India

Analysis

India is a middle power in Asia.

In 2024, India overtook Japan to become the third-most powerful country in Asia, increasing its score by 2.8 points. This is the first edition of the Asia Power Index in which India has increased its overall power score, which still remains slightly below its score in 2018 and 2019.

India performs best in the future resources measure, placing 3rd behind only the United States and China. By contrast, India’s lowest-ranked measure is economic relationships, a result of the country sitting outside the regional economic integration agenda.

India’s score improved across the resources measures in 2024, although it did not gain a ranking in any measure. It dropped one place for both economic relationships and defence networks to 10th and 9th, respectively, repeating its performance in 2023 when its rankings also declined for each of these measures.

India exerts less influence in the region than expected given its available resources, as indicated by the country’s negative power gap score. Its negative power gap in 2024 was the largest since the inception of the Asia Power Index.

Read more analysis in the Key Findings report. Explore further results in the Scores section.