Under no circumstances will India fold in the face of foreign pressure on issues of national security importance and sovereignty. Those like Wilkins who claim otherwise either don’t properly understand this country or have an agenda in misleading their audience about the way in which it nowadays formulates policy.
"...it’s impossible to shape India in their ideological image under the BJP’s rule."
I understand you have a deep respect for India, it's current leadership and course, and I respect that. As I understand it, if not a direct result of India's position regarding the current NATO-Russia conflict and associated UN votes for neutrality, that has almost certainly played a significant role in buttressing your support, and I appreciate that.
Personally, I have a fair bit of contact with real-life Indians, genuine representatives of their people because they're not paid to be so. They just are who they are. On Monday, I had a particularly interesting conversation with an ophthalmologist, who just happens to be of Indian extraction. I asked her how her summer had gone, if she'd been on holiday and I could tell she'd had a good time by the beaming smile which came at the thought being raised. She said she'd been to India, so I told her I could tell by her smile and asked her if she had family there. Although it was a brief conversation, I find it difficult not to tell anyone, 'I know exactly how the Americans forced the Russians into this war and how it's going to end: they're losing, they're going to lose; and that's a good thing because they've wanted this war for hundreds of years (It's the British, actually, more than the Americans.) and they won't be able to move on until they've got it out of their system.' I managed to get that all out in one breath! (I'm getting pretty practiced at it now.) She understood exactly what I meant immediately. Her reaction gave me food for thought — strong meat.
I won't go into too much more detail, but try to sum up the relevant part thus: the Victim-Perpetrator Bond. It's usually applied to abusive relationships, stereotypically a man abusing a woman. Not a lot of people extrapolate it to the historical record, but there is an interesting example of that being done here: https://cisindus.org/2020/07/21/the-victim-perpetrator-bond-the-religious-roots-of-genocide-part-ii/. True, he's thinking in terms of Europeans (the stereotype man) beating up the New World (the stereotype woman) and the victim in turn becoming the perpetrator, hence the title. But it's so much more diverse and multi-layered than that. I see it as the primary mechanism, in evolutionary terms, for children to learn from their parents. But I don't want to go there now, either. What I would like to do here, is ask you to look at it and think of it in terms of the relationship between India as a colony (the victim) and England as the administrator (the perpetrator). Often, when I'm trying to understand the reasons why India thinks how it thinks and does what it does, I find myself coming back to this idea of the victim-perpetrator bond: do they want to be bigger and stronger, like the Americans were, like the British were? They are human, after all; it would be only natural.
"...it’s impossible to shape India in their ideological image under the BJP’s rule."
I understand you have a deep respect for India, it's current leadership and course, and I respect that. As I understand it, if not a direct result of India's position regarding the current NATO-Russia conflict and associated UN votes for neutrality, that has almost certainly played a significant role in buttressing your support, and I appreciate that.
Personally, I have a fair bit of contact with real-life Indians, genuine representatives of their people because they're not paid to be so. They just are who they are. On Monday, I had a particularly interesting conversation with an ophthalmologist, who just happens to be of Indian extraction. I asked her how her summer had gone, if she'd been on holiday and I could tell she'd had a good time by the beaming smile which came at the thought being raised. She said she'd been to India, so I told her I could tell by her smile and asked her if she had family there. Although it was a brief conversation, I find it difficult not to tell anyone, 'I know exactly how the Americans forced the Russians into this war and how it's going to end: they're losing, they're going to lose; and that's a good thing because they've wanted this war for hundreds of years (It's the British, actually, more than the Americans.) and they won't be able to move on until they've got it out of their system.' I managed to get that all out in one breath! (I'm getting pretty practiced at it now.) She understood exactly what I meant immediately. Her reaction gave me food for thought — strong meat.
I won't go into too much more detail, but try to sum up the relevant part thus: the Victim-Perpetrator Bond. It's usually applied to abusive relationships, stereotypically a man abusing a woman. Not a lot of people extrapolate it to the historical record, but there is an interesting example of that being done here: https://cisindus.org/2020/07/21/the-victim-perpetrator-bond-the-religious-roots-of-genocide-part-ii/. True, he's thinking in terms of Europeans (the stereotype man) beating up the New World (the stereotype woman) and the victim in turn becoming the perpetrator, hence the title. But it's so much more diverse and multi-layered than that. I see it as the primary mechanism, in evolutionary terms, for children to learn from their parents. But I don't want to go there now, either. What I would like to do here, is ask you to look at it and think of it in terms of the relationship between India as a colony (the victim) and England as the administrator (the perpetrator). Often, when I'm trying to understand the reasons why India thinks how it thinks and does what it does, I find myself coming back to this idea of the victim-perpetrator bond: do they want to be bigger and stronger, like the Americans were, like the British were? They are human, after all; it would be only natural.
Just a thought; please don't take offence.