Thats one way to see it. India and the West see each other as strategic allies in a mutually beneficial arrangement given Indias proximity to China and Russia. I don’t see it as one sided as you’re suggesting, especially since historically India and Russia have been friendly to each other.
They’ve gotten friendlier with the West in the past few decades. The distrust is for good reason given history of Western foreign interference (colonialism) and the US having a close relationship with Pakistan pre Bin Laden.
In an open marketplace I’m afraid that is a competitive disadvantage Especially with a 1 in 3 approval rating.
The implication is that China is a serious military threat so being allied with the West (not sure if the West as a whole is that strong militarily, moreso the US [perhaps the UK and France] specifically) is necessary for India.
China and India were friends long ago, throughout much of human history actually. The attitude between both regions was one of “you got your good thing going, and we got our good thing going”. It’s how both civilizations coexisted for thousands of years.
Things changed in the colonial era and after. Britain needed to bankroll their industrial revolution to, in their view, push humanity forward but really it was mostly for themselves. They turned India into a resource mining machine and pumped China full of opium (often grown in India) mostly so that they could… purchase tea?
Shortly after the end of WW2 and both nations were free from the shackles of Anglo tyranny, China was not happy with the borders the British had drawn and wanted to take control of a region, given to India, that connected Tibet and Xinjiang called Aksai Chin. This led to the Sino Indian war in 1962 which China won with a suprise attack, reasserting its presence as a major regional player and putting India in a position to more closely ally with the Soviet Union for military purposes.
Since then, India and China have not really been close, even if they are both BRICS nations. China also went on to help Pakistan procure nuclear weapons so its going to be quite some time before this relationship is mended.