By Agha Iqrar Haroon
Indian diaspora globally, particularly in the Global North, has now started crying over India’s diplomatic isolation and the rise of Pakistan as a global player. This situation has also ignited a blame game in which pro-Modi writers are accusing the Indian diaspora of not doing enough for their country of origin, while the diaspora claims it is doing everything that it can.
They accept that the reckless policies of Indian government have left nothing to showcase India as a normal country with whom international players can work or can trust. Indian media and the diaspora are in a mourning phase, stating that India lost everything in May 2025 Marka-e-Haq; not only six fighter jets or S-400 batteries. They accept that the biggest loss in the India-Pakistan four-day war was India’s repute as a strong country in the region, an emerging regional power, and its standing in international diplomacy.
In one of the articles published in Business Standard on Sunday (October 5, 2025), the writer Mihir S. Sharma stated that:
With the United States (US), the Pakistanis have managed to eke out a relatively favourable trade agreement that reduced tariffs on the country to 19 per cent from the earlier 29 per cent; and also secured US investment in the country’s supposed fossil-fuel reserves. Its (Pakistan’s) leaders have been received warmly in recent weeks by both the American and Chinese Presidents, signed new agreements to boost inward investment, and finalised a landmark defence deal with Saudi Arabia. In the game of geopolitics, it is Asim Munir and Shehbaz Sharif who have, as cricket commentators too often say, played a blinder”.
Sharma accepted that after the Pahalgam incident, Pakistanis nevertheless managed to minimise the expressions of support for Indian actions in Operation Sindoor. Its military managed to make the case globally that they held off Indian attacks, even setting off some ill-advised comparisons between Chinese and Western weapons platforms. The writer was calamitous that the United States (US) and Pakistan have managed to eke out a relatively favourable trade agreement that reduced tariffs on the country to 19 per cent from the earlier 29 per cent; and also secured US investment in the country’s supposed fossil-fuel reserves. Army Chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir met President Donald Trump twice in recent times—once for a longer-than-expected lunch and once with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif during which the President was shown a display of the critical minerals and rare earths that Pakistan possesses. He added that the US Exim Bank has committed millions to financing mining projects in the country, including the gold and copper mine at Reko Diq.
Sharma maintained that PM Sharif’s visit to Beijing last month was accompanied by news that a new $8.5 billion deal for investment was signed. There have been reports in that country’s press that a recent American delegation even expressed interest in investing in the Chinese-controlled port of Gwadar, perhaps by building a terminal there that could receive shipments of liquefied natural gas from the US.
Sharma also touched upon Pakistan-Russia relations and stated that President Vladimir Putin had described Pakistan and Russia as “natural allies” and called Islamabad Moscow’s “traditional partner in Asia.” It is pertinent to mention that the Russians put India in the difficult position of accepting Pakistan as an “observer” in the Zapad military exercises in which the Indian military participated (alongside China and more than 15 other nations).
Sharma asked a blunt question to Indian diplomats: how did Pakistan manage this series of achievements in the shortest possible time? I can provide an answer to Sharma. It is because Pakistan’s military diplomacy. Islamabad has a long history of diplomatic flexibility, finding ways in which it can be useful to multiple partners, and has been a master in ‘Ping-Pong diplomacy; a reference to providing a breakthrough between Washington and then Peking in the 1960s–70s. In the recent past, Pakistan successfully managed US-Iran contact, Saudi Arabia-Iran contact, and Qatar-UAE-Saudi Arabia contacts. Pakistani diplomats are time-tested, weather-beaten, experienced in facing betrayals of superpowers, and have learned how to navigate and find a way forward.
In an article published in The Indian Express on October 7, 2025, writer Vivek Wadhwa strongly criticized pro-Modi opposition MP and author Shashi Tharoor, who recently tried to shift the burden of Indian diplomatic failures onto the shoulders of the Indian diaspora. Tharoor’s recent column, “Can diaspora please stand up?” (Indian Express published on October 2, 2025), triggered the situation in which he tried to bail the Modi government out of the global isolation it is facing and the diplomatic failures it has suffered since the May 2025 India-Pakistan war.
Vivek Wadhwa, who is CEO of Vionix Biosciences; former distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School, Carnegie Mellon School of Engineering, Emory University; Stanford Law and UC-Berkeley, sent a loud and clear message to Tharoor that “Don’t blame Indian-Americans for India’s diplomatic failures.”
Vivek Wadhwa said that India has never learned from its mistakes and miserably failed in global narrative building, whereas Pakistan knows how to frame grievances, mobilise its diaspora, and cultivate allies in Washington and London. While possibly referring to Indian silence over its losses during Marka-e-Haq, Vivek Wadhwa stated that the problem is (was) not that the Indian-American diaspora has been silent, but that India has been silent.
Vivek Wadhwa said:
“We (Indians) are professors, CEOs, scientists, technologists, lawmakers, entrepreneurs, doctors, and even the former vice president of the United States. We have been writing, lobbying, testifying, and advocating for decades. Many of us have fought loudly for immigration reform, for stronger US-India ties, for recognition of India’s rise in technology and business. I myself have written books and op-eds about the injustices of the H-1B system and the reverse brain drain. To suggest we have not stood up is unfair. What Tharoor overlooks is that India has never learned to tell its own story. For decades, successive governments have been stuck in the hesitant, colonial-era mode of the British Raj—filling forms, issuing denials, reading long statements. When faced with a challenge, India waits it out rather than seizing the narrative. Silence in diplomacy is not golden; it is fatal”.
Vivek bluntly accepted that Pakistan knows how to mobilise its diaspora and cultivate allies in Washington and London and plays the game of perception. He accepted that Indian public diplomacy, revolving around nostalgia, Bollywood, biryani, and bhangra, has failed to get professional results for ‘narrative control’.
Now NRIs are not shy to accept that New Delhi has long overestimated the influence and attachment of the Indian-American, Indian-United Kingdom, and Indian-Canadian communities.
My humble suggestion for Indian diplomats is to remember that the third generation always has limited ties with their country of origin; their social values; their religion and their families living in the country of origin. Demanding too much from them is unfair. This can be one of the reasons that the large, wealthy, and influential Indian diaspora has not been proactive, as the relationship between their country of origin and their adoptive home has collapsed, and New Delhi’s expectations about what the Indian diaspora could or would do for the home country are unrealistic because theories of ‘human interaction’ are loud and clear that relations with the country of origin weaken as time goes on and generations pass. And this message is also for Pakistan: do not expect much from the Pakistani diaspora. Yes, Pakistanis received an emotional boost when Pakistan gave a dust-licking defeat to its archrival India in May 2025, and Pakistanis feel proud that their country of origin is now a global player but they have no real stakes in Pakistan.
