India continues to invoke its time-tested policy of strategic autonomy vis-à-vis both the United States of America and Russia by rejecting US’ offer of mediation on Kashmir issue and by refusing to criticize Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine. Comment. (Answer in 350 words)

- India continues to invoke its time-tested policy of strategic autonomy vis-à-vis both the United States of America and Russia by rejecting US’ offer of mediation on Kashmir issue and by refusing to criticize Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine. Comment. (Answer in 350 words)
Introduction
Both refusals come from one doctrine. Strategic autonomy today is not equidistance but risk diversification — India declines external management of its disputes and declines alignment on other powers' wars.

Body
1. On Kashmir, the position is legal and old: the Simla Agreement (1972) and the Lahore Declaration (1999) fixed bilateralism, and India's rejection of Trump's mediation claims after the May 2025 ceasefire repeats its rejection of his 2019 offer.
2. The historical memory behind it: the reference to the Security Council in 1948 internationalised Kashmir to India's cost, and no Indian government since has been willing to repeat the experiment.
3. On Russia, dependence is the first determinant: Russian-origin equipment still forms the bulk of India's legacy inventory, from the S-400 to Su-30MKI spares, and substitution through iCET, the GE F414 deal and MQ-9B will take a decade.
4. The China calculus is the second: pushing Moscow into being Beijing's junior partner would worsen India's two-front problem, so India abstained rather than condemned from February 2022 onward.
5. Energy and inflation are the third: discounted Russian crude rose from a negligible share to over a third of imports, cushioning Indian consumers.
6. The doctrine is articulated, not improvised: Jaishankar's formula of engaging America, managing China, cultivating Europe, reassuring Russia and bringing Japan into play, with "this is not an era of war" at Samarkand in 2022 as its moral register.
7. The costs are real: the fifty per cent American tariff of August 2025, and a normative price when India invokes sovereignty and territorial integrity on the LAC while abstaining on Ukraine.
8. The realist reading: structural logic predicts Indian balancing against China, and India does balance through the Quad while refusing the entrapment an alliance would bring.

Conclusion
So the comment is accurate, but strategic autonomy is a capability, not a virtue: it lasts only while India's market and position make it worth courting. The 2025 tariffs are the first serious test of that premise.