India, as one of the world's fastest-growing economies, has experienced profound changes in its trade dynamics in recent decades. This paper examines the trajectory and drivers of India's merchandise imports by sheds light on the evolving nature of India's import dynamics, which are shaped by a combination of domestic and global factors. The inter-plays of energy needs, domestic stock return, consumption expenditure, foreign investments, and exchange rate can significantly drive the dynamism of India’s merchandise import on the global stage. Quarterly data ranging from 2000-01 to 2021-22 are considered as the study period. The researcher employed ARDL (Autoregressive Distributed Lag) ECM (error correction model), and a pairwise Granger causality test was used in the study. The study shows that Foreign Exchange Reserves, Oil Imports, Real Effective Exchange rates, and Manufactured Exports show longrun positive effects on merchandise imports, indicating that higher foreign reserves, oil imports, a competitive real exchange rate, and increased manufactured exports stimulate import demand.