Even I’m not this cynical typically, but the lack of any public comments from Biden/Harris suggests that this is in fact an attempt to take Modi down a peg. https://twitter.com/macaesbruno/status/1386093791321407490

That this move could very well result in the deaths of Indians (compounded no doubt by the Modi govt’s failures) is a timely reminder that the path to global hegemony is not paved with kindness and charity, but w/ruthlessly calculated violence in the service of national interest

That some Indians can hardly contain their glee at the prospect of a weakened Modi is why India will remain a third rate power for the foreseeable future. An elite in a country as diverse of India will always have differences, but knowing when to circle the wagons is key.

Despite centuries of humiliation aided and abetted by excessive factionalism, this is a lesson that the Indian elite has not yet learned. They remain handmaidens of power, ever ready to serve as intermediaries between an outsider and the benighted natives

Naipaul— as usual— put it best: “Its mimicry is both less and more than a colonial mimicry. It is the special mimicry of an old country which has been without a native aristocracy for a thousand years and has learned to make room for outsiders, but only at the top”