In No Man's Land: India Is Diplomatically Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Politicians have the hide of a rhinoceros. If you wish to take up a career in politics one day, first, visit the dermatologist. If you obtain a certificate confirming that you are not dangerously thin-skinned, you might just qualify.
Take the case of the way the rightwing ecosystem is currently gasping at prime minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Tianjin, China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. It is a case-study in two-facedness. The Modi government, the Bharatiya Janata Party, many mainstream media anchors, social media trollers and the exalted breed of “independent” analysts, they are in a synchronised show down to the T, demonstrating both barefaced opportunism and spinelessness in not accepting the truth that is hitting them hard on their faces: India’s foreign policy is in tatters. It is directionless. It has been like that for a long time. It only took an intransigent US president Donald Trump to upset the drifting applecart. Result: it has left a friendless India susceptible to factors beyond our control, the levers of which are principally in the hands of the US and China. That is quite a feat.
Modi used foreign tours largely to supersize his private brand – Howdy Modi, Namaste Trump, and NRI diaspora events where Modi walked with a swag and delivered meaty dialogues to a standing ovation. Back home, rhapsodic TV anchors, pleased as punch, called these performative acts “masterstrokes” or something akin to a revolutionary visionary redefining statesmanship. It was ludicrous. But despite the apparent pretentiousness of the staged shows, it was working. In many parts of India, ordinary people looked at their TV screens, their necks visibly stretched horizontally, and felt that Modi was alleviating their misery by making India look good in cities they could barely think of going to themselves. Never mind if Modi had left them behind in their dilapidated shanties. The myth was ingeniously manufactured to pump up the Vishwaguru narrative. Everything was cloaked in ultra-nationalism. During the G-20 Summit in 2023, the streetlights in cities brightened up like they used to in discos in the 1980s and it seemed that Diwali was now going to be a year-long celebration. Then the horrific Pahalgam massacre happened.
Also read: Beyond Tariffs, How Modi Got Trumped
I don’t think Modi has been the same thereafter. His carefully prepared Teflon appearance saw the first crack. It was a big one. A security lapse and an intelligence failure in Jammu and Kashmir where the BJP braggadocio machine had claimed normalcy led to a serious credibility crisis. Trump’s 30th claim within months that he had brokered the military ceasefire between India and Pakistan after Operation Sindoor went directly unchallenged by Modi. Rahul Gandhi’s "Narender Surrender" thus became a popular catchphrase. A double whammy occurred after the imposition of 50% tariffs hit India on August 27, 2025, with the Russian oil imports by India being the deal-breaker. Now the rightwing toadies are trolling America and Trump, the latter having hosted Field Marshal Asim Munir in a private luncheon at the White House, besides giving Pakistan a soft deal at 19% tariff. The house of cards always standing on a stool with three legs was destined to collapse.
As Modi headed for Tianjin, he would be aware that things can change quickly. Arch foe Pakistan is closer today to both the US and China. With Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro calling Ukraine “Modi’s War” (for providing Russia with US dollars) and disparaging India as a “laundromat for Kremlin oil”, Navarro has become the new George Soros for the rightwing. The “foreign hand” is always the trump card.
With China openly providing satellite intelligence inputs to Pakistan beside J-35 fighter jets and Pl 15 missile systems during Operation Sindoor, our cup of woe is spilling from all sides. China and Pakistan have an enduring strategic partnership with Pakistan unhesitatingly accepting the suzerainty of the Big Brother. It has paid huge dividends for them. China has even vetoed UN Security Council sanctions against Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terrorists accused of attacking India. In the circumstances, pretending that Modi is some Superman as has been ridiculously concocted over the last 11 years will be an act of political naivety. China is playing for big stakes – in the medium-term probably the leadership of the Global South, and a pan-regional influence – given its creeping acquisition of material assets, defence deals and investment in big-ticket infrastructure in West Asia, North Africa, Central Asia, southern Europe and so on. In our own immediate neighbourhood, China has created strategic breakthroughs with our former well-wishers. It is aiming to be the LeBron James of world affairs, its versatile tentacles (technology, military, economic, AI, etc.) displacing obsolete US outposts along with their fading influence.
With an unpredictable and ham-handed America in retreat seeking multipolarity and an ambitious, hegemonic China eyeing superpower status within the coming decade, for India, the options are extremely limited. Incidentally, Russia is struggling for its own survival as the three-year-old Ukraine war may have hollowed it out, President Vladimir Putin’s muscular proclivities notwithstanding. Moscow is now crucially dependent on China (“not allies, but better than allies”) and in the event that India has a border dustup with China, Russia could be rendered as an impotent negotiator.
Foreign policy is not kids play. It does not sustain on performative behaviour and some self-assumed camaraderie. It is not like making a reel on the fly. It is not like TikTok.
Sanjay Jha is an author and former national spokesperson for the Congress.
The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
