The Elephant Rises: India’s Strategic Renaissance in Global Politics is a sweeping meditation on how an ancient civilization is quietly repositioning itself at the center of a turbulent century. Drawing on the chessboard metaphor of the elephant’s deliberate, cumulative advance, the book traces India’s grand strategy from Kautilya’s statecraft to today’s multi-aligned realism—showing how patience can outmaneuver haste and how cultural confidence can coexist with technological ambition. It journeys through the hinge points of India’s ascent: economic statecraft in an era of trade, technology, and sanctions; a military metamorphosis from garrisoned caution to credible guardianship; the crafting of soft power that amplifies hard capabilities; and the delicate choreography of great-power relations with China, the United States, and Russia. Balancing neighborhood diplomacy with dominance dilemmas and weighing domestic constraints against national aspiration, it offers scenario-driven pathways to 2047, when independent India turns 100. More than a policy analysis, this is a civilizational lens on a multipolar order where democracy and development dance together—suggesting that the moves only the “elephant” can make may ultimately shape the architecture of the century.