Raisina Dialogue Outputs

The Conference as Policy Instrument

The Raisina Dialogue is the annual multilateral conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics convened by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in partnership with the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). Launched in March 2016 under External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and ORF Chairman Sunjoy Joshi, it is named after Raisina Hill in New Delhi, the seat of the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the South and North Blocks that house the PMO, MEA, and Ministry of Defence. The dialogue is modeled on the Munich Security Conference, the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, and the Manama Dialogue, but is distinctly Indian in agenda-setting: it foregrounds Indo-Pacific maritime security, connectivity (IMEC, INSTC), technology governance, and Global South representation.

Raisina is formally a Track 1.5 platform — heads of state, foreign and defence ministers, service chiefs, and intelligence chiefs share the stage with scholars, executives, and journalists under attribution rules that vary by session. The 2024 edition (21–23 February) was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as chief guest; the 2025 edition (17–19 March) featured New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. The dialogue's plenary is broadcast live by Doordarshan and ORF's digital channels, while sidebar bilaterals are reported only through MEA press releases and the Spokesperson's X handle (@MEAIndia).

Reading the Output Stack

Raisina produces a layered set of outputs that the diplomatic reader must disaggregate. First, the Prime Minister's inaugural address sets the doctrinal frame — Modi's 2022 address introduced the phrase "reformed multilateralism" that subsequently anchored India's G20 presidency. Second, the External Affairs Minister's conversations — typically a moderated session with a foreign interlocutor or journalist — function as authoritative articulations of doctrine. S. Jaishankar's now-famous formulations ("Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems," June 2022; the "three Cs" of conflict, climate, COVID; the rejection of the term "non-West" in favor of "non-Western but not anti-Western") were all delivered at Raisina or Raisina-adjacent settings.

Third, the ministerial panels — particularly the foreign ministers' roundtable and the chiefs of defence staff session — generate quotable signals on Quad operational tempo, Indian Ocean HADR coordination, and supply-chain decoupling. Fourth, the bilateral pull-asides produce joint statements that are released through the MEA's XP Division and posted on mea.gov.in under "Bilateral/Multilateral Documents." Raisina 2023 hosted the inaugural Quad foreign ministers' meeting of that year; Raisina 2024 produced bilateral readouts with over forty visiting foreign ministers in under seventy-two hours.

Fifth — and most often missed by foreign analysts — are the ORF flagship publications released to coincide with the dialogue: the Raisina Files (edited volume), the Foreign Policy Survey, and ORF's annual Global Policy compendium. These are not MEA documents but they are calibrated with MEA inputs and reliably preview themes the ministry will pursue in the following twelve months. A reader tracking Indian signaling on, for example, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) or the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) should treat the Raisina Files essay by the relevant secretary or joint secretary as authoritative.

Tradecraft: How Desk Officers Should Process Raisina

A disciplined reading protocol distinguishes Raisina from ordinary conference noise. Begin with the agenda architecture: ORF releases the thematic pillars roughly six weeks before the dialogue. Raisina 2024's pillars — "Chaturanga: Conflict, Contest, Cooperate, Create" — telegraphed the four-front framing (Ukraine, Gaza, Indo-Pacific, technology) that the MEA subsequently used in its G20 troika handover statement. The pillar titles are drafted in coordination with the MEA Policy Planning and Research Division (PP&R); read them as doctrinal previews, not marketing copy.

Next, map the speaker list against the invitation list to comparable conferences. A foreign minister who attends Raisina but skipped that year's Munich Security Conference is signaling a tilt toward New Delhi's framing. The 2023 attendance of Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, who used Raisina to announce Italy's Indo-Pacific strategy, preceded by eleven months Italy's 2024 accession to the IMEC working group. Track the lag: Raisina announcements typically convert to formal bilateral instruments within nine to fifteen months.

Third, separate ministerial text from think-tank text. Statements by sitting ministers (Indian or foreign) on the Raisina stage are on-the-record and constitute official positions absent immediate retraction. Statements by former officials — Shivshankar Menon, Shyam Saran, Nirupama Rao, Vijay Gokhale — represent informed commentary but not government policy. The MEA does not disavow former-secretary remarks, which creates useful deniability for floating trial balloons. The 2019 Raisina remarks by former Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale on China's Belt and Road previewed language that appeared in MEA briefings only in 2021.

Cross-Checking Against Official Channels

After the dialogue concludes, cross-reference three sources within seventy-two hours: (1) the MEA Weekly Media Briefing by the Official Spokesperson (currently Randhir Jaiswal, succeeding Arindam Bagchi in January 2024), held Thursdays at the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan; (2) PIB releases under the MEA tag at pib.gov.in; and (3) PMO press notes at pmindia.gov.in for any Modi-level bilaterals. Discrepancies between Raisina-stage language and post-event official text indicate where the ministry has chosen to formalize versus walk back.

Finally, archive the video record. ORF posts full session video to its YouTube channel within forty-eight hours, but panel-specific clips are often the only durable record of unscripted ministerial exchanges. The 2023 exchange between Jaishankar and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on AUKUS submarine technology transfer — substantively different from the joint statement issued the next day — survives only in video. Build a tagged clip library; it is the closest analogue to a primary-source archive that Raisina offers.