TO describe the Donald Trump phenomenon as a tectonic shift in world politics, as India`s foreign minister recently did, is akin to the inebriated Majaaz Lucknavi coming home late at night to find policemen darting their flashlights between the door of the house and the ransacked cupboards left ajar. The dazed poet stood in a corner and paused thoughtfully. Then sidling up to one of his terrified sisters, declared with utmost authority: `This must be the work of a thief.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar`s faux insights dodge the crunch question that India must face in a volatile world. How to remain in BRICS without annoying Trump? Conversely, how to be with Trump without being assessed as the weak link in BRICS? The question for Jaishankar involves two irreconcilable triangles India finds itself toggling between.

The Russia-India-China (RIC) group was the brainchild of an astute Russian diplomat, the former foreign minister, Yevgeny Primakov. The so-called Primakov Triangle, forerunner to BRICS, was inaugurated in 1999 to counter emerging post-Cold War challenges from the West. A parallel triangle was taking shape at India`s behest. Brajesh Mishra, before he became Atal Bihari Vajpayee`s national security adviser in 1998, conjured a `triangle of democracies` from east of Suez to the Indian Ocean never mind the unabashed conceit it implied towards Iran and other South Asian electoral systems.

Mishra`s India-Israel-US triangle offered as a strategic concept on the one hand, also pandered to Hindutva`s ideological needs, given its political and financial hub in the US and hero worship of Israel as an anti-Muslim soulmate. It was in 1993, after all, that a young Narendra Modi was invited to the US by the American Council of Young Political Leaders, said to be a CIA front.

The US sojourn involved visiting the Statue of Liberty and Universal Studios where he was photographed in shirt and pants for the first time.

But much of Modi`s work involved fortifying RSS networks in the US and other foreign hubs.

Primakov had noted that the West, instead of dismantling its war machinery, which Mikhail Gorbachev had naively thought would happen, was baring its fangs to its perceived foes. A US-led assault broke up Yugoslavia and eviscer-ated Iraq while Nato intensified its moves to encircle and destabilise Russia. The Chechen violence was part of the plot. On the other hand, the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 welded European powers into an economic union. India`s own dormant energies were unleashed by Manmohan Singh in the 1990s to make it a viable power to court for a joint future. RIC became the foundational brick for BRICS. So far so good.

Mishra`s perspective was a logical corollary to the Hindu right`s weakness for colonial patronage and incorrigible pro-West leanings. When the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, later reborn as BJP, gained power in 1977, it didn`t hide the agenda.

Nehru`s Non-Aligned Movement was an eyesore but could not be readily abandoned. Vajpayeetweaked the focus and named it, `the real nonalignment`. He was foreign minister when Moshe Dayan made his secret visit to Delhi and the Shah of Iran arrived for his last state reception abroad. No country wanted him after that.

In his role as prime minister, Vajpayee tested the bomb and sent a secret note to Bill Clinton, confiding that it was directed at China. Clearly, Primakov needed to activate everything in his arsenal to staunch India`s westward slide. The urgency was prompted by Rajiv Gandhi`s assassination,the lastIndianleaderto standup to the US. Rajiv had opposed the refuelling of US warplanes for Iraq in 1990, which the then minority government was ready to do. The next year he was assassinated at an election rally.

Mothballed relations with Israel were unwrapped in 1992 by Narasimha Rao, but its beneficiary was the Hindu right. Rao would that year sleep through the demolition of the BabriMasjid, which prompted former Rajiv aide Mani Shankar Aiyar to describe him recently as the BJP`s first prime minister. The year of the Primakov Triangle witnessed damning events in the rival camp. It was in 1996 that Benjamin Netanyahu first became prime minister after whipping up hatred against the then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu called Rabin a traitor for supporting the Oslo Accords. A young Zionist zealot assassinated Rabin at a public rally. Netanyahu`s plan against the Palestinians was clearly set years before the events of Oct 7, 2023.

The two jostling triangles are in ferment today and India intersects both. They are not equal triangles, however. The one with China and Russia is on the ascent. Iran, seen as a more robust substitute for India as the third point of the re-jigged Primakov Triangle, is standing its ground against Trump. Russia is winning the Ukraine war. China looks primed to stall Trump`s insane tariff assault even though Trump is targeting their underbelly in Iran. In Mishra`s world, the democracies he was mesmerised by are in a shambles, including his own. State institutions are being upended and all three are witnessing a growing conflict with their judiciaries.

Israel and the US are speaking of civil war-like conditions. And MPs of the ruling party in India have accused the supreme court of instigating a civil war with its secular decision and fair verdicts.

Amid the chaos, there isn`t a word about the nightmarish impact on India`s energy security should Iran be bombed. Instead, polarising politics at home has become a tool to divert attention. It no longer makes news that Prime Minister Modi is not attending the landmark Victory Parade in Moscow on May 9. Not just that, the widely announced overdue visit by President Putin to Delhi is no longer discussed.

According to Tehran Times, a joint naval exercise last month by Russia, China and Iran had observers from Qatar, Iraq, South Africa, Oman, the UAE, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. India is hoping like Majaaz that it knows better. • The writer is Dawn`s correspondent in Delhi.

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