satellite launches), India abstained. It held its ground again, sending waves of autonomous decision-making in a room that overwhelmingly supported the USA-backed plan. If India had just demonstrated its ability to build such anti-destructive weapons in the 2019 round of tests - a necessary deterrent for China’s advanced arsenal - we weren’t ready to tie our hands up just then.
Half a year later, though, again spelling out the eccentricity of India’s space doctrine and voicing the non-alignment it champions while establishing strong roots in every tactical aspect, India signed the Artemis Accords. The Artemis Accords were significant, not just because it was a USA-led framework, but because it was fundamentally different from what India had poised to stand for by signing the 1979 Moon Agreement. While the 1979 agreement required all signatories to share space and lunar resources equitably, the Artemis Accords were (controversially) the exact opposite, maintaining that space resources do not inherently account for national appropriation. Effectively poised as a turnaround from the Moon Agreement, it allowed the signatories to ‘claim the resources extracted’ while ‘not claiming the moon itself’. This was an attempt to rewrite the laws of space exploration, again blinding China and placing India in the American camp of space exploration.
The trajectory can only be understood in parts and fragments; the curvilinear nature of India’s ideological fundamentals has meandered with time, moulding itself across each new phase and yet retaining the quest for independent, strategic autonomy. The Artemis Accords, while seemingly contradictory to the Indian doctrine, were a trade-off for the country, accepting rules with meagre costs, deterring China and becoming a member of the ‘advanced’ space economy cohort. This was a humble attempt to honour diplomatic relations with the USA, while refusing to allow the partnership to percolate through military or self-defence avenues.
Tailored Transformations: 2023 and After
While this sophisticated multi-alignment bought India some time, the internal happenings of the country were ready for a rehaul. In 2023, the government launched the first-ever space policy for the country, formally ending ISRO’s monopoly in space research and development, repositioning the agency as a research and regulatory body, while inviting private players in manufacturing, launch and satellite services. Just as the Bay of Bengal is meant to empty into the Indian Ocean, the private capital was guaranteed to flood the space economy; and so it did. The year 2023 ended with a 33% YoY in private investment in the space sector, and FY25 marked a cumulative funding of $618 billion, all to show how the impact of such policies reverberated in the private sector. Again, we understood that it wasn’t just about the outward-looking aspect of space diplomacy, but about recalibrating how the country looked at the space economy and opening it to private players for greater capital and technology at last. To complement all these reforms, the FDI limit was guarded with strategic sensitivity and, while flexible, maintained government sign-off as necessary wherever deemed so.
The guiding instinct was again whispered in the new outlook for the industry, carefully opening up to the world while keeping the sovereign core uncompromised, and advancing space infrastructure in the government's watch.
Imagine opening the door for someone but retaining the keys - the effortless assertion, simple yet convincing dominance - exactly what India has been doing. Recently, Narendra Modi visited Oslo and signed a memorandum between ISRO and the Norwegian Space Agency on satellite climate monitoring in the Arctic region, the first of its kind (geographically speaking) for India. This can be seen as an attempt to fortify the modest presence India has in the Arctic region and formalise the infrastructure for India, precisely at a time when China expands its Arctic ambitions. The memorandum was defining for two reasons; firstly, it was unspectacular, hidden beneath the loud headlines of clean energy and the green partnership with Norway. Secondly, and most importantly, it served the Indian purpose while countering China's expansion effectively. Instead of repeating the ‘gift’ of diplomacy, the country now shifted its focus to accumulating infrastructure and securing a foothold while unravelling the theatrics of a nation untamed by its ambition.
This was both defensive and environmentally cooperative, targeting the sweet spot India has carved out for itself. When looked at holistically, each of these events, stacked together through the decade, describes our nation as one with a policy outlook but limited means, and possessing a continuous lust for soft power.
Now what differentiates India from its counterparts, and especially China, is an uncomplicated case wherein a militarised doctrine for outer space, the idea of ‘operating in space’ and not just ‘using it ’, has been a result of capacity accumulation, not a preconceived idea. When the stars aligned, and when collective positioning was feasible to the idea of ‘managing’ space, is exactly when India struck, while silently building core relations in the backdrop of it all. This was evident when it was understood that India was developing its first comprehensive military space doctrine alongside a national space policy. The intention is cohesion in India’s fragmented capabilities, and a retrospective view to consolidate holdings of space technology, orbital science and, most importantly, counter the ever-growing Chinese threat. New Delhi continues to employ the word ‘deterrent’ in its arsenal, but with altered doctrines, heightened exposures and a greater grasp over the technological aspect of the industry, it signals a parallel military build-up. While hedging is preventive, accumulation is pragmatic, bold and assertive, for a country that aspires to hold its ground in the tumultuous South Asian region.
At last, we’re left to make sense of this evolution of strategic insight and how India continues to navigate the domain of space technology and employ it as a tool for diplomacy, to lead discussions and make way when things get out of control. What the record shows is that India, over time, has realised an important detail about this industry, which tells us that while low-cost and camouflaged by scientific jargon, the space economy is a frontier that presents itself as a great source of future dominance, discounted with multi-alignment and autonomy, today.
About the Author: Shreeya Sawhney
Shreeya is an undergraduate student at SRCC, exploring ideas that can shape the world tomorrow, beyond conventional schools of thought.