Born Global: Why India’s New Graduates Are Entering a Very Different World—Explains Dr. S Jaishankar

What does a generation born into smartphones need to know about a world once shaped by radio, rationing, and rigid borders? That question hovered quietly over the 22nd Convocation Ceremony of Symbiosis International (Deemed University) in Pune, when External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar began to speak. Addressing a hall filled with graduates, families, and faculty on December 20, 2025, he delivered something far richer than a customary farewell to campus life.

A Convocation That Looked Forward, Not Back

Dr. Jaishankar opened by greeting the Symbiosis leadership: Chancellor Dr. S.B. Mujumdar, Pro-Chancellor Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar, Provost Dr. Rajiv Yeravdekar, Vice Chancellor Dr. Ramakrishnan Raman, Registrar Dr. Shejul, Controller of Examinations Shraddha Chitale, and then turned, deliberately, to the students.

Congratulating the graduates and their families, he framed each passing batch as part of a larger national arc. Every convocation, he suggested, quietly adds another layer to India’s engagement with the world.

This convocation address read less like a ceremonial speech and more like a briefing on the world students are about to inherit.

When the World Was Smaller—and Options Fewer

Reflecting on his own graduation years, Dr. Jaishankar sketched a world that today’s students could scarcely recognise. The era following the creation of Bangladesh was defined by tight strategic corners. India faced pressure from the West and China, conflict with Pakistan, and responded by forging a close partnership with the Soviet Union.

The Gulf was peripheral, Southeast Asia was still finding its feet, and global travel was a rarity. Radical politics dominated developing nations. Civilizational ties existed, but economic and infrastructural connections were thin. India was visible internationally, yet constrained at home.

Domestically, it was a time of rationing, licenses, and long waits. Two-wheelers, refrigerators, or televisions were once-in-a-lifetime purchases. Telephones and passports were privileges. Explaining that scarcity to a generation raised on abundance, he noted, would itself be a challenge.

The lesson was blunt yet optimistic. India moved forward not by clinging to rigid socialist models, but by embracing entrepreneurship, reform, and its own strengths. With technology now amplifying those strengths, the obvious question followed: how much further could this generation take the country?

From Distance to Access: How the World Came Closer

Information would arrive slowly through books, radio, newspapers, and eventually television. The internet changed that, and smartphones transformed it entirely. Dr Jaishankar emphasised that the real shift was psychological.

Earlier generations saw the world as distant, sometimes intimidating. Today’s students see it as accessible, as the globe is no longer just a curiosity or compulsion, but an opportunity.

Unlike earlier generations that feared uncertainty, these graduates spoke easily about shifting careers, acquiring new skills, and adapting to emerging technologies. Change, once unsettling, had become familiar terrain, a foreshadowing of why this generation may be uniquely equipped for a volatile world.

Globalisation: Opportunity, or Trap?

Turning to the present, Dr. Jaishankar acknowledged that the world is in transition. The global order shaped 80 years ago is unravelling, driven by technology, economics, and shifting power.

Globalisation, he said, has never been this intense. Goods, people, ideas, and services now move at unprecedented speed. Students travel more, work across borders, and navigate diverse cultures. With globalisation comes an unspoken rule that the prepared ones shall be rewarded and the passive ones shall be punished.

India’s answer, he argued, lies in initiatives such as Make in India, designing and innovating from India, and delivering to the world. Without these, the country risks remaining merely a market for others’ ambitions. Success demands infrastructure, skills, policy clarity, and vision backed by execution.

He pointed to recent milestones: India’s own 5G stack, the world’s largest digital public infrastructure, the Vande Bharat Express, the world’s highest rail bridge, and a thriving startup ecosystem.

He pointed to India’s successful landing on the difficult side of the moon as more than a scientific milestone. It was, he suggested, a metaphor for a country willing to attempt what is hard rather than settle for what is familiar—an attitude he urged the graduating students to adopt in their own lives.

Talent as India’s Most Powerful Export

In a world where work travels faster than people, India’s greatest export may no longer be goods, but talent. Modern globalisation, according to the Foreign Minister, is as much about global workplaces as global markets. Supply chains, partnerships, and careers now stretch across borders. This makes global awareness not optional, but essential.

During his travels abroad, Dr. Jaishankar noted how he increasingly encountered Indians in unexpected roles like pilots in international airlines, managers in global hotel chains, doctors in foreign hospitals, and entrepreneurs across continents. What once would have been exceptional is now routine, reflecting how Indian talent has become embedded in the global workforce.

India’s strength, he argued, lies in its people. Manufacturing and services are intertwined, and a large economy cannot sustain innovation without both. As incomes rise, demand grows not just for engineers and managers, but for teachers, researchers, artists, historians, and sportspersons.

With higher education institutions doubling in number over a decade, global mobility has become a defining feature of this era. India plugged skill shortages across the globe.

Rebalancing a World That Feels Uneven

Globalisation has not benefited everyone equally. After decolonisation, countries progressed at different speeds, shaped by leadership and policy choices. China gained the most, but India gained steadily, especially after reforms and in the past decade.

Parts of the West, however, experienced stagnation. Outsourcing, declining competitiveness, demographic pressures, and lifestyle choices fueled political discontent. Rebalancing, Dr. Jaishankar emphasised, is not just about shifting power, but changing attitudes between nations.

India’s global image has improved sharply. The country is taken more seriously. Indians are seen as hardworking, technologically capable, and family-oriented. Diaspora success stories reinforce this perception, while domestic improvements in ease of living and doing business erode outdated stereotypes.

This confidence, supported by data and experience, is reshaping how Indians engage the world.

Culture as Strategy, Not Ornament

Beyond economics, Dr. Jaishankar highlighted a quieter shift: the rebalancing of narratives. Despite decades since decolonisation, global discourse remains heavily Western. According to him, India has a responsibility to broaden it. Yoga, millets, and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam are strategic statements that go beyond soft gestures.

He cited initiatives ranging from the International Day of Yoga and the International Year of Millets to Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam, LiFE, the International Solar Alliance, BRICS, the Voice of the Global South Summits, and the inclusion of the African Union in the G20.

One graduate proudly listed experience in promoting Indian wellness practices during an international exchange program. What once might have been considered extracurricular was now treated as professional value, illustrating how culture itself has become a form of global currency.

Dr. Jaishankar also reflected on his own writing, drawing from the Ramayana and Mahabharata to balance Western strategic thought. As one of the world’s oldest continuing civilisations, India must carry its intellectual inheritance forward with confidence.

Multipolarity and the Weight of Choice

Rebalancing has led to multipolarity, a world with multiple centers of influence. Power today is fragmented across trade, energy, technology, talent, and narratives. No country can impose its will universally.

This makes the international environment more volatile. National interests dominate, old grievances resurface, and risk-taking increases. The COVID-19 pandemic, he noted, exposed how selective global solidarity can be.

India’s response has been strategic autonomy. Working with multiple partners, prioritising its neighbourhood, deepening ties with the Gulf, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean, while maintaining solidarity with the Global South.

As India’s footprint expands from the Indo-Pacific to Africa, the Mediterranean, the Arctic, and even Antarctica, the responsibility of carrying that presence will increasingly fall on today’s graduates.

A Pep Talk for an Ambitious Generation

For a generation that has never known distance, scarcity, or silence, the challenge ahead is not access but direction. Dr. Jaishankar’s address reminded graduates that opportunity alone does not shape nations, but sheer intent does. As they step into a world defined by movement, competition, and uncertainty, the question is no longer what India can become, but who will carry it there. And increasingly, that answer is standing in a graduation robe.