Era of few powers shaping world is over, multipolarity here: Jaishankar at Raisina Dialogue

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar says the era of few powers shaping global order is over and multipolarity is here to stay

Published on: Mar 7, 2026, 03:32:15 IST

By Rezaul H Laskar

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New Delhi: The era of a few major powers shaping the global landscape through deals and compacts is over and multipolarity is here to stay, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said at the Raisina Dialogue on Friday.

Jaishankar at Raisina Dialogue: Multipolar world replacing old global order, era of big power deals is over (PTI)

Participating in a discussion on Finland President Alexander Stubb’s book “The Triangle of Power”, which explored the rise of the Global South and new power configurations, Jaishankar said power is distributed across several regions, preventing a handful of countries from dictating outcomes to the rest of the world.

“My sense is you’re going to have a future which will be much more multipolar because no country today has hegemony over so many domains that it is an overall hegemon,” he said. This is not just about the distribution of GDP and capabilities, and various regions of the world will be “more contributive” in different domains, he said.

“Multipolarity is here to stay. What we will have…is to some extent, some of the bigger countries will make temporary compacts on limited issues,” Jaishankar said. “Structurally, there is not going to be some big deal between powers and the rest of the world has to put up with it. That era is over.”

Jaishankar also argued that multipolarity is not against multilateralism. “You can have multipolarity with multilateralism and multipolarity without multilateralism,” he said.

“The success of multilateralism should not depend on the weakening of multipolarity because the weakening of multipolarity is not going to happen.”

Changes are occurring on the global stage because any expectation about freezing the order created after the end of World War II in 1945 or after the end of the Cold War in 1989 is “very unrealistic”, he further argued.

India has hosted the Voice of Global South gathering for the past three years as there is a “new basis for a Global South platform”, he said. The era of big countries creating spheres of influence and reaching huge compacts of a sweeping nature has effectively ended, he added.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rezaul H Laskar
Rezaul Hasan Laskar is Foreign Editor with the Hindustan Times, which he joined in 2015. He began as a journalist in his hometown of Shillong in northeast India and has worked in newspapers and wire services over the years. He moved to New Delhi in 1997 and initially focused on defence, national security, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, while also working of foreign policy and international relations. He has been part of the media delegation accompanying PMs on foreign visits and has reported from destinations ranging from Tibet to Ukraine. Between 2007 and 2013, he was the Press Trust of India correspondent in Pakistan, one of only two Indian journalists allowed to report from the country. He extensively covered Pakistan’s domestic politics and the life of the common people, as well as the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks on India-Pakistan relations and the subsequent trial in Pakistan of the suspects involved in the attack. As part of his reportage in Pakistan, he travelled the breadth of the country, from the Swat Valley to Balochistan. Reza’s first gig in journalism was writing a weekly music column, and music – especially classic rock – remains a keen interest. He is also a movie buff and a keen photographer.Read More

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