[mrphoebs]

India is not anti west. The west has this binary/absolute way of looking at things, "either somebody is with them or against them". India recognises the world is a much more complicated place and sees the world through its own perspective rather than whatever self serving agenda driven perspective the west deems as the only valid one.

India has a long track record of being a non-aligned power. If anything india has been moving closer and closer to the west since the 90s. I think this misinterpretation of india being against the west by some in the west is because they expect their allies to be cronies who'll toe the line.

[twixfel]

But even that perspective that you ascribe to India is reductive. It seems in your view, India are the only ones who understand complexity, the West are just arrogant morons. In reality, everyone's equally just looking out for themselves. In the West we don't care about Kashmir, in India people don't care about Ukraine. It's the same, until one day India will discover that Russia is useless against China and the US and the West are not. And then there will be a realignment. When it happens it won't be about any fancy ideals, it'll just be interests realigning.

[mrphoebs]

I haven't ascribed an independent perspective to india exclusively, merely pointed out india has an independent perspective. And I did not say west are arrogant morons I said "Some in the west".

I agree with you and as does anybody with even a passing familiarity with international diplomacy, foreign policy by its very nature is about engaging with other countries to further a nation's self interests.

The problem is western democracies need to create a narrative of being the white knights of the world in order to justify use of force, coercion or influence to their people no matter how hypocritical that narrative might be considering their own actions in the past. This absolute narrative by extension also means anyone who isn't falling in line with the party line is painted as being on the "wrong side of history".

India is neither aligned with the west nor russia because of a single policy issue like china, and india does not see the world as a bipolar place like west vs russia, west vs china, whoever vs whoever...

India always engages and will always engage with nations where mutual interests are aligned, help where it can, and be assertive where it needs to be.

India is already aligned with the west in containing china amid other common objectives in the indian ocean through QUAD.

Also china isn't that big of a bugbear for india as some outside india think it is. China is the dominant strategic regional threat but is by no means even remotely close to an existential one.

[hash872]

Hasn't China repeatedly invaded parts of India's mountain regions though, and killed Indian troops? My understanding is that even though tensions have cooled a bit recently, Chinese troops have still not pulled back. Generally invasions stoke a lot of nationalism, so it's hard for me to understand how India wouldn't see China as a 'bugbear' when China is literally invading it. I'd be curious to learn more about Indian public opinion on China

[mrphoebs]

There is no love lost between india and china due to events in the recent past.

The Indian people and government are furious with china's flouting of the agreed upon status quo at the border and it comes with all the nationalistic fervour that fury entails. It has also eroded india's trust in china at a diplomatic and military level.

India has been trying to counter and contain china's influence in the region with limited success and all of India's politcal, diplomatic and military institutions see china as our biggest threat.

The nuance in the "bugbear" thing is that this accelerated re-orientation against china is not coming from a place of fear, it's coming from a place of "Come at me bro".

While on paper it might seem like India is militarily outmatched by china the geopolitical and tactical reality is that china is incapable of mounting a meaningfully successful attack against India without itself suffering politically, militarily, economically and diplomatically.

[naveen99]

Why ban tiktok ?

[mrphoebs]

I don't see how domestic policy is relevant to a discussion about perspective of India's foreign policy alignment concerning the west. And don't mistake me for a champion of Indian government either.

I'm not a fan of the Indian government's tendency to behave like a nanny state over the past decade by arbitrary filtering/banning content on the internet. I'm not a fan of a lot of things that the Indian government does or how it goes about doing them.

As far as tiktok, there are plenty of reasons to ban it and there are plenty of reasons not to, though it seemed more reactionary than well thought out.

I don't think nuanced decision making is a strong suite of Indian government when it comes to technology especially censorship(VLC was blocked for god's sake) in direct contrast to how well it seems to be executing the India stack at scale.

[teatree]

>It's the same, until one day India will discover that Russia is useless against China and the US and the West are not. And then there will be a realignment. When it happens it won't be about any fancy ideals, it'll just be interests realigning.

This binary choice of aligning and then trapping oneself into being subservient to one sides is exactly what India is trying to avoid.

Ukraine may be fending off Russians with help of the west and may even push Russia all the way back, but their families, cultural & human capital, infrastructure are all being eroded, significantly. Future generations of Ukraine will have to pay this debt.

India voluntarily making a choice which would bring it in the cross-hairs of China or the West would be a catastrophic failure of imagination.

[rramadass]

>It seems in your view, India are the only ones who understand complexity

In a sense, Yes; because of its unique History and Geography.

There is no other place on Earth with the same degree of diversity in various aspects like Religion, Philosophies, Social structure, Cultural diversity, Languages, Food, Ethnic groups, Economic strata, Education etc. which exists as a single Nation, thriving and moving forward.

The rest of the World and in particular; "The West" can learn a lot from India on how to live together in spite of differences.

[twixfel]

That is just ultranationalist nonsense.

[rramadass]

Pardon me for trying to educate people. A simple search (before you made the clueless comment) on "India Nation State" would have given you plenty of papers/articles.

Simple minds should start here:

* From Nation-State to State-Nation - https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/12/18/from-nation-state-t...

* Followup at India is not a nation-state, or a state-nation. It is a civilisational-state - https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/india-is-not-a-nation...

[sbmthakur]

Russia being useless against China is still much better than Russia openly siding with China (and Pakistan) against India. You can't defeat geography, no matter how much common ground increases between India and the West.

[uwagar]

india basically wants everyone to know that it wants to goto bed with everyone a little at a time rather than be a wife or a paramour.

[mrphoebs]

Wow, an analogy as spectacularly useless as it is distasteful.