[Modi and Trump]
The 47th summit of the 10-member ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and five dialogue partners — India, Japan, South Korea, US, and China is set to begin in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, October 26. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be attending, as will US President Donald Trump. The MEA hopes that the two can meet on the sidelines. What the ASEAN expects to get out of this conference is Trump’s promise to reduce US tariffs.
The Indian government, which has no sense or instinct for US domestic politics or American foreign policy, has in mind something more ambitious. Modi means to use the occasion to turn on his charm and try and put the derailed bilateral ties back on track, and otherwise to convince Trump about the wrong path he has taken by befriending Munir and Company at India’s expense.
This effort has about as much chance of success as a spitball’s in hell!
In fact, there is every reason to expect that Trump will exchange some inanities with Modi, mention their warm friendship a couple of times, and agree with Modi on issues a, b, and c, only to come out to the waiting media and announce that Modi had approved x, y and z, involving matters the two leaders never touched on! And that’s the danger no leader can avoid when meeting Trump. But Modi has lots more to lose than the run of the mill European leaders massaging his ego.
Trump’s trademark diplomatic method of confusing, inventing issues out of thin air, bamboozling the world, and forcing the leader he has lately been with to scramble and backpedal, and generally to be on the defensive, pleading that something else all together was actually discussed. It is as unique as Modi’s equally familiar opening with hugs and embraces that have by now grown stale, lost its element of novelty and surprise. Trump has time and again bet on the fact that India wants more from the US than America seeks from India, and the difference is what, he thinks, provides him with the leverage and the latitude to sculpt a narrative designed to show him as beating up on a difficult and recalcitrant India.
Modi and his MEA minders should ensure that the Indian PM never again agrees to any one-on-one meetings with Trump, even less a joint Press conference — the US President’s favourite stomping ground!
Fiction and sheer invention being Trump’s diplomatic oeuvre, Modi is at a distinct disadvantage with the Western media, and why I have been warning against the Indian PM meeting with Trump alone at any time for any reason. Because that only offers the American another opportunity to make a monkey out of Modi. Trump’s diplomacy was recently on display when he loudly claimed the Indian Prime Minister had promised to terminate all energy imports from Russia when, as the MEA was at pains to point out, Modi had undertaken to do no such thing. On Sept 16, Trump called to offer Modi birthday greetings, and on Oct 22 Diwali Greetings!
No publicly personal relationship has quite crashed and burned as the ties between Modi and Trump did, post-Sindoor, with the latter making it a point to insult the Indian PM and go full-punitive against India and all because the latter would not, pet cockatoo-like or, more appropriately, Field Marshal Asim Munir-like, roll over and parrot to the Press the US President’s worthiness for the Nobel Peace Prize for ending Op Sindoor and, nonsensically, saving the world from a nuclear armageddon!
In retrospect, Modi made the gravest strategic error by calling the White House after the Indian missiles had been fired at the terrorist facilities in Muridke and Bahawalpur on May 7 to inform the US President that the Indian strikes were limited retaliation for the Pahalgam massacre.
Why did Modi feel compelled, besides Jaishankar putting him up to it, to inform Trump at all? The US National Security Agency — the largest most technologically advanced and powerful intelligence agency in the world whose satellites would have picked up the Indian missile firings and relayed it instantly to the NSA processing centre outside Washington DC via the Australian relay station at Pine Gap, outside Alice Springs and, with a time lag of just a few minutes, reached Trump. So Modi was telling him nothing he did not already know. But the act of Modi telling him is what marked India out in the pecking order as a subsidiary power trying to preempt Trump from lashing out. It did not work.
Not sure why Modi feels it imperative to please the US President, when Trump insults and humiliates in return. Because going strictly by his transactionalist tilt, it is Trump’s America that will be hard put strategically to replace India in the Indo-Pacific, to economically find a market as vast as India’s to sell to, and to replenish its STEM talent pool with year-on-year hordes of incoming Indian graduates from IITs and regional engineering colleges that provide state-subsidised education that American companies polish up. Indian talent has fueled the Silicon Valley’s rise and helped the US remain on top of the technology mountain.
And yet it is India and Modi that act the supplicant when they hold more cards than Delhi credits itself with. Trump’s cabinet colleagues are beginning to realise this and why India cannot be bullied into a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) or anything else, or force it away from buying Russian military hardware — more S-400s and possibly also the Su-57 multi-role combat aircraft (after the fiasco the French Rafale turned out to be in Sindoor, leading to whole squadrons being restricted to faroff tarmacs). And why India will continue to buy oil from Russia, soon from the Arctic Sea reserves as well — and Trump can go take a hike! Have you seen how all the loud mouths talking trash to India — Counselor to Trump, Peter Navarro, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, have gone silent?
But Trump is motivated foremost by pecuniary benefits to self and family, and here the burgeoning market for high end luxury apartments/villas with the Trump stamp — the characteristic goldish blingy garishness, offers Delhi direct leverage. The Wall Street Journal the other day carried a newsreport that proclaimed India as the “Trump Organisation’s biggest foreign market for real estate projects”. Trump is raking in the moolah (some $12 million in 2024) for simply lending his name to real estate developers in Gurgaon and elsewhere in the National Capital Region (NCR) — among them Pankaj, Roop and Basant Bansal (and their M3M Group), the Lodha Group, and the RDB Group in Kolkatta, most of them, unsurprisingly, in trouble with the law on charges of money laundering, securities fraud, bribery, tax evasion, and/or defrauding customers.
May be the best way to impress Trump would be to darken the prospects of his family’s 12 new NCR real estate development projects that have been anounced, by dragging these Indian real estate developers deeper into a legal morass and begin, for instance, by restricting the flow of license fees on these new projects to the Trumps. As many investigations have shown, like the Indian developers he consorts with, Trump too has had serious run ins with the law. Better still, the Indian Tax and Enforcement Division, and Haryana state police and other agencies, can begin turning on the heat until these Trump-friendly Indian developers start squealing and, the Bansals, who are supposed to be in thick with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, ask Modi to treat them with kindness, and approach Eric Trump, the President’s son, fronting the Trump enterprise, to have his father talk to Modi for relief that can then be doled out in spoonfuls to keep the Trumps hanging. It will give the Indian PM and government the much needed upper hand.
Security Wise 
Trump is raking in the moolah (some $12 million in 2024) for simply lending his name to real estate developers in Gurgaon and elsewhere in the National Capital Region (NCR)
Nothing wrong with it. The down slide in Modi’s Trump relationship is all due to the over sized ego of Modi. Everyone knows Modi stopped the so called funny named “Operation Sindoor” due to Trump’s intervention.
Modi doesn’t want a dent in his self proclaimed macho image so he didn’t acknowledge the aforementioned fact publicly.
If Modi goes after the Indian businessmen you have named in this article. Trump can also go after the Gujju business lobby in U.S, who control the motel business in US by indulging in all sorts of crimes namely tax evasion, money laundering, illegal hiring of fellow Gujjus etc.
Most of the Gujratis running “Potels” — Patel-run motels in the US are mainly of East African origin.
It provides the PM with some political distance.
The best course of action for our PM Modi would be to tell absolute lies after meeting with Trump, like 1. Trump has agreed to waive off the 100K visa fee for Indians, 2. The tariffs on all pharma are withdrawn with immediate effect 3. All tariffs imposed on India are immediately reduced to 10 percent 4. US Institutional investers will be given special incentives for investing in Indian companies 5. Trump has further agreed to strengthen defence ties with India by giving ten Stealth Bombers to India for free and along with that hi-tech bunkers bursting smart bombs have been given in hundreds to blow all the known Terror camps in Pakistan.
Trump lies through his teeth, …then lie to the world too, let the US clarify, give him the taste of his medicine 😀😀😀
Modi has read this article of yours;
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pm-to-skip-asean-summit-in-malaysia-jaishankar-may-represent-india-report-2806971-2025-10-23
Bharat: Let me take a contra view (or really a Bharat Karnad view?). Why does India deserve an independent sovereign status? It has barely made any investments into pillars of military, economy, geo-political and indeed many fundamental investments such as primary education, health, hygiene or civic infrastructure for such an independent power status.
In the latest spat with the US, It has neither shown a will nor capability to hit back. Even with Pakistan, as you have alluded for Op Sindoor – it could have done so much more – below the scope of a full scale war to raise costs for Pakistan yet it gave away its goals even before it started, nullifying any advantages to its actions. It has sought to be a free rider in the global economic order and such powers do not enjoy any privileged status – especially not agains other great powers. The less we compare to China the better off we look.
I do not for a second doubt, our innate ability to be a great power – but do not see a clear path to independent great power capabilites say for the next generation or two. If that is true, is it not better for India to “align” if not ally, with another great power and then it is up to Indians to decide – if they have it in them to build the innate capabilities or wither?
Shaurya@ – the problem of the option of aligning with another great power is that india and Indians have a history of aligning with a great power only to be subsumed by that power. Remember the Hindu Kings in the path of Alexander joining with him to defeat Porus ending in Porus et al being subsumed in the Macedonian empire? On down. We cannot keep making the same mistake over and over again in every epoch. And culturally we “prudent and pragmatic” Indians always bend our knee to the latest cutthroat with designs on India.
Bharat: You know I could not agree with you more. There are no good options and the question we have in front of us is the following. Do we aim for this elusive “great power” objectives which in your words (paraphrasing) – the ability to dominate your chosen areas and regions of interests and if we are NOT able to fulfill them and have failed to do so repeatedly – do we compromise and fulfill the security and economic interests of the country through other means.
What I do not want for India is another NAM 2.0 chimera in the name of multi-alignment or whatever and go nowhere.
At a larger level, do feel we in for a Cold War 2.0 and minus the ability to stand on our own, we WILL have to make a choice – regardless of our desires or pretensions to independent choice. Only great powers get the privilege to exercise that as they are willing to bear its costs and reap its benefits. India is NOT a great power, (yet)! 🙂
It is a slippery slope and I’d not care to have India get on it.
@BharatKarnad
Noticed through your books and blogs sir that majority of the time you have been against india buying any sort of american or even the european weaponry at the cost of an indian defense product.
You haven’t been so critical of the russian weapon system purchases but again what are your views on the proposed joint production of the S500system(which according to russians can even detect and shoot down hypersonic vectors) , induction of more S400 and possibly induction of 1 squadrons Tu 160 bomber in IAF. Undoubtedly a TU160 armed with almost 2 dozen conventional and nuclear tipped brahmos is indeed formidable asset for the air force. But doubts are whether it can actually evade and penetrate modern and dense chinese air defenses .
Would like to know what you think about this
Read my advocacy for induction of Tu160 Blackjack on lease in by 2015 book Why India is Not a Great Power (yet)
@BharatKarnad
Professor Considering the infamous history of foreign operatives assassinating indian scientist and engineers. Most infamous is offcourse the case of Bhabha. He was killed when that plane crashed in the alps mountains .
The recent death of Akashdeep Gupta, a 30-year-old systems engineer working on the BrahMos missile project at the Defence Research and Development Organisation Lab in Lucknow, has reignited these concerns. Found dead in his residence in October 2025, reportedly due to a sudden heart attack.
With no known health issues and a recent marriage just six months prior, his death has sparked suspicion, especially given the sensitive nature of his work. The police await a postmortem report, but the incident echoes a history of similar tragedies involving scientists from DRDO, (ISRO), and the (BARC).
Also just a couple of days back the police caught a fake scientist who had inflitrated at BARC who reportedly had possession of classified and sensitive maps at his residence and sold them out.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bhabha-atomic-research-centre-mumbai-police-akhtar-aka-alexander-man-posing-as-scientist-at-atomic-research-body-caught-9495798
What’s you take on these incidents sir. These espisonage cases against indian institutions, these repeated assassination attempt of our scientist and engineers.
What can we do to save them professor looks like our adversaries have penetrated in to these institution that are critical for national security.
US and the West, and China have had an undue interest in our strategic tech sector, and assassination has been used often enough to be worrisome. Unfortunately our personnel security system is not up to mark.
Sir, please share your thoughts on Burevestnik, Russia’s nuclear powered cruise missile. Plz juxtapose it in the light of U.S’s Golden Dome in under construction.
Not sure how useful an N-powered cruise missile is. Its most significant aspect of course is its super-miniaturised nuclear reactor. Great tech-breakthrough, but military utility is questionable.
Sir, what is your opinion on the below development?
Pakistan’s Israel U-Turn: 20,000 Troops To Be Sent To Gaza In Post-War Stabilization Mission.
https://www.news18.com/world/pakistans-israel-u-turn-20000-troops-to-be-sent-to-gaza-in-post-war-stabilisation-mission-ws-l-9663178.html
We should cheer on Munir for sending his troops to the Gaza cauldron
Professor, another gem from a mega billionaire who doesn’t want to invest in R&D– in this case, in a civilian market that has already been charted out.
Indian business houses are traders, not pioneers or innovators. If we continue to prop up these lalas, if we failed to dismantle and dissolve their eneterprises, we will never become a technologically advanced nation. The baniyas are the biggest impediment to our sucess.
Chinese success rested on crushing the lalas, and providing state funds to scientists and innovators.
The future belongs to the state capitalists.
Instead of state capitalist a better term would be politico-oligarch ,
Are we gonna see a new generation of nuclear weapon systems
Would This would mean strategic and tactical classification of weapons going down and new bomb sizes and military use-cases coming up in public discourse ?
With trump instructing for nuclear testing resumption, I assume it is for new generation of american devices and also golden window for India to test old devices and new designs.
Putting bomb on missile doesn’t seem to cut through in modern times . Delivery methods and systems will see a major overhaul
What’s worth noting is the strategic imagination of creating tsunamis to inundate proximal enemy coast
that drove the weaponisation of this concept — as important, if not more important, than engineering
the weapon itself.