NEW DELHI: India’s strategic community is showing growing concern over the direction of ties with the United States, as recent developments have triggered debate over whether New Delhi has relied too heavily on Washington’s worldview.
According to a Global Times report, relations between India and the United States have faced pressure since President Donald Trump returned to office, with tariff disputes, restrictions on Indian labour visas and Washington’s closer engagement with Pakistan over the Iran issue adding to unease in New Delhi.
The report said concern deepened after the United States War Department announced the renaming of its Indo-Pacific Command back to Pacific Command, a move that some Indian analysts viewed as a symbolic downgrading of India’s importance in Washington’s regional strategy.
Against this backdrop, an article by Indian strategic affairs scholar Happymon Jacob, titled “A Case for ‘De-Americanising’ India’s Grand Strategy,” has generated discussion online. Jacob argued that India had increasingly “borrowed Washington’s eyes” for viewing the wider world, especially China, and now needed to recover strategic clarity.
Another Indian commentator, Sreemoy Talukdar, wrote that a more transactional United States may no longer provide the stable international order required for India’s rise. He also suggested that a new understanding with China could help India become more self-reliant.
Former Indian ambassador to the United States Nirupama Menon Rao said India’s challenge was neither de-Americanisation nor adopting a Chinese worldview, but developing a genuinely Indian view of the world.
The debate reflects India’s discomfort as Washington’s priorities shift and New Delhi confronts a possible hard lesson in strategic dependence.
