New Delhi, Sept. 22 -- India's once-flourishing ties with Washington have soured in President Donald Trump's second term, marked by punishing tariffs, capricious visa restrictions, and penalties over Russian oil. This turbulence reinforces New Delhi's instinct for "multi-alignment," and the desire to hedge between great powers rather than bet on any single partner. Against this backdrop, a new paper by journalist and analyst James Crabtree argues that now is the time for Europe to shine and make the case that it is India's most promising alternative in a shifting global order. Crabtree spoke about India-Europe relations on last week's episode of "Grand Tamasha" - a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Crabtree's paper, titled "Pivot to Europe: India's Back-Up Plan in Trump's World", was recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations, where he is a distinguished visiting fellow. Crabtree is well known to Indian audiences, having served as the Mumbai bureau chief for the Financial Times and written the much-celebrated 2018 book -- The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age. He is currently a columnist for Foreign Policy and working on a second book on the United States in Asia. Crabtree spoke with host Milan Vaishnav about the latest turmoil in U.S.-India relations, the historical underperformance of Europe-India relations, and the factors which have made Europe a more "geopolitically serious" actor. Plus, the two discussed how Europe can avoid short-termism to forge stronger bonds with India over the long haul. On the podcast, Crabtree stated that India's dominant foreign policy strategy in recent decades has been to make the United States its most important diplomatic and strategic partner. Until about three or four months ago, the analyst argued, that still seemed like a reasonable bet. The downswing in India-U.S. ties, however, has created a gap which needs to be filled. "The argument that we're trying to make is that, actually, the logic behind India's foreign policy strategy is that, for India's economic development and security development, the kind of partners that it needs most are high capacity, high technology, high-income economies." While this set of countries is not restricted to Europe, Europe is home to the biggest cluster of high-income, high-technology democracies which might fill some of what was lost from the United States. One issue which has often tripped Europe up in its desire to court India is the question of values and human rights. "In a world in which you are anxious about the behaviour of China and Russia-these are genuinely existential issues for the European project-then you re-prioritise what you're trying to do and with whom," Crabtree explained. "This is just a moment of geopolitical awakening where you have to learn to respect a world in which there are plural systems of government."...