When most European countries and Volodymyr Zelensky prayed along with US neocons for the collapse of the Alaska Summit of Vladimir Putin with Donald Trump, India was a vocal to wait for his success. The Indian idea was commendable, only the argument was a bit self -esteem. If the conversations ended with a positive note, the varied Indian analysts reasoned, the challenged oil trade with Russia would no longer attract Trump’s anger. Putin would have saved the day for New Delhi.
In a wing and a prayer, Modi’s foreign policy has raised his model of international sports competitions where the expelled team takes out their pocket calculators to desperately speculate their possibility of returning to the contest if any other team expires to another team. China is also affected by Trump’s frown on his Russian oil imports. But the head of the Global Times backed by the Communist Party did not seem to tear the success or failure focused on Beijing’s eye in the important conversations of Russia in the United States. The entire document said: “Trump and Putin went to a joint press conference.”
And that is more or less what we know it happened. Much more is speculative. It is evident that the foreign policy of Prime Minister Modi prefers to set up the care of future results on which he does not exercise control. That’s not how it used to be. A vital difference has emerged between then and now.
Indira Gandhi took Soviet help to close military and economic gaps. However, he censored Moscow when the ally invaded Afghanistan. Nehru had the best relationship with Great Britain and even made India a member of the Commonwealth for which his leftist supporters criticized him flatly. Majrooh Sultanpuri found himself writing some memorable songs for the successful Andaz de la Prison, where he was sent by writing a approach against the membership of the Commonwealth of Nehru. But even when a member of the Commonwealth Nehru fueled the anticolonial fervor in Asia and Africa, which won friends for life in the global south.
Why is it so difficult to infuse a simple and economical idea for diplomacy?
Nehru supported China’s rise as an important post -colonial power, but was deceived by a combination of historians and cartographers to claim the claim of Tibet’s treaties that China had refused to accept during the British domain. Nehru paid the price for his decision, until his grandson traveled to shake his hand with Deng Xiaoping in a memorable movement in 1988. Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee decided for good or worse to accept the strong cost of declare to India a nuclear energy even though he slid explaining Bill Clinton that the bomb was directed to China. Everyone did what they considered good for the country, which cannot be said about Narendra Modi. He has been doing everything possible to appease the United States until Trump poured cold water about enthusiasm.
And yes, Indira Gandhi fought a decisive war against Pakistan, but had no bad will towards his people. She had a historical meeting with Za Bhutto in Shimla. Similarly, Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto had a widely animated event in Pakistan. Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh were close to solving the problem of Kashmir and, more importantly, they did it with the help and support of their people, not a foreign actor. That is what is missing in the diplomacy of the pocket calculator today, the commitment of people on both sides of the equation, either with Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. The Army of India has a problem with the Pakistan army. But it is the people of Pakistan who knows that he has shown the door to many dictators, military or civilians. Modi has left people on both sides. Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s daughters were denied visas for the first time in the history of India. Now, Modi has announced a project similar to Iron Dome to protect the country from enemy attacks. Many see it as a wasteful idea given the hammer a strongly stored Israel from Iran.
Why is it so difficult to infuse a simple and economical idea for diplomacy? Why not let the masses, unlike mobs backed by the State, take the initiative to build excellent inevitable ties and see the threat called terrorism to disappear in a jiffy?
Many current foreign policy preferences, of course, are rooted in the ideological search for Hindutva of Modi. Or more accurately, it is about marrying large businesses with Hindutva and transmitting it as a national interest. Of course, apart from generalized corruption, this has led to little more, as can be obtained from criminal cases in the United States that involve an important tycoon.
Bureaucracies also play a role in ruin and ruin of the just name of India. Enter the social costs incurred by state policies, formulate or evoke the “national interest” of personal experiences or prejudices, which currently seem strongly inclined towards the West. It has been said about Mittyesque de Modi, which reduced an unfortunate figure in the recent military commitment to Pakistan. But what does one of the current and previous respected diplomats do? One served in Islamabad as a high commissioner. In his opinion, in the absence of a decisive military victory, India should “cut the grass” in Pakistan, a phrase used by Israel to periodically assault Gaza and kill the Palestinians before the events of October 2023. Cuminate the grass in Nuclear Pakistan?
India has experienced many economic problems, mainly caused by fluctuations of the price of oil. When prices went through in 1990, and the USSR had almost disappeared, the country pawned gold reserves to avoid non -compliance. People accepted it. The vice president Singh was prime minister when the oil crisis began. Announced the rationing of gasoline. People understood. There were regulations on the use of cars. People took it easy. Something has changed today. It is more about protecting the interests of this or that business house that refines Russian oil to send it to Europe. From the dominant Indian perspective, Alaska’s summit was about Russian oil, unfortunately, not about saving the world of nuclear annihilation.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Posted in Dawn, August 19, 2025
