In 1991, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, initiating economic liberalisation in India, geared the country away from decades-long socialist ideals to the capitalist embrace. Interestingly, this was exactly the time when the USSR had been disintegrated in the wake of its failed war in Afghanistan.
Now, around 35 years later, India stands on another verge — will it keep snuggled in the US/capitalist embrace or is it time for another goodbye?
When in the socialist camp, India made good benefit of the Soviet-Afghan war. It got a presence in Afghanistan under the Soviet umbrella, wherefrom it provided training, funding and in-out passage to Baloch separatist groups, with the aim of destabilising Pakistan and weakening its position in the region. The second time, when the US invaded Afghanistan, India was there again, with dozens of consulates at the Pak-Afghan border regions, again backing terror outfits that kept wreaking havoc in the country for over a decade.
In both cases, India thought it was on the winning side, but twice it was proven wrong. The constant guerilla warfare of the ragtag mujahideen and Pakistan’s support for them forced the global powers to shamefully retreat, and every time India, losing the plot, had to flee too. India wished to partake in the spoils of war, entrench itself in the Afghan future, get an inroad to Central Asia, and via this long cut, get a shortcut to regional hegemony.
But unfortunately for India, it was in the wrong boat, each time. Both times it should have learnt the lesson that sheer hegemony and imperial lust cannot secure one a victory over a human population, but it did not.
Anyways, even after India left the socialist camp, Russia always wanted to woo it back into its sphere. In the late 1990s, Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov presented a doctrine referred to as the Russia-India-China (RIC) doctrine, advocating closer cooperation between the three countries to foster a multipolar world order. But India was too haute to lend an ear to such regional integration. What India had in mind was not integration but to become the next China, the next regional power, getting ahead of all other regional entities. So, India went on closer to the US, signing strategic pacts for bases-sharing, communication and info sharing, weapons deals and more. India even joined QUAD in 2007 — a partnership specifically made to counter China.
In all this wooing with the US, India got more of a narrative, and less of anything substantial. The US did not shift its industries from China to India; reportedly, manufactured goods currently account for a mere 2% of India’s exports. Regarding its defence architecture, reputed Indian analyst Pravin Sawhney has stated in recent days that India has focused on building it army for conventional war, which may not occur in future conflict scenarios. On the other hand, India lacks true innovation and R&D and has no real cyber or space preparedness. The Indian side lacks ‘jointness’ and ‘interoperability’, he says.
And this jointness and interoperability is something that involves network centricity, information superiority and an integrated command system, in a Sixth Generation Warfare environment. Future 6G wars will have contactless battles, aiming to destroy enemy forces on the enemy territory with precision and firepower. China, due to its R&D, has such superiorities; and Pakistan has it because of its strategic alliance with China, the right boat!
In the May 2025 Indo-Pak war, Pakistan had the edge because it was using Chinese origin fighter jets and missiles, integrated with the Chinese XS-3 tactical, high-speed broadband data link, for real-time navigation and precision targeting. Deniability was also practiced by the Pakistani side by jamming India’s electromagnetic environment. Pakistan had ensured jointness and interoperability, by conducting the Shaheen series of joint air exercises with the Chinese Air Force in Xinjiang and Gansu. Such effort between India and its defence partners US and Israel seem to be absent.
Failure of Operation Sindoor was not only India losing a battle with Pakistan, a battle it initiated itself; rather it proved to be a double jeopardy, as it severely damaged Indo-US relations. The Indo-US partnership that had been the cornerstone of India’s foreign policy got a firm blow at the hands of an additive battle, between two haute egos, Trump’s and Modi’s. Trump repeatedly claimed mediating the Indo-Pak ceasefire, and Modi was too proud to lose his political narrative of having the upper hand.
In the frustration, Trump first slammed 25% tariff on India, and more penalties for buying Russian oil, and now he has threatened a gigantic 50% tariffs — a level where business will be impossible at all. Trump now thinks that India is enabling Russia to fight in Ukraine because it buys its oil; he thinks India’s BRICS membership is anti-US; he feels India is backing off from promises to purchase billion dollars worth of weapons, including F-35s; he feels like India is not on the path to keeping its promise to increase bilateral trade from $200 billion to $500 billion by 2030.
Truth is that India has been the biggest beneficiary of the Ukraine war, getting 3.4 million barrels a day of cheap Russian oil. Previously this requirement of the world’s most populous country was fulfilled from Iran — another partner India pushed away to please the US. Saying no to Russia means finding another seller with such a huge capacity — one that would be hard to find at once!
It seems like India has utterly failed in its core foreign policy pillar of strong US-India strategic ties. India’s heartburn with China and Pakistan has also kept it alienated in the region and in the Global South. India could have been a bridge between the Global North and South, but it seems like the bridge is broke and taken down India with it.
And now after Trump’s threats, India is again trying to make a balancing act between the North and the South — but this time both poles want India to make one clear choice. Perhaps it was possible to be in one wrong boat at a time, but trying to keep one foot each in both two boats for a giant elephant like India may prove to be a smashing nosedive.
