Life is a cruel leveler: For prime minister Narendra Modi, Pakistan, India’s mercurial and belligerent neighbour, was always the most convenient fallback for demonstrating his extravagant machismo. It was also the default location for a Siberian punishment posting for anyone branded as Urban Naxal by his acolytes. The latter meant anyone and everyone in India who dared to call his government a monumental embarrassment or a gigantic failure, or both. “Go to Pakistan” was the predictable chastisement or command if you wished to dismiss critics in general, and the opposition party led by the Congress, in particular. Largely, it worked.Pakistan remains economically defunct, politically fractured (the shameful incarceration of former PM Imran Khan bordering on cruelty is for the world to see) and socially in turmoil, a near-permanent state, given its complex polity and violent manifestations. Pakistan continues to sing sweet lullabies to overgrown terrorist organisations. And yet, in an extraordinary renewal, beyond the pale of one’s contemplations, Pakistan has dramatically upstaged India. It is no longer diplomatically quarantined. It can now haughtily boast that it has engineered a remarkable peace contract between the two most hostile countries in the world in the post-World War II era; the US and Iran, who had brought the world, precariously enough, to the brink of an Armageddon.India, the pioneer of the non-aligned movement which inspired former colonies and newly independent countries across the world (now part of the global South) and one which assiduously maintained an equidistant international relationship with snarky global superpowers, has inconspicuously disappeared into the darkness. But how did this calamity happen?Fact is, India has not had an independent and fully functional external affairs minister since 2014. S. Jaishankar’s predecessors were, to put it charitably, of glorious ornamental insignificance. The seasoned foreign policy officer has unfortunately reduced himself to ideological puppetry and cosmetic grandstanding to please hyper-nationalists. It is jejune stuff; a pantomime. Modi wanted 100% control of this ministry. But he does not have a clue about how it works. He mistook the brief: For sure, India is an attractive market for western manufacturers looking at both middle-class consumption and cheap wages for labour-cost arbitrage, but it is also easily substitutable.Americans are driven by the glossiness of lucre; from East to West coast, they have saturated geographies and satisfied populations. India gets a small share of global investment allocations from hedge funds, foreign portfolio investors (FPI’s) etc., albeit, it is magnified astronomically by the infantile newsreaders of prime time. Modi, I think, absurdly enough was made to believe by his kowtowing brigade, that “ India was an ineluctable global asset”. The world needed India. It was not the other way round. It was knuckleheaded. We became arrogant.For one, it was preposterous to hear the economic mumbo-jumbo of Atma Nirbhar in an inextricably interconnected world of financial and commodity markets. The theory of comparative advantage slipped the economists in the august councils that advise Modi. For too long, India has suffered from delusions of grandeur under the prime minister. The hyperbolic speeches to choreographed Indian diasporas and the theatrical showbiz style promos of G-20 etc., was wasteful razzmatazz to thrill the poor electorate. Only votes mattered. Personal positioning. India could wait. Foreign policy is for grey-haired specialists, not for fly-by-night snake oil salesmen. But who would bell the cat? This is the principal reason behind India’s luminous isolation, dissipating reputation, regional resistance from once friendly neighbours, and falling economic status.India was always susceptible. It took Donald Trump of all people to bring down the house of cards with his rambunctious boasts about brokering a ceasefire after Operation Sindoor. After that, India has gone perilously south. It now has a North Stand seat in the global stadium of the Big Boys.Whatever the military successes of Operation Sindoor, Pakistan out-maneuvered India in the information war; the hyphenation of Islamabad and Delhi returned with savage intensity. General Asim Munir found himself in the White House twice. Saudi Arabia signed a strategic defense agreement with Pakistan, making it an invaluable ally to have in the labyrinthine world of Middle Eastern powerplay. But it was with the ill-advised brazen cheerleading of the American-Israeli illegal war on old friend Iran that Modi self-destructed. Condemned universally, barring the unprincipled, opportunistic western alliance, as an act of hegemonic expansion, India found itself boisterously rationalising the genocidal acts of Benjamin Netanyahu and his equally revanchist supporter in Trump, who ironically enough, was terrorising India with the highest tariff in the world.India lost its moral guardrails; its outrageous pro-America/Israel stand on UN resolutions would have given Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru sleepless nights even in the tranquil heavens. India thought it would earn brownie points for being part of Trump’s tutored school choir. Trump instead saw India as an easy pushover. Enter Pakistan. The rest is history.In Switzerland, with Pakistan as an interlocutor, the historic USA-Iran détente will be signed. Elsewhere in the globe, some will be vanquishing a broken opposition to shards. And drooling over a film called Dhurandhar.Sanjay Jha is an author and a former national spokesperson of the Congress.