Scholars of India’s foreign policy generally prefer interpretive approaches and qualitative methods that explain actions in terms of the beliefs and theories of actors. Yet often, neither are well explained or justified. This article argues that more systematic engagement with recent work on interpretivism would generate better grounded analyses of India’s foreign policy. Using the case of the Jaishankar doctrine—the theory and practice of foreign policy advanced by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar—it shows how an approach derived from Mark Bevir’s use of traditions and dilemmas offers one way forward. It examines how Jaishankar has crafted a philosophy, language and set of foreign policy practices premised on various intellectual inheritances in response to the international circumstances that India must navigate concerning China in the aftermath of the 2020–2021 Galwan crisis.