Does the world believe our story?

India has a proud history of punching above its weight in international relations. For some of us, memories of another famous confrontation with our northwestern neighbour are still fresh. The year was 1971.

In that war, let alone any superpower mediating between India and Pakistan, the United States was nakedly hostile to New Delhi. It sent a menacing naval fleet into the Bay of Bengal to prevent India from liberating East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. India’s friendship treaty with Moscow ensured that a Soviet fleet tailed the Americans to pin them. With great courage and foresight, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had checkmated US President Richard Nixon.

India fought a professional, phlegmatic war, directing no heat or hate rhetoric at the Pakistani people. Job done, India declared a ceasefire. It then summoned Pakistan for direct talks, signing the historic Simla Agreement in July 1972, a pact that committed the two nations to tackle all outstanding issues bilaterally.

All military flare-ups since, with Pakistan, have curiously occurred when the BJP has been in power. In each case, the United States has been allowed to play a role to defuse tensions. In the Kargil battle of 1999, President Bill Clinton intervened. After the Pulwama/ Balakot episode in 2019 (during Trump’s first presidency) and following the killings in Pahalgam and Operation Sindoor (in his second), the US administration made high-profile interventions — and it seems Trump can’t stop talking about his role in engineering the latest ceasefire.

In his memoir Never Give an Inch, then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo confirms the US intercession in 2019. As for the ceasefire this month, President Donald Trump has repeatedly advertised that he himself, his vice-president J.D. Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio ‘brokered’ it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said not a word to directly refute this, even though his minions have been at pains to deny any mediation.

The denial of US mediation by the Indian ministry of external affairs is economical with the truth. The crux of the matter is not that the Indian and Pakistani DGMOs (directors-general of military operations) spoke on the phone to agree to a cessation of hostilities but that Vance had spoken with Modi and Rubio with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif before the DGMOs used their hotline. Also, the ‘full and immediate’ ceasefire was first announced by Trump.

Trump even suggested there was going to be a dialogue on Kashmir between the two warring parties ‘at a neutral venue’, with a hint that he might play the referee. That was music to Pakistan’s ears. It had in any case, in response to India putting the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) ‘in abeyance’, suspended the Simla Agreement.

Trump’s utterances had not only ‘internationalised’ the Kashmir issue, he effectively re-hyphenated India and Pakistan in the eyes of the world after decades, undoing India’s success in practically breaking free of that global perception.

The American Council of Young Political Leaders, a non-profit set up in 1966, claims on its website to ‘run an array of international programs in partnership with the US Department of State for emerging leaders in the US and around the world’.

It invites people of promise for a programme to inculcate admiration of, if not allegiance to, the United States. In 1994, it was Narendra Modi’s turn to be selected among Indians seen as being pro-US — and it appears that the state department ban on entering the US after his suspected involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots did little to diminish his ardour for Uncle Sam.

Yet, Trump snubbed Modi in February this year by deviating from the practice of receiving his guest under the portico of the White House. In his current term, this was the only time Trump did not extend the courtesy. Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom there followed an almighty spat later, in full view of the press, was extended the honour.

The US did not close ranks with India the way China did with Pakistan before or during this month’s four-day military faceoff. Even Turkey and Azerbaijan openly sided with Pakistan. The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation cited India’s ‘unfounded allegations against the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’ as a key factor inflaming tensions in the South Asian region. Even more unhelpfully for India, it stated: ‘The unresolved [Kashmir] dispute remains the core issue affecting peace and security in South Asia.’

In other words, Modi’s frequent embrace of Arab rulers has apparently been to no avail.

Russia and France, both major beneficiaries of defence contracts with India, called for restraint from ‘both sides’. None of these countries openly backed India’s charge that the terror attack in Pahalgam was sponsored by the Pakistani State apparatus.

Even before the dust had settled on the military exchange, featuring new fighter planes, missiles, drones and air defence systems, Trump dropped another bombshell — proclaiming that India had agreed to zero tariffs. India refuted this, too. Soon after his return to office in January, Trump made an example of Indians who had either illegally entered the US or unlawfully overstayed, by deporting them in chains. Even this did not elicit a protest, not even a cheep, from the Indian prime minister.

On the evidence of how the world reacted post-Pahalgan, post-Operation Sindoor, it appears India now has fewer friends — it is friendless among its neighbours and without a friend-in-need anywhere.

What is India hoping to achieve by despatching seven delegations, including opposition MPs, to 33 countries? To project a national consensus that it made no real effort to first forge at home? To tell the world about the so-called ‘new red line’, to claim its right to retaliate militarily after every terror incident?

Apart from the slim chance that there’ll be any takers, the exercise might in fact reinforce the re-hyphenation between India and Pakistan, not least because Pakistan is engaging in a counter-offensive.

Evidence will be demanded, searching questions asked.

The West is looking at Modi’s multi-party diplomatic missions as an attempt to project that India stands united on Kashmir and Operation Sindoor. Opposition MPs will have to mind the gap, so to speak, lest they are also identified with all the questions that have arisen after India’s military strike — about the security lapses that led to Pahalgam and the failure to track down the terrorists even after a month.

Ashis Ray can be followed on X @ashiscray