India can't wait for a post-Trump America

Historically speaking, it is true that India and the US have never been closer as they have been over the last decade.

- Happymon Jacob

But after a week-long visit to Washington, I am not so sure. I came away with a strong sense that there are dramatically divergent views in New Delhi and DC on the state of the bilateral relationship, and that the strategic partnership is perhaps more fragile than ever.

While the sentiment in New Delhi is that Washington under President Trump has severely damaged the India-US strategic partnership for no credible or justifiable reason, the feeling in DC is that India has not done enough to save the relationship and has been slow to react to fast-changing developments in the US. While New Delhi continues to view the relationship through what India can offer the US in terms of market, geopolitical convergence, Indo-Pacific, and common concerns about China, Trump's DC no longer sees India through the China prism and is more directly questioning what is it that India can give the US beyond the symbolism and "promises of future". For the India-US relations to get back on track, there must be more honest conversation between the two sides on what they mean to each other. But whether Trump has the patience for such elevated conversation is doubtful. Realism, rather than wishful thinking, and expectation management are what we need more than ever.

India watchers in DC seem to argue that New Delhi has not been creative and agile in its outreach to Trump, and that we have missed the bus on several occasions to get back into his good books. Trump doesn't care for substance as he does for symbolism and optics, and that is something India should have kept in mind while designing a policy to engage Trump. Some of that creative diplomacy involves, I suspect, bending the knee before Trump, which is a nonstarter as far as India is concerned. And perhaps rightly so.