Skip to main content

Will mission moon help India leverage its diplomacy as an influential power-player?

By Sudhanshu Tripathi* 

The successful moon landing has made the incredible possible for India. The country has indeed jumped towards a higher orbit of influence and power among global community of sovereign nations. While this rare achievement will in likelihood transform into the country’s increasing cooperation with other space-exploring national agencies in the world, it shall also result into massive economic gains with considerable socio-political prestige of India accompanied by robust boost to the likely prospects of its likely emerging new carved-out of Moon Diplomacy.
Despite being a scientific and technological success in the field of space exploration, the totality of results to calculate in terms of addition to national power for the country is perhaps beyond one’s general perception. Notwithstanding the positive fruitful gains, the accomplishment may possibly witness few adverse consequences due to long-recurring hostile attitudes maintained by China and Pakistan against India. The country had already suffered such adverse consequences by means of several harsh sanctions by the western states led by the US, when it successfully conducted its first nuclear explosion on 18th May 1974 for peaceful purposes.
This spectacular achievement by the country may possibly lead to few unexpected and unpalatable after-effects due to stiff power rivalry in the world as international arena is still perhaps the most unregulated and free-for-all phenomenon where naked power rules the roost, that an illustrious realist scholar of the previous century Hans Morgenthau had sketched in his classic work Power among Nations. The same spirit has further been carried by another contemporary realist scholar John Mearsheimer who has pointed at those structures which inevitably causes tensions between different power players in the world.
As India has now become an influential power-player among few top level power players like the US, Russia and China, it essentially needs to leverage its diplomacy so as to carry on its sincere efforts uninterrupted to further explore the unfathomed areas of knowledge in the overall interest of humanity, either in space or below the surface of the earth or deep inside oceans. In fact, these are the probable areas where humanity can find solace in times to come when rising temperatures, melting glaciers leading to submerging of island-nations, increasing environment pollution, soil erosion, scarcity of water and food resources accompanied by several natural disasters viz. earth quake, heavy downpour, famine and several man-made others will finally turn the earth inhospitable for the human beings.
Hence the ongoing endeavour in search of future hospitable destinations or the required living preconditions for sustenance of the mankind like water or oxygen or fertile soil to name a few must be collectively pursued so that no competitive rivalry may stall such noble pursuit in the common welfare of all. It is here that India can mitigate the possible suspicions among other competing nations through its aforesaid moon diplomacy for forging better friendly and cordial relations by evolving better cooperative endeavours not only in the field of space exploration but also in other fields as above mentioned. This is very much required today by New Delhi as the same mission by a major global power Russia through its spacecraft Luna-25 had unfortunately failed just around three days ago.
As Sino-India tensions and continuing standoff on the international borders between the two asymmetric powers continue to be far away from amicable resolution despite several rounds of bilateral talks at various levels besides hostile relations with Pakistan consistently supporting cross-border terror into India, the so-carved out diplomacy may accrue for New Delhi enough clout and power that may help India balance the fast-risen aggressive, assertion-oriented and imperialist power-profile of China including Pakistan not only in the East but also in all over the world. Hence the likely upcoming deterrent power of India through the moon diplomacy can considerably help boost its image vis-à-vis Beijing and Islamabad both. And that will indeed benefit the global humanity. This can happen as nothing is beyond human endeavour.
---
Dept. Political Science, MDPG College, Pratapagarh (UP)

Comments

TRENDING

Whither space for the marginalised in Kerala's privately-driven townships after landslides?

By Ipshita Basu, Sudheesh R.C.  In the early hours of July 30 2024, a landslide in the Wayanad district of Kerala state, India, killed 400 people. The Punjirimattom, Mundakkai, Vellarimala and Chooralmala villages in the Western Ghats mountain range turned into a dystopian rubble of uprooted trees and debris.

Election bells ringing in Nepal: Can ousted premier Oli return to power?

By Nava Thakuria*  Nepal is preparing for a national election necessitated by the collapse of KP Sharma Oli’s government at the height of a Gen Z rebellion (youth uprising) in September 2025. The polls are scheduled for 5 March. The Himalayan nation last conducted a general election in 2022, with the next polls originally due in 2027.  However, following the dissolution of Nepal’s lower house of Parliament last year by President Ram Chandra Poudel, the electoral process began under the patronage of an interim government installed on 12 September under the leadership of retired Supreme Court judge Sushila Karki. The Hindu-majority nation of over 29 million people will witness more than 3,400 electoral candidates, including 390 women, representing 68 political parties as well as independents, vying for 165 seats in the 275-member House of Representatives.

Gig workers hold online strike on republic day; nationwide protests planned on February 3

By A Representative   Gig and platform service workers across the country observed a nationwide online strike on Republic Day, responding to a call given by the Gig & Platform Service Workers Union (GIPSWU) to protest what it described as exploitation, insecurity and denial of basic worker rights in the platform economy. The union said women gig workers led the January 26 action by switching off their work apps as a mark of protest.

'Condonation of war crimes against women and children’: IPSN on Trump’s Gaza Board

By A Representative   The India-Palestine Solidarity Network (IPSN) has strongly condemned the announcement of a proposed “Board of Peace” for Gaza and Palestine by former US President Donald J. Trump, calling it an initiative that “condones war crimes against children and women” and “rubs salt in Palestinian wounds.”

India’s road to sustainability: Why alternative fuels matter beyond electric vehicles

By Suyash Gupta*  India’s worsening air quality makes the shift towards clean mobility urgent. However, while electric vehicles (EVs) are central to India’s strategy, they alone cannot address the country’s diverse pollution and energy challenges.

With infant mortality rate of 5, better than US, guarantee to live is 'alive' in Kerala

By Nabil Abdul Majeed, Nitheesh Narayanan   In 1945, two years prior to India's independence, the current Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, was born into a working-class family in northern Kerala. He was his mother’s fourteenth child; of the thirteen siblings born before him, only two survived. His mother was an agricultural labourer and his father a toddy tapper. They belonged to a downtrodden caste, deemed untouchable under the Indian caste system.

Jayanthi Natarajan "never stood by tribals' rights" in MNC Vedanta's move to mine Niyamigiri Hills in Odisha

By A Representative The Odisha Chapter of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), which played a vital role in the struggle for the enactment of historic Forest Rights Act, 2006 has blamed former Union environment minister Jaynaynthi Natarjan for failing to play any vital role to defend the tribals' rights in the forest areas during her tenure under the former UPA government. Countering her recent statement that she rejected environmental clearance to Vendanta, the top UK-based NMC, despite tremendous pressure from her colleagues in Cabinet and huge criticism from industry, and the claim that her decision was “upheld by the Supreme Court”, the CSD said this is simply not true, and actually she "disrespected" FRA.

MGNREGA: How caste and power hollowed out India’s largest welfare law

By Sudhir Katiyar, Mallica Patel*  The sudden dismantling of MGNREGA once again exposes the limits of progressive legislation in the absence of transformation of a casteist, semi-feudal rural society. Over two days in the winter session, the Modi government dismantled one of the most progressive legislations of the UPA regime—the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Fragmented opposition and identity politics shaping Tamil Nadu’s 2026 election battle

By Syed Ali Mujtaba*  Tamil Nadu is set to go to the polls in April 2026, and the political battle lines are beginning to take shape. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state on January 23, 2026, marked the formal launch of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign against the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Addressing multiple public meetings, the Prime Minister accused the DMK government of corruption, criminality, and dynastic politics, and called for Tamil Nadu to be “freed from DMK’s chains.” PM Modi alleged that the DMK had turned Tamil Nadu into a drug-ridden state and betrayed public trust by governing through what he described as “Corruption, Mafia and Crime,” derisively terming it “CMC rule.” He claimed that despite making numerous promises, the DMK had failed to deliver meaningful development. He also targeted what he described as the party’s dynastic character, arguing that the government functioned primarily for the benefit of a single family a...