On a balmy day in February last year, I sat down for lunch with one of India’s most prominent political columnists at the India International Centre in New Delhi, a place where left-wing academics, journalists, and Congress Party supporters like to congregate. My friend, however, is a lady whose politics lean to the right, and I often consulted her for advice on political matters. She also happens to be very pro-American. So I asked her what she thought of the US-India relationship under President Obama. “It might be time for us to distance ourselves a bit from Washington,” she mused. Putin’s Russia was mentioned as a possible friend, as were cultural links to Ahmadinejad’s Iran. I almost choked on my tea. Was she serious?
The short answer is yes, she was—and for good reason.
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