India’s reform story resonates at Davos

India’s presence at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year has been marked less by spectacle and more by quiet confidence. On the second day of deliberations, the message emerging from boardrooms, policy panels and bilateral conversations was consistent: India’s growth story is no longer being framed primarily as potential, but increasingly as performance.

That shift matters. For years, India’s engagement at Davos came with familiar qualifiers. Promise was tempered by execution risk, scale constrained by reform bottlenecks, ambition checked by institutional capacity. What appears to be changing now is not merely the tone of India’s representation, but the way global investors and policymakers are assessing India’s trajectory in a world marked by uncertainty and fragmentation.

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw’s remarks on the sidelines of the forum captured this moment. India’s reform momentum, he said, remains firmly on track, driven by deep structural changes undertaken over the past decade. The emphasis was not on a single flagship initiative or headline reform, but on continuity, a steady layering of policy changes across labour, taxation, energy, manufacturing and technology.

At a time when global growth is slowing and economic policy in many countries is increasingly shaped by geopolitical shocks, this continuity is emerging as one of India’s most persuasive advantages.

The reforms themselves are by now well known, but their cumulative impact is being read differently. The Goods and Services Tax has evolved from a disruptive overhaul into a more predictable national framework. Labour codes, while unevenly implemented across states, have begun to alter the long-term investment calculus in labour-intensive sectors. Energy sector reforms and the gradual opening up of nuclear energy to private participation signal a willingness to revisit long-standing constraints in pursuit of scale, security and sustainability.

What is notable at Davos is how these reforms are now being interpreted together, not as isolated policy moves, but as components of a broader architecture aimed at sustaining growth in an increasingly volatile global environment.

India’s macroeconomic narrative reinforces this perception. With growth projections consistently in the 6–8 per cent range over the medium term, India stands out among major economies grappling with stagnation, fiscal stress or demographic headwinds. Equally important is the composition of that growth. Relatively contained inflation alongside expansion has reassured investors wary of overheating, sudden policy reversals or destabilising capital flows.

This combination of growth and stability is gradually reshaping how India is positioned in global risk assessments. Rather than being seen primarily as an emerging market vulnerable to external shocks, India is increasingly being perceived as a stabilising anchor in a volatile global economy, one capable of absorbing turbulence without abrupt course correction.

Corporate signals at Davos reinforce this shift. Announcements by companies such as IKEA to expand their investment footprint and Qualcomm to significantly scale up their workforce are not transformative in isolation. Taken together, however, they point to a deeper trend. Multinational firms are treating India not merely as a large consumer market, but as a long-term operational base. This reflects confidence not just in demand, but in policy predictability, regulatory clarity and the depth of India’s talent pool.

Resilience has emerged as a central theme in India’s Davos engagement this year. With global supply chains being reconfigured in response to geopolitical tensions, India’s strategy has been to strengthen internal capabilities while remaining open to partnerships. The focus on building a domestic semiconductor ecosystem, developing a comprehensive artificial intelligence stack and scaling up defence production reflects an understanding that economic sovereignty and global integration must advance together rather than be seen as opposing goals.

In technology, the transition of India’s IT sector from traditional services to AI-driven solutions is drawing close attention. What global audiences appear to find compelling is the scale at which India is attempting this shift, combining public digital infrastructure with private innovation. The ambition is not simply to adopt new technologies, but to participate in shaping them, positioning India as both a producer and a platform.

Energy security is another area where India’s approach is resonating. As countries struggle to reconcile climate commitments with growth imperatives, India’s willingness to invest across renewables, green hydrogen, transitional fuels and nuclear energy is being read as pragmatic rather than contradictory. In an environment short on certainty, pragmatism carries its own appeal, particularly when paired with scale and policy continuity.

Importantly, India’s narrative at Davos is not framed purely in economic terms. The emphasis on inclusion remains a defining feature. The expansion of financial access through more than 54 crore Jan Dhan accounts and the sustained provision of food security to over 80 crore people are being presented as foundational to growth rather than ancillary to it. For global audiences grappling with inequality and political backlash, the scale of these efforts challenges conventional assumptions about trade-offs between growth and welfare.

Perhaps the most telling indicator of India’s standing at Davos is the nature of the conversations it is now part of. Panels and bilateral meetings increasingly treat India’s emergence as the world’s third-largest economy as a question of timing rather than feasibility. This represents a subtle but important shift from earlier years, when India’s ascent was discussed as conditional, contingent or easily derailed.

None of this implies that challenges have disappeared. Implementation gaps persist, state-level capacity varies and external shocks will test even the most resilient economies. India’s reform process remains a work in progress, not a finished product. But what Davos suggests this year is that India’s narrative has matured. It is no longer defined solely by what it might become, but by what it is already demonstrating.

In an era marked by great power rivalry, trade fragmentation and economic anxiety, India is increasingly being perceived as a rare combination, large but predictable, ambitious but pragmatic, reform-oriented yet politically stable. That combination is gaining value at a time when reliability itself has become a scarce commodity.

Davos is often criticised for being long on rhetoric and short on substance. Yet it also functions as a barometer of global sentiment. On that measure, India’s presence this year points to a country whose growth story is not only continuing to unfold, but is being taken seriously by global capital, policymakers and corporate leaders alike.

The challenge now lies in converting confidence into outcomes. Sustaining reform momentum, deepening execution and managing inevitable shocks will determine whether this perception endures. If India succeeds, Davos may come to be seen not merely as a platform for aspiration, but as a marker of arrival in the global economic order.

The author is a New Delhi-based columnist specialising in foreign policy and political economy, with a focus on India’s global strategy in a multipolar world.