Dr Chandra Sen and Dr Syed Mohammad Raghib
THE demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, which had previously been India’s main defence and economic partner, compelled New Delhi to reassess its external strategy towards Washington in particular and Europe in general. India’s gradual inclusion into a world-order dominated by the United States was progressed with President Bill Clinton’s historic visit to New Delhi in 2000, marking a paradigm change. This trajectory was further heightened by the Indo-US Civil Nuclear Agreement under the George W Bush administration. The Indian establishment responded by elevating the relationship to a “defining partnership” of the 21st century during former President Barack Obama’s state visit.
Within this continuum, the Trump administration constituted a rupture, both in style and in substance. The personalist diplomacy between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump was frequently depicted by media commentators as an exceptional convergence, with some likening their interactions to a form of political spectacle. This “chemistry” vocabulary demonstrated the growing personalisation of foreign policy, whereby performative gestures, large-scale rallies (Howdy Modi campaign), and symbolic displays of solidarity (public embraces) were viewed as of greater significance than diplomatic and institutional engagements.
This façade of unity is exposed by the underlying structural tension throughout the second term of the Trump administration. Trump and his team’s bullying tactics and tariff conflicts highlighted the relationship’s intrinsic asymmetry and revealed the fragility of economic complementarities.
Furthermore, the idea of India’s strategic autonomy was called into question by Trump’s hegemonic dictates in ordering his allies, especially India, to stop their strategic reliance on Russia following the Ukraine crisis. However, because of its relentless emphasis on protecting her national interest, India became increasingly annoying in US policy circles.
This dissonance epitomises what scholars of international relations term the “autonomy-alignment paradox”, wherein middle powers seek to maximise agency while remaining enmeshed in asymmetric partnerships.
The bilateral relationship was further destabilised by a series of high-profile incidents. The deportation of Indian migrants under restrictive US immigration policies-legitimated under the rubric of “MAGA”-was perceived domestically as both a symbolic humiliation and an erosion of diasporic capital. Yet, the Indian establishment refrained from overt protest, wary of antagonising the White House.
A hostile regional security climate was also brought about by the heinous terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April 2025 and India’s subsequent retaliation strikes on Pakistan. In addition to highlighting Washington’s longstanding role as a crisis manager in South Asia, Trump’s repeated claims that he would end the war between India and Pakistan by threatening business deals undermined Modi’s carefully cultivated image of strong leadership both at home and abroad.
The US-India strategic cooperation reached its lowest point in the last thirty years when Trump imposed a fifty percent tariff on India. Thus, it is evident that leader-centric techniques, are inadequate for maintaining long-term strategic partnerships when personal rapport fails to protect bilateral ties from structural disagreement.
India’s global relationships have changed in perspective due to Prime Minister Modi’s recent participation at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit and his rapport with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Reuniting with China after a seven-year break signals a shift in alliances and also implicitly challenges US-centric ideas of global order. Moreover, Xi Jinping’s statements at the SCO that advocate for “multilateralism,” “strategic autonomy” and “mutual respect” for one another are in opposition to the Trump administration’s bullying tactics.
Consequently, the rift between New Delhi and Washington went beyond individual diplomacy, uniting whole political establishment in support of their respective leaders. In the United States, one of President Trump’s adviser, Peter Navarro, controversially framed the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a “Modi-war,” further alleging that Indian elites, particularly Brahmin business groups, were profiting from discounted Russian oil. In India, however, Modi’s engagement with Xi Jinping in the presence of Vladimir Putin was celebrated domestically as a “masterstroke” and heralded by sympathetic media as inaugurating a new phase in Sino-Indian relations. The discourse of “strategic autonomy” became a central motif in both Indian and Chinese narratives, signalling a shared resistance to external constraints.
Critics as well as leadership in opposition parties emphasised that these measures undermined three decades of progress in US-India relations and weakened Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy by alienating New Delhi. Political commentators further contended that the tariff regime accelerated India’s rapprochement with China, representing a significant strategic setback for US influence in Asia.
Indian foreign policy since independence has been decisively shaped by two figures: Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister, and the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Despite operating in very different geopolitical contexts, both leaders have exerted an outsized personal influence on India’s diplomatic trajectory, often overshadowing institutional structures. In the early years of the republic, foreign affairs were conducted directly from Nehru’s office, reflecting the absence of a dedicated ministry and the dominance of his vision-most notably through the articulation of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
Similarly, Modi’s extensive international engagements and high-profile summits have frequently eclipsed the formal role of the Ministry of External Affairs, reinforcing a personalised model of diplomacy. This mode of leadership recalls Dr BR Ambedkar’s critique of personality-driven politics, where he warned that the “traffic of one man in public affairs” could narrow the scope of debate and marginalise alternative perspectives. Modi’s conduct of foreign policy, therefore, highlights both the enduring centrality of the prime ministerial office in India’s external relations and the tension between institutional continuity and leader-centric diplomacy.
Although the rapprochements of India and China have structural and historical constraints. The Chinese leadership has its authoritarian communist legacy, which does not match with the constitutional liberal democracy like India. The institutional approach, constitutional goals and the democratic functioning of the state make India different from any of the nondemocratic authoritarian or erstwhile communist regimes. The pragmatic approach in fulfilling the national interest of India lies in dealing with and having alliances with a league of democratic countries. Once again, the personal agenda of both Trump and Modi could have a strong bearing on the national interest of their respective states. But the institutional setup and ideological congruency would bring both the natural allies in the near future rather to authoritarian Russia or China.
As Dr Ambedkar had warned Nehru on 26th August 1954 while speaking in the parliament that “Communism is like a forest fire; it goes on burning and consuming anything and everything that comes in its way. Stay away from China. Even if not today, the danger of India, being invaded by China will about to occur in the future”. The social elites of India did not pay attention to Ambedkar’s thought and India faced the 1962 war with China. On 8th November, 1952 while addressing the students of Lucknow University he remarked, “Nehru’s foreign policy has remained unsuccessful in strengthening India …. India would now have to make a choice between pro-democratic America and Western countries or countries like China or Russia where the system of dictatorship is prevailing”.
