Kuala Lampur, Feb. 6 -- When Narendra Modi visited Malaysia, it was tempting to read the trip through familiar lenses: diaspora ties, historical goodwill, and growing people-to-people exchanges. Yet to do so would miss the larger point.

Modi's visit came at a moment when India's global standing is being reshaped less by rhetoric and more by hard economic leverage - leverage that is now influencing decisions as far away as Washington, DC.

India's ongoing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with the European Union, coupled with recent concessions from the United States - including a reduction of US tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent - point to a quiet recalibration in global diplomacy.

India is no longer merely a strategic partne...