History often reserves its cruellest surprises for nations that mistake momentum for permanence. In May 2025, during Operation Sindoor, India’s confrontation with Pakistan was brief, but the aftershocks were immense. What might once have looked like proof of strength instead revealed fragility, exposing Delhi’s overconfidence and its diminishing global weight. India, long celebrated as an emerging pole of power, suddenly appeared adrift, isolated diplomatically and battered economically. The starkest symbol of this shift came at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Tianjin, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to Chinese soil after seven years. His presence no longer suggested bold outreach but reluctant necessity, a recognition that India could not afford absence when other doors were closing. In Tianjin, under the gaze of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, India looked less like a shaper of events than a humbled participant, forced to acknowledge that the SCO, once dismissed as peripheral, had become a stage
it could not ignore.
The rupture with Washington pushed India further into this corner. After Sindoor, Donald Trump scorned Delhi’s escalation as “a shame” and imposed punishing 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports, one of the harshest measures ever applied to a supposed ally. For a country that had built its foreign policy around an “all-weather” partnership with the United States, the blow was devastating. At home, the opposition branded Modi’s failed gamble “Narendra Surrender,” mocking his spectacle-filled friendship with Trump as naïve theatrics that collapsed under real pressure. For Delhi, the message was clear: the West could no longer be counted on to rescue its missteps. With G20 and Quad channels less reliable, the SCO emerged as one of the few viable forums to reassert a place on the world stage. Modi’s appearance in Tianjin, then, was not triumph but survival, an acknowledgement that multilateralism on Beijing’s terms was better than isolation altogether.
The symbolism of Tianjin cut deep. Since the Galwan clash of 2020, Delhi had prided itself on refusing Chinese platforms, framing absence as defiance. Now, silence replaced protest. The SCO under Xi is no longer a loose forum; it has become a pillar of Eurasian integration, binding Central Asia, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, and increasingly the wider Global South. At its heart lies the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, long denounced by India for slicing through contested territory. Yet in Tianjin, there was no confrontation. India, once positioning itself as a counterweight to China, appeared instead as a participant in a framework designed by Beijing. The elephant, once imagined as defiant, now moved cautiously, aware it needed the SCO more than the SCO needed it. That reversal was visible not only to China and Pakistan, but also to smaller members like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, who read India’s presence as proof that even proud powers must eventually align with the region’s gravitational centre.
For Beijing, the shift validated years of patience. The SCO has always been more than a talking shop; it is China’s instrument to entrench primacy without overt conflict. Unlike NATO or the Quad, which showcase military postures, the SCO emphasises infrastructure, security coordination, and development arenas where China steadily consolidates influence. At Tianjin, Xi spoke of the “dragon and elephant” destined to cooperate, but the framing was deliberate: India’s participation was portrayed as a mutual necessity, not a concession wrung from Delhi. The message to the wider Global South was unmistakable: Asia’s future would be shaped not by Western-led institutions, but by platforms built around Beijing’s vision. For India, the choice was stark: embrace a forum it once mistrusted or risk being left outside the region’s new architecture. The SCO became both refuge and reminder, underscoring that India’s autonomy now required engagement on terms it did not dictate.
While India grappled with this external humility, domestic turbulence deepened the picture of contradiction. On Independence Day, Modi hailed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as the “world’s biggest NGO,” provoking outrage from opponents who accused the RSS of opposing the freedom struggle, rejecting the Constitution, and fueling communal division. Congress mocked the organisation as a “Rashtriya Sandighda Sangathan,” questioning its legality and role in weakening democracy. Kerala’s Chief Minister denounced the Prime Minister for equating Savarkar with Gandhi, calling it a betrayal of history. These controversies reinforced the sense of a government projecting ideological triumphalism at home even as it bent abroad. The juxtaposition was striking: a humbled India in Tianjin, where it deferred to Beijing’s stage, and a triumphant India in Delhi, glorifying an outfit accused of undermining its pluralist ethos. Together, they projected not strength, but incoherence a country at once subdued internationally and combative domestically.
In sum, the story of 2025 is not of resurgence but reckoning. Operation Sindoor revealed the limits of bravado, U.S. tariffs exposed the fragility of economic reliance, and Tianjin showed the compulsion of seeking shelter within Chinese-led institutions. The SCO, once peripheral, became central to India’s survival, even as domestic choices inflamed division. For decades, India styled itself as the democratic counterweight to China and the pluralist model for Asia. Now it risks being seen instead as a chastened participant in Beijing’s architecture and a divided polity at home. Power lies not only in action but in narrative; at Tianjin, the narrative belonged to Xi, not Modi. Unless India rebalances with humility, the year 2025 may be remembered not as a stumble but as the moment when the elephant, once proud and independent, found itself tethered to someone else’s stage.
Omay Aimen
The writer frequently contributes to issues concerning national and regional security, focusing on matters having a critical impact on these milieus. She can be reached at omayaimen333@gmail.com