The real test of power is not whether the powerful want someone’s friendship; it is whether they can live with one’s independence. The real measure of a nation’s diplomatic imperium is not how many formidable leaders it can embrace, but how far its own choices begin to constrain theirs.
India has arrived at that uncomfortable moment. As world’s fourth largest economy with 1.4 billion people, India is no longer a mendicant at the high table of world politics. It’s one of the powers that can alter the balance around it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meetings this week with Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek and with Xi Jinping and, yet again, followed by Xi’s expected presence at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, matter far beyond diplomacy.
For a decade, Modi has cultivated Putin and Xi while drawing India closer to Washington. Donald Trump has disrupted that architecture with punitive tariffs, coercive bargaining and transactional diplomacy. India is no longer being asked simply to choose friends. It is being tested on whether she can choose an autonomous course of action without losing any one of them.
The record of Modiplomacy with Putin and Xi is extraordinary. But the balance sheet is uneven. Modi and Putin have met at least 20 times since Modi came to power. Their relationship has survived Ukraine, Western sanctions and India’s partnership with America because defence, energy and institutional familiarity give it resilience. With Xi, Modi met repeatedly until Galwan shattered their confidence. They met again at Bali in 2022, Johannesburg in 2023, Kazan in 2024 and Tianjin in 2025. Yet one question refuses to disappear: how can two of Asia’s most powerful leaders meet so frequently and still remain unfriendly?
The answer exposes the limits of personalised diplomacy. Personal rapport can open doors; it cannot repeal geography, history or strategic ambition. The roots reach back to Vajpayee’s 2003 Beijing visit, when China recognised Sikkim as part of India and a boundary framework was created. Instead, India and China learnt to do business without learning to trust. Trade expanded while strategic suspicion hardened along the Himalayas. Wuhan was meant to restore confidence after Doklam; Mamallapuram was meant to consolidate it. Galwan exposed the hollowness of the assumption that summitry could tame rivalry.
The 25th round of boundary talks between Ajit Doval and Wang Yi on August 25 produced an eight point consensus and a commitment to pursue a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement. Useful diplomacy, but after two decades, it would be self-deception to mistake another agreement to negotiate for an agreement to settle.
That distinction will hang heavy over any Modi-Xi encounter. The real question is whether Beijing is prepared to create a conditional strategic status quo without which a durable economic relationship with India cannot flourish. China has reasons to reduce tensions as its confrontation with Washington intensifies. India must prevent the border from consuming its economic bandwidth. There is space for accommodation, but accommodation cannot mean acquiescence. Modi may follow the dictum dictated by American President Theodore Roosevelt: “Speak softly and a carry a big stick.”
But Putin presents a different equation. Russia has been India’s most dependable Great Power partner because the relationship rests on accumulated strategic interests rather than political fashion. Moscow remained with Delhi when Western capitals were reluctant to do so; Delhi remained with Moscow when Washington wanted India to distance itself from Russia. Russian oil became central to India’s energy calculations while defence cooperation continued to underpin its military architecture.
But Russia has moved dramatically closer to Beijing, making China increasingly important to its economic and strategic calculations. Putin may be the leader with whom Modi has the most durable strategic chemistry. But he is also increasingly tied to China, with which India has been walking on eggshells for decades. An India-Russia-China troika confronting America is, therefore, more fantasy than strategy. China wants greater primacy in Asia, India wants an Asian balance and Russia wants to remain an independent pole. Shared perturbation about American paramountcy is not common destiny.
Trump has made India’s economic autonomy harder to preserve. His unpredictable coercive diplomacy has exposed the uncomfortable truth that strategic partnership does not abolish strategic self interest. Tariffs have been weaponised and trade negotiations have acquired the character of coercive bargaining. None of this makes America an adversary. India needs America for technology, investment, defence and the Indo Pacific.
But the closer the relationship becomes, the more important it is for India to assert its right to disagree. A partnership that cannot survive disagreement is not a partnership between equals. It’s a hierarchy disguised as friendship. India’s dilemma is that every major relationship is indispensable for a different reason. America offers technology and capital; Russia provides defence continuity and energy; China is simultaneously India’s principal Asian security challenge, an unavoidable neighbour and a major economic power. The answer cannot be equidistance. It has to be freedom of manoeuvre and management.
For India, prudent autonomy means moving closer to Washington at her own terms. Retain intimacy with Moscow without becoming hostage to Russia’s dependence upon Beijing. But autonomy requires capability: economic resilience, military credibility, technological depth and diplomatic confidence. This is where Modi’s personal diplomacy faces its hardest examination. Putin has preserved a vital partnership; Xi engagement has prevented permanent hostility; Washington has brought technology and strategic depth. But diplomacy cannot be measured by access or applause. It must be measured by outcomes.
For decades, India was criticised for punching below its weight. That facile formulation is obsolete. Now everyone wants India to punch in his direction. None of these calculations should become India’s calculation. Modi’s great game is not to balance Trump, Putin and Xi like weights on a diplomatic scale. It is to make India itself into a heavyweight that changes the balance. His legacy will not be the number of summits he attended, but whether he transformed India from an object of great power competition into a country capable of shaping it.
When Trump calculates America’s interests, Putin Russia’s and Xi China’s, will New Delhi merely calculate how to accommodate them, or will they increasingly have to calculate what New Delhi will do? Will India ultimately shape the global order? That is the difference between being courted by Great Powers and becoming one, between possessing influence and exercising power, between having a seat at the table and influencing the menu. For that, Modi should store in his mind an adage: “Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.”
Read all columns by Prabhu Chawla
Prabhu Chawla
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
Follow him on X @PrabhuChawla