Kautilya Institute
Named for the author of the Arthashastra — India's 2,300-year-old treatise on statecraft — the Kautilya Institute brings rigorous strategic analysis to bear on India's role in a rapidly reorganizing Indo-Pacific.
Our Mission
Original Research
We produce evidence-based analysis, not commentary. Every publication is independently funded and peer-reviewed.
Policy Influence
Our work reaches policymakers — briefing Parliament members, advising MEA, and shaping Track 1.5 dialogues.
Indo-Pacific Leadership
India's voice in the Indo-Pacific strategic discourse must be distinctly Indian — not an echo of Washington or London.
Strategic Doctrine
India occupies a unique position in the emerging multipolar order — too large to be a junior partner, too consequential to be a bystander, and too strategically autonomous to be fully aligned with any single bloc.
Our doctrine holds that India's national interest is best served by anchoring the Indo-Pacific's security architecture from a position of independent strength, not dependency. This means building Indian Ocean primacy, maintaining strategic autonomy from both Washington and Beijing, and asserting civilizational legitimacy as a counterweight to both liberal universalism and Chinese revisionism.
We are analytical, not activist. Strategic, not emotional. Evidence-based, multi-polar aware, and future-oriented.
Founding Director
Sravan Puttagunta
FounderFounding Director & Senior Fellow, Indo-Pacific Strategy
Sravan Puttagunta founded the Kautilya Institute to fill a critical gap in India's strategic discourse — rigorous, India-first analysis untethered from Western framing or establishment consensus. He leads the Institute's research agenda across maritime strategy, technology sovereignty, and the evolving Sino-Indian competition, and has authored the Institute's flagship reports on Indian Ocean primacy, the Himalayan calculus, and semiconductor supply chain independence.