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ON Tuesday, commuters in Mumbai woke up to an odd sight. Among the teeming millions crowding the city’s streets was none other than French President Emmanuel Macron. In the early hours of the day, amid the omnipresent petrol fumes and blaring horns, Macron was jogging on the city’s famous seaside promenade Marine Drive. Macron, sweating and in shorts, wanted to go for a run in India.
This should have been the main story in Indian media that day. A world leader chose to experience life at street level in one of the world’s busiest cities. And not simply for this reason — Macron was in India to discuss defence and technology cooperation as part of the new bonhomie between India and the EU and the recent ‘mother of all deals’. On the table was a multibillion-dollar agreement for 114 Rafale aircraft.
It is perhaps because the Rafales are such a sore point in India that the media and public were largely uninterested in Macron and his photo-ops. Everyone, and India is no exception, wants what they do not have and, in this case, the buddy relationship that it truly cares about appears to be the one with the US. Which is why the focus wasn’t on Macron but US President Donald Trump’s men in town. The same week, Trump’s envoy to Central and South Asia, Sergio Gor, and Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, visited the Indian Army’s Western Command Headquarters. Here was the photo-op India really wanted: the US admiral seated at the centre of a large semi-circle of Indian and American defence officials — a visual symbol, in India’s telling, of the close relations between the two countries.
Photos tell stories and this one certainly does. For one thing, it reveals just how desperate India is for American attention and esteem. As defence analyst Pravin Sawhney pointed out, allowing a senior US operational commander access to a sensitive military installation near the Pakistani border was a “blunder”. The reason is simple — according to the Indian government ‘Operation Sindoor’ is ongoing. The US, given Trump’s statements and Congressional and military reports, accepts the Pakistani version of events, even increasing the reported number of downed aircraft. Given this, inviting a top US commander to inspect facilities and chat informally with Indian military officials was evidently a political decision born of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government’s desperation to show Washington that they too are a capable military.
India is desperate for American attention.
Whether India admits it or not, it has been rankled by Pakistan’s gains in ‘military diplomacy’. Field Marshal Asim Munir’s presence at the retirement ceremony of outgoing US Gen Michael Erik Kurilla was the source of much discomfort to India. Admiral Paparo’s visit appeared designed to create similar relationships between India’s military elite and US commanders. Such was the desire for this that the Indians — likely goaded by the ultra-nationalist Modi government — were willing to open the doors of their war headquarters to commanders of the very country that has not been interested in its claims of victory.
This was not the only contradiction on display. India also hosted an AI summit intended to showcase it as an emerging AI powerhouse and dealmaker. Yet the spectacle was odd in a country that already has a tremendous labour surplus. What will the millions and millions of Indians do when their jobs are swallowed up by AI? There was little discussion of how India — one of the largest users of ChatGPT — will power data centres when it cannot even meet its own existing needs. The logistical snafus and reports of technological deceit, including the removal of participants because they tried to present a Chinese robot as Indian, only deepened the contradictions.
These are sad realities. The fact is that America has dealt some blows to India’s self-esteem and exposed lies inherent in the nationalist propaganda peddled by Modi and his BJP. Big talk of Hindu supremacy, belligerent Islamophobia and unprovoked attacks on Pakistan can only go so far. India’s population still buys these lies but its ever harder to do it and requires more mental gymnastics. The aftermath of Operation Sindoor revealed that Karachi was never conquered, and many Indian planes were indeed shot down. America’s closed doors have eliminated a pipeline to getting training and wealth that the Indian middle class relied on to furbish its dreams.
This week’s events reveal the hollowness of Modi’s attempts at a comeback from these losses. Like all demagogues, Modi has drowned India in what’s politically expedient, opening up sensitive military installations for photo ops or peddling AI without considering how large-scale implementation is likely to destroy the Indian workforce.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2026
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