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India’s power in Asia continues to grow steadily but remains well below the potential of its resources.
India reaches major power status India reaches major power status
About the authors
Susannah Patton is Director, Asia Engagement at RMIT and a Nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute.
Jack Sato
Jack Sato is a Data Analyst for the Asia Power Index at the Lowy Institute.
Topics
In 2025, India’s comprehensive power score exceeded 40 points, the threshold defined by the Asia Power Index for a “major power”. India increased the small lead it gained over Japan when it became the thirdranked power in 2024. However, the large capability gap with China has only widened, a long-term challenge to the realisation of India’s vision of a multipolar world order.
India’s economic and military capability have both increased in the 2025 edition of the Asia Power Index. Its economy has continued to grow strongly and made small gains in terms of its geopolitical relevance — defined in terms of international leverage, connectivity, and technology. India’s military capability has also improved steadily. For the most part, these gains were from improved expert appraisals of its capability, which were likely influenced by India’s performance in Operation Sindoor, launched in May 2025, which added to India’s recent combat experience.
However, India’s influence — particularly in terms of its diplomatic relationships and defence networks — did not improve commensurately, increasing the country’s large negative Power Gap score, an assessment of the divergence between a country’s expected power based on its resources, and its actual scores in the Asia Power Index.
For the first time since the inception of the Asia Power Index in 2018, India’s ranking for economic relationships improved. While India’s underdeveloped trade relations with other countries in Asia did not improve, India overtook China as the country attracting the most inward investment after the United States — an indicator capturing ten-year cumulative flows. This change is the result of geopolitical factors, with businesses seeking to diversify supply chains, as well as India’s own attractiveness as an investment destination.
India recorded a small improvement in terms of diplomatic influence, a contrast with several other Indo-Pacific middle powers, such as Japan, that have experienced leadership churn. Active diplomacy, measured in terms of bilateral diplomatic dialogues, and an assessment by experts that India’s diplomatic service was improving in quality, contributed to this result. However, India did not improve its ranking in terms of the regional or global leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, perhaps suggesting that India’s current diplomatic strategy focused on multi-alignment, strategic autonomy, and the Global South does not provide an automatic pathway to rapidly expanding its strategic influence.
India’s cultural influence has grown over the past year; a result of expanding people exchanges with Asia Power Index countries. India has become more important as a travel and tourism destination, and relatedly, has improved travel connectivity with more direct flights with Asia Power Index countries. For example, a new direct route between India and Brunei began operating in 2025.
The overall picture for India that emerges from the Asia Power Index is mixed: India’s own power is increasing slowly, but gaps remain between the country’s ambition and the reality of continued limits on its influence, particularly relative to China.
