It is fun to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy writhing around the lawn at the United Nations for his daily yoga exercises. Prime Minister Modi’s acrobatics mark “a savvy and symbolic choice,” the Associated Press reported, “for a premier who has made yoga a personal practice and a diplomatic tool.” Calling yoga “a way of life,” Mr. Modi was, as the AP puts it, “highlighting an ancient pursuit of inner tranquility.”

That’s nothing, though, compared to the contortions Mr. Modi will have to go through in his speech before the Congress. He’ll be maneuvering between his free-market, pro-growth principles, his warmth toward Israel, and his flirtation with the ideas of the non-aligned movement, at the head of which India, regrettably,  stood for years. In this respect, at least, Mr. Modi’s tenure has marked a backward step for India, not to mention the Free World.

Without stretching a point too far, one could say that Mr. Modi’s yoga session could reflect India’s effort to wriggle out of picking a side in the global contest between the American-led West and an emerging bloc directed by China. This may be attributable, at least in part, to the fecklessness of President Biden’s foreign policy. Seeing your near-neighbor, Afghanistan, get abandoned within a few hours hardly inspires confidence in America’s leadership.

Mr. Modi, who came to power in 2014, in part on a platform to “Thatcherize” India’s economy, had sparked hopes that he would move past the equivocations of the Non-Aligned Movement. That bloc was formed by India in 1961, but interpreted non-aligned as Soviet-leaning. We’d hoped India would abandon such dogmas, including its support of the Palestinian Arabs at Israel’s expense — and even move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Prior to the Ukraine war, Mr. Modi had been positioning India as a strong ally of fellow democracies — and specifically against China, America’s main adversary. Long-running acrimony was renewed after a June 2020 clash on the Sino-Indian border at Galwan Valley in the Himalayas. It pitted Indian forces and the People’s Liberation Army. For New Delhi, the Chinese aggression “crystallized,” our Benny Avni reported, “the menace that the PLA represents for India.”

Yet in response to Russia’s aggression against its neighbor Ukraine, India has seemingly retreated to its posture of pseudo-neutrality toward the Soviet Union — now the Russian Federation. For one thing, despite a strict sanctions regime against Moscow, India has been buying up Russian oil exports — at “discounted prices,” the Wall Street Journal notes, “providing financial support for Moscow as it wages war.” 

Mr. Modi downplays criticism that India is in effect taking Russia’s side in the dispute. “We are not neutral,” he avers in remarks to the Journal. “We are on the side of peace.” Well which side is peace on? Mr. Modi adds that “all countries should respect international law and the sovereignty of countries” and conflicts should be resolved by “diplomacy and dialogue,” not war. Yet these high-minded sentiments appear to be double-talk.

It’s difficult to square this with Mr. Modi’s apparent conception of India as a nation whose “time has come” for global leadership. He sees India as a champion for the nations of the developing world and makes no secret of his goal to earn for his country a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. “India deserves a much higher, deeper and wider profile and a role,” Mr. Modi tells the Journal.

Count on Mr. Modi, in his remarks to the Congress, to make the case for that leadership role, while also hailing America’s deep trade ties with India and his sense of “an unprecedented trust,” as he puts it, between the two nations’ leaders. Yet Mr. Modi’s attempt to have it both ways on the global stage could prove to be a pose with too many twists — one that would challenge even the most masterful yogi.