USA’s Secretary of State Marco Polo oops Rubio visits India in Scorching Heat but Cold Reception

Benevolence of USA on India: Chapter 2.

USA’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited India from May 23–26, 2026 for four days.¹ A section of the media compared it to the visit of Hillary Clinton in 2012 as an act of gracious benevolence of the administration to spare him for four days.

Rubio arrived in Kolkata and was received at the airport by a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs of India. This was an exact parity of the courtesy extended by the USA to India’s Minister for External Affairs when he visits the USA.

On 24 May, he held meetings with Jaishankar, NSA Ajit Doval, and PM Modi. The next day, on 25 May, he went sightseeing on a personal visit to Agra and Jaipur. On the following day, May 26, he attended the Quad foreign ministers meeting.

Importance of Visit

This was his first official India trip under President Trump’s second administration. In the past 18 months, he has visited 31 countries: Malaysia twice, France twice, Germany twice, Italy twice, Qatar twice, Switzerland twice, Canada three times, Saudi Arabia three times, and Israel four times.

When a US Secretary of State visits a major strategic partner, the New York Times and Washington Post typically assign their own foreign correspondents and run analysis pieces. The absence of that treatment suggests the American foreign policy establishment does not view this as a significant moment. The low US media interest also reflects that American editors see this as India’s problem to solve, not Washington’s.

It appears that Washington is sending its top diplomat but is not internally optimistic, which is an unusual posture. The Quad provides the institutional cover to make the trip worthwhile regardless of bilateral outcomes.

Timing of Visit

What is beyond comprehension is the timing. Europe is stated to be under a heatwave with day temperatures touching 33 degrees Celsius. In India, the night temperatures have refused to go below 33 degrees. There are heatwave conditions and temperatures touching 45 degrees. Local governments are issuing health advisories. Yet Rubio decided to travel to India with his wife and to indulge in sightseeing at Agra and Jaipur, which indicated he is not expecting to return to India any time soon.

The Indian government was telling its own citizens to stay indoors and not die. In that same week, the US Secretary of State brought his wife on a sightseeing tour of the Taj Mahal in that heat. The security detail, the press pool, the motorcade, and the protocol staff all mobilised in 46-degree temperatures so Rubio could have a photograph at a monument.

No Indian official would schedule outdoor tourism for a foreign dignitary in this heat. It signals either that nobody in the US advance team checked the weather, which is a planning failure, or that the Indian side did not care enough to advise against it, which is a diplomatic signal of its own.

But there was something else happening.

Kolkata

If Rubio was persistent in visiting Kolkata, he could not have come to India earlier. First, there were elections in West Bengal. Then, there was a five-day gap in the formation of the new government, which happened on May 9, and then the new government takes time to take control of the administration in a state which is prone to street violence during and after the elections. So perhaps, the Kolkata itinerary of Rubio forced this timing.

In Kolkata, Rubio visited the Mother House (headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa). He also visited Nirmala Shishu Bhawan (children’s home run by the Missionaries of Charity).

Rubio’s first stop was at a Christian missionary in Kolkata notorious for converting dying people to Christianity who are in its palliative care. He did not visit the Ramakrishna Mission of Swami Vivekananda. The murmur has it that Rubio as a devout Christian was fulfilling his religious duties, but there is more to it than meets the eye.

FCRA amendments have systematically choked American-linked civil society funding pipelines in India. Rubio meeting those networks, signaling Washington’s continued interest, and restoring confidence among overground workers—that is actionable within this visit even if nothing else is.

It appears that Rubio is not here for India at all. He is here to manage the eastern flank pressure that the US itself is generating through Bangladesh. The benevolence is misdirected.

World Minus One

In a previous article, I had explained that India’s preparations are not about any possibility of partnership with the USA. The policies are about going alone in case the USA decides to block its technologies.²

Government ministries migrating to Zoho, ONDC challenging Amazon, GIFT City building a SWIFT bypass, Safran completing what GE refused to deliver for four years, and the K-4 SLBM giving India second-strike capability from underwater—these are not negotiating signals. They are infrastructure choices with decade-long lead times. A country does not build a submarine-launched nuclear deterrent as a bargaining chip. It is a protective shield of deterrence.

Then there was his cabinet colleague Lutnick³ who said Modi would apologize and come to the table. Then he quietly flew to Delhi, had lunch, posed for a photograph, and left without a deal. The world views the US as a ‘rogue elephant’ or a bad actor that can be reasoned with. This is a fatal category error. In India, we understand this state of affairs through an older, biological lens of the ‘Mast Elephant’. This is how it is going to be in the future.

Then came the USA’s Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau to New Delhi to attend the Raisina Dialogue. He spent the first half explaining why America had no foreign policy vision for 35 years. He presents this absence of strategy as something Trump heroically discovered and corrected. Then he made a kind of policy confession:

“…..India should understand that we are not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago in terms of saying, we are going to let you develop all these markets, and then, the next thing we know, you are beating us in a lot of commercial things…”

Rubio, in his speech at Munich,⁴ explicitly described the end of Western empire as a wound caused by “anti-colonial uprisings.” Any Indian diplomat, bureaucrat, or journalist who read it understood the message instantly. India’s independence was, in Rubio’s framing, part of the contraction that needs reversing.

The Munich speech burned him in every non-Western capital. Delhi, Beijing, Jakarta, and Pretoria all read it the same way. He arrived in India already carrying that weight. India received him politely, as is its tradition, and will proceed exactly as planned.

Farmer Protests, Bangladesh and Nepal

For the past many years, the neighborhood of India has been on fire. First, there were sit-in protests in the name of farmers. Huge protests with videos circulating about the haggling of protesters over daily payments for participation in the protests. Huge daily expenses were visible and remained unexplained. The protest leaders were so popular that in the next elections in Punjab, they got fewer votes than NOTA.⁵

Under the Biden administration, an uprising happened in Bangladesh, and its elected Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had to flee to India, and a close ally of the Clintons, Muhammad Yunus, was installed there as a dictator who took the title of chief advisor.⁶

Recently, there were protests in Nepal which resulted in new elections, and a new government is in office. Many youths lost their lives in the protests. Many government buildings were burnt. The transition to a new government through elections was a surprise that was not expected earlier.⁷

VanDyke’s arrest, discussed in chapter 1,⁸ is even more significant in this context from the Bangladesh angle. India’s northeastern connectivity, the land bridge to Southeast Asia, was thus under threat at a time when Bangladesh itself was burning with violent protests.

But the White House was very kind and invited PM Modi again.

Invitation to White House

The State Department⁹ readout on the visit to India is three sentences long. It says Rubio underscored strategic importance, extended a White House invitation to Modi, and they discussed the Middle East and Iran. That is a press release that could have been written before the plane took off. Thus, the official American explanation for four days in 44-degree heat is: Taj Mahal, Mother Teresa, Quad meeting, and a White House invitation from President Trump. An invitation that Modi has neither accepted nor acknowledged.

Briefed

India’s PIB readout¹⁰ said Rubio briefed the Prime Minister. Read it in its entirety:

The U.S. Secretary of State, H.E. Mr. Marco Rubio, called on Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today. Secretary Rubio briefed Prime Minister on the sustained progress in bilateral cooperation across a wide range of sectors, including defence, strategic technologies, trade and investment, energy security, connectivity, education and people-to-people ties. Secretary Rubio shared U.S. perspective on various regional and global issues, including the situation in West Asia. Prime Minister reaffirmed India’s consistent support for peace efforts and reiterated the call for peaceful resolution of the conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy. Prime Minister requested Secretary Rubio to convey his warm greetings to President Trump and said that he looked forward to their continued exchanges.

Read carefully. Rubio briefed Modi. Not discussed. Not concluded. Not agreed. Briefed. That is the language used when a junior presents to a senior. This is what Rubio is: a minister in the Trump administration. Modi received a briefing. He did not negotiate, did not commit, did not announce.

The last sentence of nineteen words delivers nothing except warm wishes. Like that useless phone call on Hormuz.¹¹ No mention of the invitation from the White House. Forget the acceptance—there is no acknowledgment.

Outcome

Rubio did not arrive to repair a strained partnership. He is a misfit to do that after his Munich speech. He is arriving in a country that has already decided it does not need the benevolence of the USA anymore.

The Quad summit has not happened for two years. Almost. Foreign ministers lay the groundwork. The question is: would Modi like to see Trump face to face? Or would he switch to a video conference?

The USA is such a generous country. It is always there to help. In the next chapter, we shall explore how President Trump showered his benevolence on India in the last one year.

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