I don’t think that India didn’t get an invitation to the parade from China as many are claiming it to be a foreign diplomacy failure – on social media.

These are chandu khaane ki gup. India, possibly chose not to be an audience to the parade, as it could not have been seen being a part of the parade for the very fact that we want to showcase sovereignty in global alignments and the multi-polar world. For India to be part of the parade would have also meant hurting the Japanese sentiments, a country Modi had visited before leaving for the SCO meet. I am not a Modi fan, but let’s not imagine things just because we want to be anti-Modi. We also would want to send a signal to the West and the US too: that we are with China and Russia, but at the same time we have not gone and sat in their lap. We are sovereign and independent. Not sure if SEMICON was also another reason for Prime Minister Modi coming to India early, as SEMICON was critical from the point where we want to take a lead in semiconductors, the digital gold of the future. So it sends multiple signals except the fact that we were not invited. That is a preposterous thought just because we want to bring out something negative.

Some people have also been saying that Modi simply “changed papa,” turning India’s old papa from Trump to a new papa in Xi Jinping. The Gopi Kishan analogy being circulated in the meme form of “mere do do baap” does not stand ground here. It is easy to make a filmi comparison, but international politics is not scripted like a Bollywood plot. Irrespective of the obvious eyewash to cater to the bhakt community, such as banning TikTok and a few apps or suspending direct flights to China, the fact is that trade between India and China never stopped. On the contrary, it has grown consistently over the years, even after the Galwan episode. That is a hard number, not an emotional slogan. To reduce this entire complex situation to an “old papa and new papa” story is not only simplistic, it is misleading. It is the same as what bhakts do in reverse. They see Modi in everything, and here the dislike for Modi is making some see only one face behind every global development. Both ways it misses the larger point.

In global politics there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends. There are only permanent interests of the nation. That is the reason India has to tread a careful line. With the United States we need technology, markets and investments. With Russia we have long-standing defence and energy dependence. With China we cannot ignore either the geography or the economic interlinkages, and BRICS is a forum that India cannot afford to walk out of. It is not about papa or step-papa. It is about being able to deal with multiple power centres while not losing sight of our own sovereignty.

Take the example of BRICS itself. To counter the whimsical tendencies of the US, dedollarization has been on the agenda for a long time. BRCS of the BRICS have been calling it for long. Only the “vowel” I, as the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick puts India to be, has been reluctant – only to do the balancing act with America. But the time has come where India needs to take a stronger position in favour of dedollarization. One way is through the creation of a new BRICS currency. Another way is to promote bilateral trade in home or local currencies. The New Development Bank of the BRICS is in a position to take the lead and regulate such a system. This is also a way of signalling, particularly to Trump who has a single point agenda to drive his personalu foreign policy through the pearly gates of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, that India will not be a passive participant in any new form of neo-colonialism, whether it comes through dollar dominance, tariffs, weaponizing agriculture or through dependence on another bloc.

Now let me also clear one thing. I personally think that neither China nor the US can be treated as permanent allies, or for that matter trusted. If tomorrow the US decides to lift tariffs on China, Beijing will immediately tilt against India. That is not betrayal, it is opportunism, and opportunism is the grammar of geopolitics. The only way to survive is to remain sovereign, independent and unpredictable. Sometimes that means a photo opportunity. Sometimes that means strategic silence. Sometimes that means a clear stand. Each move is a signal.

So instead of searching for cinematic fathers in Gopi Kishan style, the focus should be on the fact that India is trying to be its own pole in a multipolar world, and potentially the leader of the Global South. That is a far bigger story than “mere do do baap.”