A geopolitical wake-up call for India

Who is a friend and who is an enemy? The concept of a friend or enemy is a vexed one.

They say that there are no permanent enemies, no permanent friends, only permanent interests—a trope used frequently in the context of international relations, which, in political discourse regarding shifting alliances and national interests, emphasises the idea that countries and political entities act based on their interests rather than fixed loyalties.

In the shifting sands of geopolitics, India would have to balance the US with Russia, Israel with both Iran and Palestine and Russia with Ukraine, as the world would have to pay the price for America’s exaggerated fondness for Israel and venal hatred for Iran. 

US aircraft and missile destroyers helped Israeli forces in the interception of the Iranian missiles earlier too. Iran and Israel have been locked in a shadow war for decades since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Israel has assassinated numerous key Iranian scientists to slow down Iran’s nuclear pursuits besides infecting Tehran’s nuclear programme with numerous computer viruses in further attempts to derail the nuclear train.

In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, India had a fair measure of who could be counted as its friends. While Israel, Afghanistan and Taiwan extended their ‘open’ support to New Delhi, China, Türkiye and Malaysia, all of whom have backed a call for an “independent investigation”, supported Islamabad.

Countries issuing strong statements such as the European Union and its 27 member states unequivocally condemned the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, alongside the US, UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. They expressed solidarity with India, affirming its ‘sovereign’ right to combat terrorism.

However, their neutral-sounding anodyne diplomatese was evident
from the fact that no one advocated a military stance, and none gave a carte blanche to India. 

Perhaps, a friend must be counted as one who despite the torrent of global criticism for an act of excess committed by its ally would continue to support it, much the same way the US defends Israel and China comes to the aid of Pakistan without any moral rider.

India failed to convince any country to condemn Pakistan while the latter was able to prevent any country from taking India’s line in condemning it.

Meanwhile, the US President Donald Trump equated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, completely unaware that India was loath to any hyphenation with Pakistan. That India had been assiduously trying to remove such clubbing was lost on the US administration. 

What changed is that Pakistan secured key roles as an elected non-permanent member for 2025-26 in two significant subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), despite India protesting that Pakistan is a sponsor of terror.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $1bn bailout for Pakistan, despite sharp disapproval from India flagging the possibility of these funds being used for “state-sponsored cross-border terrorism”, a charge Islamabad has repeatedly denied.  

Among the setbacks since Operation Sindoor was US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief General Michael Kurilla calling Pakistan a “phenomenal partner” in counter‑terrorism. “I do not believe it is a binary switch: that we can’t have one with Pakistan if we have a relationship with India,” Kurilla said, rubbing salt into India’s wounds.

“I stopped a war between Pakistan and India. I love Pakistan,” Trump said recently, taking care to counter-balance it. “Modi is a fantastic man. I spoke to him last night. We are going to make a trade deal with Modi of India.” “This man [Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir] was extremely influential in stopping the war from the Pakistani side, and Modi from the Indian side”.

Trump stated that he believes Pakistan, with its deeper understanding of Iran, could play a key role in de-escalating the situation.

With both Trump and Kurilla equating India with Pakistan, a change of direction in the US policy—they had so far expended considerable rhetoric on India being a counterweight to China—is evident.

It is beside the point that it gives a lie to Modi’s illusion of being pampered by Trump on account of a “personal chemistry”. India favours being compared to China, though it lacks China’s steely global power ambitions and the means to sustain that goal, without realising that parity with China is made of sterner stuff that cannot sustain on American or western propaganda. 

That India views China as its “primary adversary” and Pakistan more an “ancillary” security problem to be “managed”, while Pakistan regards India as an “existential” threat is not earth-shatteringly new.

Therefore, the prognostications of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in its Worldwide Threat Assessment 2025 report do not shed any new light. It was in 1998 the firebrand Lohiaite leader George Fernandes, less than six weeks after taking charge as India’s defence minister under Atal Behari Vajpayee, ruffled many a feather, calling China India foremost enemy, and later retracting it in 2003 when Vajpayee made a historic visit to Beijing to improve relations.

Given its millennial plan and India’s tepid response to its shenanigans, China has consistently harmed India by keeping the border issues unsettled, supporting Pakistan both militarily and diplomatically against India, disrupting Indian manufacturing, or by controlling the flow of water into India.

China and Turkiye, both emerging great powers, have their own incentive to further their geopolitical agend-
as by weakening India and strengthening Pakistan.

Short of passion, intent and aggrandisement, it is no match for Israel’s ruthlessness, Pakistan’s venality, North Korea’s recklessness, or the imperial ambitions of China.

Burdened with its own heft, India seems to falter on its own contradictions, clueless as to how to deal with a psychotic neighbour and its monomaniacal hatred for India – both militarily and diplomatically.

Without having to redress its internal problems and inner contradictions, India cannot lay a roadmap to counter China’s ‘Pax Sinica’ in Asia with a ‘Pax Indica’. Without having to build up both its hard and soft power, it cannot nurse itself into an illusion of being considered an overwhelming hegemon in South Asia and be automatically entitled to command international respect and deference. 

(The writer is a Kolkata-based commentator on geopolitics, development and culture)