Raisina: India's Moment

The 2025 Raisina Dialogue, held from March 17 to 19 in New Delhi, centred around the theme "Kālachakra – People, Peace, and Planet," reflecting India's focus on the interconnectedness of global challenges.

The concept is one of eternal time envisaged as a moving wheel, with cycles of life, death, rebirth and rejuvenation. At its centre is the Buddhist idea of impermanence.

The organisers - India’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF) – describes the meeting as a “global public square”, now in its tenth year.

Staged at Delhi’s plush Taj Palace Hotel, this Raisina Dialogue kicked off with an inaugural address from the New Zealand Prime Minister, laying out his government’s aspirations in foreign affairs, trade, and the relationship with India.

Most notable in the audience was Indian leader Narendra Modi.

Of course, the positive news on the trade front was the early announcement in Delhi that FTA talks between India and New Zealand will re-commence in Wellington next month, with an agreement expected before next year’s election.

With some Indian import tariffs currently sitting around 18%, the negotiations will be intense.

Dairy products appear to still be on the table, but few of New Zealand’s FTAs include complete tariff elimination for dairy – although the China one does.

If negotiations do end with a dairy-inclusive deal, that will surely be the trade legacy of this government.  

Christopher Luxon was however an opening night celeb, heading to Mumbai the next day, and with no other New Zealand government officials taking the stage at Raisina. As political theatre goes, it was a bit of a coup for the Prime Minister.

As the conference proper kicked off the following morning, it was telling that proceedings had only been underway for about 90 seconds, before the name of the current US President was mentioned.

In contrast with the last Raisina I attended, Trump took the place of Vladimir Putin as the spectre of the opera – the known unknown at the heart of many conversations.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard made a brief appearance, emphasising her Hawaiian heritage and Hindu religion, but only interacting with ORF President Samir Saran during a brief address, before sweeping out of the auditorium, heading to the airport.

Her thirty minute turn was boilerplate stuff, but New Zealand got a mention when she compared  Trump and Luxon: “While Trump is committed to America First” she said, “Luxon is committed to New Zealand First”. I’m sure that raised a smile with the Foreign Minister.

The US Director of National Intelligence may have had bigger fish to fry back in Washington DC, but she also deftly avoided any further discussion of her recent remarks over violence in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh government was outraged over her comments in the Indian media to the effect that Islamic terrorist factions across the border were responsible for violence against minority groups.

Raisina is the “broadest church in international relations” – as one person put it.

It’s a forum that is only growing in size, attracting delegates from around the world, and taking on difficult and complex topics like Iran’s new relationship with the Arab world, food security in Africa, and the development of relations between the EU and India as US priorities change. Sessions start at 7.30am and some are still running at 10.30pm. It’s a packed three-day event.

And the behavior of the Trump administration, its attitude to Russia, to its allies, to NATO, to the “rules-based order” were maybe not surprisingly all topics high on the agenda, either explicitly or implicitly.

As Tulsi Gabbard may have emphasised, “America First does not mean American alone”.

But for many at Raisina this year, the radical reality is that across the globe there is confusion and concern at the course the US is taking, and just where its future allegiances may lie.

India’s mercurial External Affairs Minister was a member of a couple of panels, deftly explaining Delhi’s perspectives on the Trump administration, international tensions in general, and the rise of India.

India's External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar

“India has navigated, adapted to world which has not always been kind to us, has not been accommodating to us" he told delegates.

“But in that we have developed a certain skill, …we take a long view”.

For a conference adopting the Buddhist and Hindu concept of Kalachakra, that seemed entirely appropriate.

For India, ASEAN, and the other nations represented in Delhi, national priorities range from economic growth to maritime security and climate resilience.

But aligning these under a possibly redeveloped multilateral umbrella requires more than shared anxieties about regional tensions or the fate of the US —it demands a shared vision for the rules of engagement.

As many delegates and contributors emphasised, that vision need not dilute sovereignty, it should strengthen it through predictability, dialogue, and mutual respect between nations.

Mechanisms like the Quad, IPEF, and ASEAN offer blueprints for such a way forward. Instead of enforcing rigid alignment, they allow for what India and others might call strategic multilateralism— a course towards cooperation in context, where convergence is encouraged without the coercion Jaishankar alluded to.

Raisina heard that the path forward lies in embracing flexibility without fragmentation, and that the Indo-Pacific’s future depends not on uniformity, but on unity of purpose.

 In the end the Raisina Dialogue is a very Indian event, sprawling, inclusive and to an extent status-fueled but ultimately democratic at the same time.

It’s a small but very clear window into India’s priorities and current concerns, with the discussion of realpolitik balanced nicely with a healthy dose of idealism, ambition, and a special kind of clear-eyed optimism amid the current gloom.

Asia Media Centre