Small drink in India as an alternative (7)
I believe the answer is:
instead
'as an alternative' is the definition.
('instead' can be a synonym of 'as an alternative')
'small drink in india' is the wordplay.
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
'drink' becomes 'tea' (tea is a kind of drink**).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'india' becomes 'ind' (I've seen this in other clues).
's'+'tea'='stea'
'stea' inserted into 'ind' is 'INSTEAD'.
(Other definitions for instead that I've seen before include "As a substitute" , "use this as a replacement" , "as an alternative option" , "Rather - detains (anag)" , "In place (of)" .)