So, TIME Magazine just dropped its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2025. The usual suspects are all there—Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Keir Starmer, Muhammad Yunus, and even some lesser-known disruptors making big waves. But one entire country, population 1.4 billion, fifth-largest economy, space-faring, AI-dabbling, soft-power-strutting, ‘Vishwaguru’ in the making—is completely missing.
Not a single Indian name made the cut. Let that sink in.
Of course, the absence is not total. Reshma Kewalramani, the Indian-origin CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, made it to the ‘Leaders’ category—but she moved to the US when she was 11. Her success story is American by passport, corporate by nature, and scientific in focus. It’s not a story of India on the world stage; it’s a story of Indian talent leaving the stage and lighting up another. But if you’re scanning the list for a political heavyweight, a business mogul, a cultural icon, a social reformer, a disruptive startup founder, or even a token Bollywood face to represent India—you’ll find no one. This, just a year after Alia Bhatt and Sakshi Malik were honoured for their respective contributions to culture and courage.
So what happened?
Did 2025 become the year India took a sabbatical from being influential? Did the world suddenly lose interest in the world’s largest democracy? Or has our own PR machine, so efficient at headline-grabbing summits and Twitter-ready slogans, forgotten that influence is not about projection—it’s about impact? It’s tempting to blame Western media bias. And yes, TIME’s lists do occasionally reflect the editorial whims of the American elite. But we can’t keep falling back on that every time India is left out of a global room. Especially not when our domestic narrative is full of claims that India is “leading the Global South”, “shaping the future of technology”, and “redefining democracy for the 21st century.”
If all that is true, where is the influence?
Influence isn’t just about GDP numbers or tech parks. It’s about shaping conversations, inspiring movements, redefining the possible. It’s about doing something so bold, so disruptive, or so humane that the world takes notice. Apparently, in 2025, the world didn’t. Meanwhile, Donald Trump—twice impeached, twice indicted, and very much Donald Trump—made the list yet again.
In a sense, this absence should sting. Not because validation from TIME Magazine is essential—but because it reflects a deeper discomfort: India still struggles to convert its size into significance. We talk a big game on global platforms, but where are the individual changemakers cutting through the noise? Where are the breakout leaders, the cultural provocateurs, the entrepreneurs shaking the table at scale? As a nation, we produce brilliance in abundance. But perhaps we still haven’t figured out how to back it, broadcast it, and let it bloom without choking it in red tape, politics, or misplaced moral policing.
India isn’t missing from TIME’s list because the world overlooked us. India is missing because we didn’t show up with the kind of impact that couldn’t be ignored. That’s the real headline.
With inputs from agencies
Image Source: Multiple agencies
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