In Washington, power usually announces itself before the person enters the room. Security details. Whispered introductions. The choreography of influence: every corridor has its gatekeepers. Every think tank has its ecosystem. Every strategic conversation has invisible sponsors, ideological tribes, and carefully cultivated influence networks. Which is why meeting Dhruva Jaishankar carried its own layer of intrigue.
But when I met him in D.C. earlier this month, there was no choreography, none of the above.
There was no defensiveness. No inherited entitlement. No attempt to manage the narrative.
Which was striking, because months earlier, I had written a deeply critical investigation into the Observer Research Foundation — “Decoding the Big Billion Shadows: How Foreign Funding Fuels ORF’s Grip on India’s Foreign Policy.” It was not a flattering piece. It questioned influence, funding, access, and the growing ecosystem around India’s strategic elite.
Yet when I brought it up, Dhruva did not bristle.
Calmly, almost academically, he smiled and said that in geopolitics — and in the world of think tanks — rivals often spread myths, amplify suspicions, and weaponised narratives to gain a foothold.
There was no anger in his tone. Just perspective.
And perhaps that is what makes him an interesting figure in Washington today: not merely because he is the son of S. Jaishankar, but because he speaks like someone who has spent years observing power without becoming intoxicated by it.
In an era where diplomacy increasingly resembles performance art, Dhruva Jaishankar comes across as something rarer — measured, cerebral, and quietly strategic.
His recently discussed framework in Vishwa Shastra reflects that worldview. “The book argues for an interest-driven worldview to guide policy,” he told me. “Contrary to scholarship that focuses on status or ideology as India’s primary motivations, interests should guide India in a messy and competitive world.”
It is the kind of line that sounds clinical until one realizes how radically it departs from the emotional language that often dominates foreign policy conversations in both New Delhi and Washington.
And perhaps nowhere is that realism more visible than in how he views the India-US relationship.
For all the public declarations of democratic partnership and civilizational alignment, Dhruva stripped the relationship down to its bare mechanics.
“It’s quite clear that the U.S. has always been transactional and is becoming more so,” he said matter-of-factly.
That sentence alone cuts through years of diplomatic poetry.
Yet he is equally unsentimental about India’s trajectory. India, he argued, is no longer operating from a position of dependency. The country will continue building autonomous capabilities while diversifying partnerships — not out of rebellion against Washington, but because rising powers eventually seek strategic elasticity.
When I asked whether the recent India-US trade understanding was a genuine breakthrough or merely a tactical pause disguised as progress, he leaned toward realism again. Trade, he said, will continue to grow regardless because Indian industries are maturing organically. But the bigger structural problem lies inside the American political system itself.
“The outline of a more comprehensive trade agreement is already in place,” he noted, before pointing out that the lack of trade promotion authority in Washington limits how ambitious any U.S. trade deal can realistically become.
It was classic Dhruva Jaishankar: zooming out from headlines and focusing on institutional constraints.
On China, he was even more direct.
At a time when many analysts still try to avoid the language of binary choices, Dhruva acknowledged that difficult decisions are inevitable — not because Washington demands them, but because India’s own interests increasingly will.
“How much, for example, will India want to give Beijing leverage over telecommunications systems, critical supply chains, or maritime security?” he asked.
The question hung in the air because it answered itself.
What stood out throughout the conversation was his refusal to indulge in easy mythology — whether pro-American or anti-American.
He challenged both.
“It is not true that the U.S. has never stood by India during crises,” he said. “But neither is it true that the U.S.-India relationship is grounded in trust or shared values.”
That distinction matters.
Especially now, when India and the United States are simultaneously drawing closer in defence, AI, semiconductors, and critical technologies while remaining fundamentally different political and strategic actors.
Dhruva believes areas like AI and space hold transformative potential over the next decade. He spoke admiringly of India’s start-up ecosystem and the ambition of its younger corporate leaders. There was genuine optimism there — but it was optimism anchored in capability, not sentimentality.
And then came the moment that revealed the man behind the strategist.
I asked him, almost mischievously, if the India-US relationship today resembled a Bollywood climax sequence or merely the dramatic interval before chaos resumes.
Most policy intellectuals would have dodged the question.
Dhruva answered instantly.
“Neither,” he laughed. “We have moved from Dil Chahta Hai to Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham to Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.”
It was sharp. Self-aware. And unexpectedly funny.
Perhaps that is why the conversation lingered with me after it ended.
Because in Washington — a city full of performers pretending to be thinkers — Dhruva Jaishankar appears to be the opposite: a thinker perfectly aware of the theatre around him.
And maybe that is the real inheritance of being Jaishankar’s son.
Not power… Composure.
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“America Has Always Been Transactional”: Dhruva Jaishankar Dismantles the Myths Behind India-US Relations
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