India, May 7 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has adopted three different approaches towards three of India's most important relationships in the past three months. First, India is on a path of deeper alignment with the United States (US). Donald Trump's election meant there would not just be a new American administration but a new America itself. India had to decide if it wanted to pursue the course of deeper strategic alignment that it had embarked on with Washington DC exactly two decades ago when the nuclear deal was initiated. But this time, India would have to give rather than take. And this would entail intangibles such as constantly feeding Trump's ego while absorbing insults, tangibles such as economic benefits to American companies and producers, and getting more integrated with America's defence and tech ecosystems. At one level, for Delhi, this was an easy decision. Given India's technological needs, security challenges, employment-creation imperatives, popular sentiment, diaspora's interests, and aspirations for great power status, deepening ties with the US is logical and obvious. But translating what was a reasonable course of action into policy meant taking risks. Track India's early signals - a prime ministerial visit to DC; willingness to take back illegal Indian immigrants even when they were sent back in inhuman conditions; committing to a time-bound discussion on a trade pact and offering tariff concessions on a range of goods, with even agricultural tariffs on the agenda; openness to review past approaches towards tech companies and regulations; commitment to amend the nuclear liability and atomic energy legislations; a promise to buy more US-produced energy and defence equipment and systems; and public statements about how on tech and trade, India's convergence is with the West. There is a genuine debate within the system and outside if this approach signalled weakness and marked premature capitulation or showed the government's realism and astuteness. But at this point, Modi's judgment appears to have been the correct one. After his mind-bogglingly irrational tariff roll-out, Trump is now seeking early wins through trade deals and has changed his tone on Indian tariffs, often framing Delhi in favourable light. Indian reformers see a great internal opportunity to overcome structural and policy bottlenecks hobbling manufacturing because of this external push. Indian producers are hopeful they can preserve their American markets. If indeed the US-China confrontation persists, and if India gets its internal processes right, Delhi does have an opportunity to attract a bit of the capital that is seeking options outside China but can't go to the US. There also appears to be more robust counter-terrorism cooperation and openness in the US system on export controls. At the same time, the cautious optimism in New Delhi is accompanied by a growing understanding that Washington DC is not interested in playing a benign and enabling role in aiding the rise of other powers. India is also tracking how Trump's actions both inside America and the rest of the world adversely affect Indian interests, watching the Trump-Xi Jinping dynamic that could go either way, and preparing for hard trade-offs as a deal comes closer. And that leads to China: Modi's second decision appears to be to normalise ties with Beijing, within limits. In his podcast with Lex Fridman, Modi put his seal on the process of partial normalising of ties that has been underway with Beijing since the middle of last year. India had defined how it saw normalcy at the border as either a return to status quo ante or disengagement and agreement on patrolling arrangements, followed by de-escalation, with hints that this needed to be followed by a new framework for the management of the border and the overall relationship. There was indeed progress on the two remaining friction points of Depsang and Demchok at the border last year. And there was indeed deeper diplomatic engagement, including between Modi and Xi. But, in the estimation of the government of India, was the border normal? This mattered because for Delhi, having normalcy was a precondition for progress in the rest of the relationship while for Beijing, separating the two domains and advancing in the rest of the relationship while making gains at the border was key. This is where ties had been stuck. Modi's decision to declare that the border was normal, though with a caveat that more needed to be done, meant India was defining normalcy in a limited manner. It wanted to tone down things. Was the government driven by realism? After all, the border stand-off is both risky and expensive; the asymmetry in power with China has only grown; even fulfilling manufacturing goals requires engagement with the Chinese economic world; India's business lobbies are restless; avoiding a confrontation is important and the US isn't particularly reliable at the moment. But irrespective of the reasons for the shift, the limits of the shift are clear too. The doors may be open but China can't barge in. The political mood on China remains hostile. Security alertness about China's activities around India is high. Bureaucratic and intelligence vigilance over China's economic engagement is intense. Senior ministers have been slamming China's economic practices. And the openness to Chinese investments is likely to be selective. Modi's third decision, after Pahalgam, is to identify, track and punish the terrorists and their backers responsible for the terror attack, a path that will inevitably lead to Pakistan. This is no surprise. If Modi sanctioned a surgical strike after an attack on a military base and an air strike after the killing of security personnel, he will be determined to act after the barbaric religion-based targeting of civilians. But how India finds the right balance between imposing costs, establishing deterrence and satisfying domestic political opinion without its action leading to escalation, eroding India's reputation as a responsible power and dragging Delhi back into a hyphenated morass with Rawalpindi is the key test. India's own recent approach of maximum flexibility with the US and normalcy with limits vis a vis China is the context in which Delhi and Islamabad are now set to fight the next round in the 78th year of what scholar Stephen Cohen anticipated may well be a 100-year war....