According to this paper, India occupies a dual position in global climate politics: as a developing economy with low levels of historical and per capita emissions; and as a rapidly growing economy with rising emissions. Indian climate politics have been mainly shaped around the first perspective, but it is increasingly being forced to tackle with the second. This has shifted discussion from being a subset of Indian foreign and diplomatic policy to a broader debate on whether and how development trajectories should internalise climate mitigation and adaptation goals. This paper examines the formulation of India’s climate positions, its roots in national climate politics and the ways in which climate politics have been revisited in domestic debates. Central themes are the consistency of an equity frame for climate politics and the idea of co‐benefits based actions that deliver both development and climate gains. The paper concludes by discussing new directions for Indian climate policy.