[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies. Views expressed do not reflect the position of the editorial board.]

Amitav Acharya’s efforts towards creating ‘Global IR’ are particularly noteworthy. In his determination to deconstruct Eurocentric beliefs and to posit a post-Western IR, Acharya (Citation2014) argues that the discipline needs to focus on three ideas: pluralistic universalism, world history and regions. According to Acharya, the existing understanding of universalism exercised in the IR discipline is constructed on European Enlightenment rationality, which means that Western concepts and categories are ‘applying to all’ across time and space, constituting a homogeneous reality. However, this ‘monistic universalism’ essentially suppresses diversity and difference, and proactively marginalises alternative voices, theories and traditions from mainstream discussion within the discipline.

Consequently, to achieve post-Western IR, Acharya argues that the focus should be based on ‘pluralistic universalism’, which allows us to ‘view the world of IR as a large, overarching canopy with multiple foundations’. He argues that existing IR theory remains fundamentally based on Western history, through which academics derive their ideas, theories and intellectual practices. He further adds that, to move beyond Western history, IR must be grounded in world history to recognise the histories of other parts of the world ‘to develop concepts and approaches from a non-Western context on their own terms’. Lastly, Acharya discusses the importance of the study of regions, in order to achieve post-Western IR. This approach not only provides us with an alternative geocultural space for theorisation, but also recognises the regional diversity and agency in the discipline.

Based on these three ideas, a post-Western IR can be formed. Scholars such as Navnita Chadha Behera (Citation2020) and Erik Ringmar (Citation2019) question the ‘epistemic violence’ of Western IR that has overtly marginalised and rejected the alternative views concerning states, political order and international systems stemming from the non-European or non-Western world (Behera, Citation2020; Ringmar, Citation2019; Spivak, Citation1988). In this regard, ‘post-Western IR’ questions the Eurocentric foundations of IR but also problematises the ‘derivative discourses’ of Europe that give epistemological privilege to Western IR on the basis of their ontological experience, without recognising critical political discourses and understandings that emerged from non-Western traditions and histories (Shani, Citation2008; Shani & Behera, Citation2022). However, this ‘post-Western’ turn in IR did not completely reject Western IR; rather, it pluralised the discipline by incorporating knowledge produced by the non-West. The intellectual goal of post-Western IR is the ‘opening up of IR to approaches shaped by different epistemological and ontological outlooks so that the study of IR would better reflect how the international is understood and practised in different parts of the world’ (Anderl & Witt, Citation2020, p. 40).

Sreshtha Chakraborty has published a research paper, ‘Intellectual tradition and India’s place in post-Western international relations’, in this issue of The Round Table, where she discusses the lack of ‘genuine theoretical innovation’ in Indian IR to propose a post-Western theorisation. She argues that

the challenge before Indian IR scholars is to navigate this complex landscape, embracing indigenous lenses while keeping a critical remove that precludes ideological capture. The aim must be to recover, and re-interpret, India’s traditions to deepen worldwide IR theory and practice and not simply to reinforce nationalist narratives. (Chakraborty, Citation2026, p. 12)

However, this ideological hurdle, which she associated with Hindu nationalism, has already been surpassed by many Indian IR scholars. Shahi and Ascione (Citation2016) first proposed the philosophy and idea of ‘Advaita’ as an Indian epistemological resource through which they explore the possibilities of the construction of a post-Western IR. They offer an alternative to Western IR’s Eurocentric scientism, positivism and enlightenment rationality on one hand, as well as moving beyond nativism or cultural essentialism on the other. The notion of Advaita refers to non-dualism or non-secondness. It supposes a monist epistemology that is distinct from Western IR theories’ meta-theoretical foundation, namely the subject–object distinction. Instead, Advaita philosophy rejects binary modes, as well as models of hierarchy and hegemony, and offers a ‘single hidden connectedness, or Brahman’. On this premise, the notion of Advaita offers a non-dualist knowledge production in IR, and it also ‘unleashes the theoretical perspectives that have hitherto remained concealed by the dominance of dualism in IR’. This intellectual realisation of ‘connectedness’ can make a powerful case for reinterpreting diversity in political identities, thereby creating new ethical space to condemn divisive domestic, international and global politics.

Intellectual tradition and India’s place in post-Western International Relations
New world order in the Indo-Pacific: Challenges and prospects for India
India in a changing global world: understanding India’s changing statecraft and Delhi’s international relations

Hence, Advaita offers new epidemiological grounds for transcending Western IR and creating post-Western global IR. A similar argument was presented by Shani and Behera (Citation2022): that the relational understanding of the universe offered by ‘Dharma’ helps to problematise and to deconstruct the rational or secular understanding of the universe, which is essentially embedded in the epistemology and ontology of Western IR. The latter is essentially grounded in Judaeo-Christian assumptions and Enlightenment beliefs regarding time, relationships between the ‘self’ and ‘others’, international order and the ‘sovereign’ state. They argue that ‘Dharmic’ IR offers an alternative understanding of IR, derived from the Mahabharata, a classic text that presents modes and modern views of multilevel and multidimensional human existence without negating contrary expressions and ideas. They also argue that the exploration of the Indian conceptual discourse of a ‘non-dualistic mode of thinking’ also helps to change world-views by shifting perceptions of global relations through different non-Western lenses. In that sense, post-Western theorisation in India is already a critical theory. In this regard, Sreshtha Chakraborty’s claim regarding the lack of ‘genuine theoretical innovation’ in Indian IR is fundamentally flawed.

Jatin & Akshat Pushpam, Department of Political Science, Bharati College, University of Delhi.