Is India a Responsible Great Power?

To what extent does rising responsibility accompany rising power in international relations? This article focuses on India to address the question: is a responsible great power in the making? Following a brief theoretical discussion on the notion of responsibility and its relationship to rising power, the article offers an empirical overview of India's achievements thus far, and also the international and domestic challenges that it faces today. It argues that despite the attempts by observers to thrust greatness upon India, the country is yet to achieve greatness. The article further illustrates that India's record of assuming global responsibility has been lacklustre at best. A central argument of the article is that India's reluctance to share the burden of providing global public goods is inseparably bound with the nature of its rise to power.