India’s long-overdue turn to Europe marks one of the quiet revolutions in its twenty-first-century diplomacy. India Pivots to Europe: In Search of a New Eurasian Balance tells how Delhi, once content to view Europe through a postcolonial or purely commercial lens, now engages it as a strategic opportunity and an important element of its great-power calculus.

The book narrates the untold story of this transformation from tentative engagement to a purposeful search for common ground since the 2010s. It delineates the rejuvenation of India’s relations with the big three of Europe: Britain, France, Germany; the creation of new partnerships with Italy, Poland and Spain; the intensive outreach to subregional frameworks in Northern, Central and Southern Europe; and the push for deeper institutional engagement with Brussels through the European Union.

The book also looks at the rapidly changing geopolitical dynamics of Eurasia amid the volatility in US policies and the Sino-Russian alignment. It examines the new imperatives they have created for India to elevate its partnership with Europe. At the same time, a newly self-aware Europe—shaken by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, wary of China’s coercive power, and uncertain of America’s reliability—is turning to India as a partner of consequence.

India and Europe, with very similar challenges, have begun to find a common vocabulary. ‘Strategic autonomy’ and ‘multipolarity’ have acquired a new meaning for both.

India Pivots to Europe shows how the two sides are evolving into potential allies capable of stabilizing the Eurasian balance of power currently in a great churn. Combining history, policy and geopolitics, this book captures the sources and structure of India’s new partnership with Europe, articulating how it could transform many traditional assumptions about the geopolitics of our time. Europe is no longer on the margins of India’s foreign policy—it is becoming central to its global strategy.

In India Pivots to Europe, C. Raja Mohan traces one of the most significant yet underexplored shifts in Indian diplomacy: New Delhi’s transformation of Europe from a largely commercial partner into a vital strategic pillar.

From deepening ties with Britain, France and Germany to new partnerships with Italy, Poland and Spain, the book maps India’s expanding engagement across the continent and with the European Union. It also places this transformation within the larger churn reshaping Eurasia—Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s growing coercive power, uncertainty over America’s role, and the search for a more multipolar world.

Combining history, diplomacy and geopolitical analysis, Raja Mohan makes a compelling case for why India and Europe may increasingly emerge as partners in shaping a new Eurasian balance of power. Timely, incisive and ambitious, this is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand India’s evolving grand strategy and the changing architecture of global power.

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