ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a fresh interpretation of India's now seven decades-old search for higher status. It focuses on recent International Relations (IR) scholarship on status seeking that underscores not simply the material but also the social dimensions of status in world politics. The book shows that India's status-seeking strategies since Independence do not project an easy or straightforward relationship with material power. It also offers important insights into India's future as a rising power. India's efforts to enhance its material power are not particularly recent, nor wholesale, nor are they the only route Indian leaders have envisaged to lead to high status. The book presents India's status-seeking strategies into three periods: the Nehru era (1947-1964), the post-Nehru era (1964-1991) and the post-Cold War era (1991-2016).
