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Editor’s Note
The SCO summit optics of Modi with Putin and Xi may hint at shifting alignments, but they don’t alter India’s trajectory. The author argues that the Indo-U.S. partnership, anchored in decades of defence, technology, and people-to-people ties, is too deeply entrenched to be swayed by fleeting imagery.
India finds itself caught between euphoria and anti-climax. The striking images of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi—laughing, holding hands, and sharing a car ride at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin on Monday, earlier this week—have ignited excitement in the media and public sphere. These visuals project a potent sense of unity among non-Western powers amid escalating tensions with the U.S. over trade tariffs and geopolitics.
The recent news report in The New York Times that President Donald Trump no longer plans to attend the 2025 Quad summit in New Delhi is a significant anticlimax. The summit was supposed to be a major foreign policy event for Prime Minister Modi. This development is compounded by statements from Peter Navarro, a trade advisor to Trump, who called New Delhi a “laundromat for the Kremlin” and criticised India’s caste system by claiming “Brahmins [are] profiteering off the Indian people.” Together, these events serve as a sharp warning that in international relations, friendships are based on the self-interest of nations. No amount of personal rapport between leaders can insulate bilateral relations from strategic frictions.
Expecting spoilers to derail the Indo-U.S. partnership is far-fetched. Deep people-to-people ties, nurtured by an influential American lobby in India over 25 years, ensure resilience. Scores of agreements on nuclear energy, military interoperability, and cutting-edge technology have forged a quasi-alliance with the U.S. Dismissing such entrenched strategic engagement is naive.
It must be remembered that even during the heyday of non-alignment, India remained wedded to the liberal international order. Its engagement with the Soviet Union was tactical, while it remained strategically committed to the West. For instance, Fidel Castro’s bear hug to Indira Gandhi at the 1983 NAM summit did not lure her away from cultivating deep ties with the World Bank and the IMF—as evidenced by the $5.7 billion loan India received in 1981, the largest ever to a developing nation at the time.
Another example: during the Cold War, the Indian Navy may have relied on Russian platforms, but the professional journals popular in its wardrooms were Proceedings, from the U.S. Naval Institute, and the Royal Navy’s Naval Review. The English-speaking Indian elite have always been more comfortable imbibing knowledge produced in the West—a trend unlikely to change soon.
The argument is that we must not be swayed by the optics of the SCO summit. India did not just embrace the SCO; it has been a member since 2017 as part of its multi-alignment strategy. To expect a single Modi visit to China to terminate an otherwise flourishing Indo-US relationship is foolhardy. Despite the prevailing anti-American sentiment generated by President Trump’s “tariff tantrums” and the pull towards Eurasia, India remains inclined toward the maritime world. It sees Pakistan as a major roadblock to Eurasian connectivity and finds engaging with the world through the oceans far simpler.
While India is emotionally attached to America, so is Washington attached to India—even if for pragmatic reasons. In the 1950s, America’s “China Lobby,” composed of powerful business houses and media magnates, blamed the government for letting China slip into the communist fold. The “Loss of China” was a big factor in shaping American domestic and foreign policy in the 1950s , teaching Washington hard lessons. Consequently, with India, America was careful not to hurt nationalist sentiments rooted in its fight against Western imperialism. U.S. policymakers knew India could not be treated like Pakistan or the Philippines. To pitch India as a counterweight to China in Asia and Africa, it could not be projected as a Western lackey. Thus, America gave Nehru enough legroom to pursue non-alignment.
If the U.S. has granted India de facto nuclear power status, India has also contributed greatly to this friendship. However, a complete alliance is impossible. In the 1970s, when India declared the Indian Ocean a nuclear-free zone, it was not just a signal to the US Navy but also its ally, the Soviet Union, that despite their friendship, India would not offer it a nuclear base. India remains steadfast in its commitment to multi-alignment. The U.S. must accept that prior to Partition, India was directly connected to Eurasia. Restoring that connectivity is essential, and in this regard, the SCO remains vital for India.
In the current context, Washington must treat India more carefully and not let Trump’s impishness spoil the relationship. It needs to be more magnanimous and cease complaining about the trade deficit. A $49.5 billion shortfall with India is small change for a country that spends over $1 trillion annually on its security.
The images of Modi, Xi, and Putin together at the SCO summit are striking, but they are more about strategic signalling than a transformative realignment. India is not betting everything on the Global South to counter U.S. economic coercion, nor is it abandoning its Western ties.
Atul Bhardwaj (Author is Visiting Research Fellow at School of Policy and Global Affairs, City St George’s, University of London)
Author is Visiting Research Fellow at School of Policy and Global Affairs, City St George’s, University of London
