‘Irritating’Modi has previously poked fun at former Congress governments for “weak” responses against Pakistan in various skirmishes.”So India would obviously respond to that and deny that… about as politely as they feel they can get away with,” said South Asia researcher Pramit Pal Chaudhuri of political consultancy Eurasia Group.Trump’s claimed mediation was welcomed by Islamabad, which “needed an American intervention to give them the off-ramp they needed to get out of a conflict”, Chaudhuri added.On Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reaffirmed that “where Pakistan is concerned, our relations, our dealings with them will be bilateral, and strictly bilateral.”But the same day, speaking from Qatar, Trump repeated claims of brokering a ceasefire and using trade as a tool.”(I said) let’s do trade instead of war. And Pakistan was very happy with that, and India was very happy with that,” Trump said in his speech.It has been a decade since Modi last met a Pakistani leader. Since then, relations have deteriorated, coming to a head when India unilaterally revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy in 2019.According to Joshi, “the hyphenation of India and Pakistan” is also “irritating” for New Delhi, which has tried to carve out a separate identity on the global stage.”The optics of Trump hammering it day after day… is politically damaging for Modi,” Sushant Singh, a former Indian soldier and South Asian studies lecturer at Yale University, wrote on X.”(Modi) can’t personally counter Trump, and despite attempts by India’s big media to play it down, social media amplifies Trump,” Singh said.
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