In his first remarks since US President Donald Trump claimed to have mediated a ceasefire between India and Pakistan—purportedly by hanging the sword of trade over them—External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said New Delhi's ties with Islamabad are "strictly bilateral".
"Our relations and dealings with Pakistan will be strictly bilateral. That is a national consensus for years, and there is absolutely no change in that," Jaishankar said addressing the press on Thursday, 15 May.
The minister's statements echoed those made three days ago by Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal who emphasised the ceasefire was achieved due to DGMO (Director General of Military Operations)-level talks between the two countries.
Further, Jaiswal said while conversations were certainly held with the US following Operation Sindoor, trade relations did not feature in the talks.
"From the time Operation Sindoor commenced on 7 May till the understanding on cessation of firing and military action on 10 May, there were conversations between Indian and US leaders on the evolving military situation. The issue of trade did not come up in any of the discussions," Jaiswal said on Tuesday, 13 May.
Trump's varying (and repeated) claims after he first announced the ceasefire on his social media have become a headache for the Indian government over the last few days. On different occasions over just a matter of a few days, he has said that the US "mediated" a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and potentially prevented a nuclear conflict from taking place.
He then added that he threatened to withhold trade relations with both India and Pakistan if they refused to put an end to the conflict. He even said that he made an offer to "mediate" between India and Pakistan over the sovereign status of Jammu and Kashmir.
The responses to Trump's comments from Jaishankar and Jaiswal came days before Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal's trip to Washington DC from 17-20 May to finalise the brass tacks of the interim trade agreement between India and the US.
How Can This 'Flip-Flop' Be Understood?
At the outset, experts opine that as the MEA has reiterated New Delhi's position that all disputes with Islamabad will be dealt with bilaterally, there is no scope of "mediation" from a third party.
"India's response to Trump's claims are along traditional lines – we don't accept external intervention in what we consider to be a bilateral question between India and Pakistan," says Krishnan Srinivasan, former foreign secretary of India.
"Mediation of the traditional kind require the agreement of the contending parties. So in this case, India has its traditional view that there can't be third-party mediation – and so obviously there couldn't have been any."Krishnan Srinivasan
There are several angles, though, through which this entire flip-flop between India and the US can be understood.
1. Trump's age-old prima donna avatar
Some experts suggest that Trump's remarks shouldn't be understood from the perspective a world leader and a crucial partner to India, but from his innate love for the spotlight and his habit of issuing statements which are often not grounded in actual fact.
"Trump is not constrained by the normal decorum of how presidents function," says Sanjeev Ahluwalia, senior advisor at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), "He's a corporate man – that, too, a reckless one."
Ahluwalia says that often times, Trump says things, no matter how absurd, with the intention of bolstering his domestic and global image.
"He likes to be in the news. So the real question is, why are we hoping for consistency from a president who is known to be inconsistent and irresponsible?"Sanjeev Ahluwalia
On the other hand, Harsh V Pant, professor of international relations, says that Trump was eager to take credit for something in which the US may have played a role, but not the central role.
"This is very Trumpian – he says things which have little to do with facts on the ground. So long as it serves him and his optics, he goes for it," Pant says.
2. Trump's inability to deliver on promises
Apart from the optics involved, one can also see Trump's statements in light of his domestic position on global challenges. For instance, in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Trump had repeatedly vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars, often times saying that he would achieve this feat within 24 hours of entering the White House.
Four months into his second term – and with the wars nowhere close to being near the finish line – Trump has faced considerable flak from Democrats and the public alike for not delivering on his promise.
"As the two wars continue unabated, I think there's an element of Trump taking some credit from somewhere – which may have been at the back of his push on the India-Pakistan question, even though I doubt he understands the context of the India-Pakistan conflict a whole lot," says Pant.
In the past as well, Trump had made several spur-of-the-moment remarks on India and Pakistan which had not been received well by New Delhi.
In July 2019, when Trump was hosting the then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House, the US President claimed that PM Modi had requested him to mediate on the Kashmir dispute.
"He [Narendra Modi] actually said, ‘Would you like to be a mediator or arbitrator?’ I said, ‘Where?’ He said, ‘Kashmir.’ Because this has been going on for many, many years," Trump had said, flanked by Khan.
India's MEA was quick to respond, saying that no such request was made by PM Modi to the US president.
"We have seen @POTUS’s remarks to the press that he is ready to mediate, if requested by India & Pakistan, on Kashmir issue. No such request has been made by PM @narendramodi to US President," MEA's Randhir Jaiswal had tweeted.
3. Damage to the Modi government's reputation
Meanwhile, Trump's comments are believed to have caused the Indian government a degree of embarrassment.
The Modi government, which had been at the top of its game in militarily responding to Pakistan, seems to have feared the creation of the public perception that the conflict came to an end not because of their leadership, but due to external pressure.
One stark example of the changing public perception is that the Opposition, which had hitherto been in the government's corner in a rare show of bipartisanship, went after the Modi government.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, 14 May, the party asked whether Trump had "coerced and blackmailed" India into accepting the ceasefire.
"What do the typically loquacious PM and EAM have to say about this revelation? Did they mortgage India's security interests in the face of US pressure?" Congress leader Jairam Ramesh asked.
What would have further irked the Indian government is the purported equalising and hyphenating of India and Pakistan by the US government and the internationalisation of the Kashmir issue as a result of Trump's statements, as opposed to the condemnation of the Pakistan-sponsored terror attack in Pahalgam.
The Congress has also attacked the Modi government, saying that Trump, through his remarks, put PM Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on an equal footing.
However, Pant says that there isn't much truth to Trump's purported hyphenation of India and Pakistan and it just is in people's minds.
"The equities that the US has with India are of a different order than Pakistan," Pant says.
"If Trump engages with Pakistan, the conversation will be about economic or military aid. With India the topic of conversation is entirely different – it's about the Indo-Pacific, China, Quad etc. So it's a very different order of priorities and I don't think hyphenation is possible."Harsh V Pant
Yet another irritant that would have ruffled some feathers in South Block is the apparent "mixed messaging" being sent out by the Trump administration.
For instance, Trump's claims of a US-brokered peace deal came days after his deputy JD Vance said during a television interview that the conflict between India and Pakistan was "none of our business".
"We're not going to get involved in the middle of war that's fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America's ability to control it," the US Vice President had said during an interview with Fox News.
However, following Trump's statements, Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that Vance was one of the key people who secured the ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan.
"Over the past 48 hours, VP Vance and I have engaged with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, and National Security Advisors Ajit Doval and Asim Malik," he took to X to say.
4. For a change, is Trump actually telling the truth?
Other experts have suggested the US government did, in fact, mediate on the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and that New Delhi is just trying to "save face".
"I have no doubt in my mind that the US brokered the ceasefire agreement," says Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the ORF.
"This can be gauged from the many phone calls that Secretary of State Marco Rubio made to leaders of both India and Pakistan, which he spoke of on social media following Trump's announcement of the ceasefire."Manoj Joshi
Joshi further says that whether Trump hung the sword of trade over both the countries is another matter altogether and not particularly relevant. However, he adds, that if the ceasefire had been achieved by India and Pakistan themselves, then they would have announced it immediately.
"The US was the only country in a position to know that both countries had agreed to the ceasefire, so Trump announced it. But it's not like he was waiting in the White House to beat the Indian government to it," Joshi says.
On the other hand, former foreign secretary Srinivasan says that Trump's claims seem to have been heavily influenced by the response his government got from Pakistan as opposed to the one they got from India.
"When the US reached out to Pakistan, they would probably have readily agreed to stop the fighting. In fact, it was the Pakistani DGMO who had first approached his counterpart in India. So I believe Trump's views on the matter were coloured by the Pakistani response, not the Indian response."Krishnan Srinivasan