AMERICAN exceptionalism has for long attracted both admiration and strategic exploitation. With its vast economy, unmatched military reach and liberal democratic ideals, the United States remains the gravitational centre of the global order. Yet many countries, notably India, have learnt to benefit from this system while pursuing their own divergent interests.
India enjoys disproportionate rewards from American exceptionalism even as it takes actions that dilute US geopolitical influence. It hedges its bets, partnering with Washington on defence and diplomacy, while aligning with rivals like Russia and China to weaken the dollar鈥檚 dominance.
Outwardly, India presents itself as a democratic US ally, joining military exercises, strategic forums and high-level talks like the Quad. But behind this polished surface lies a growing contradiction. India and parts of its diaspora benefit immensely from America鈥檚 open economic and educational systems even as India supports alternative financial architectures through BRICS and other platforms. Despite military tensions with China, India still collaborates with Beijing and others to challenge the dollar, a structural and strategic contradiction that鈥檚 becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
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Dollar privilege and strategic ingratitude
INDIA is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the US-centric global economy. Each year, tens of thousands of Indians migrate to the United States under H-1B visas, contribute to top US tech firms and send billions in remittances back home. American universities, many publicly funded, train legions of Indian students, many of whom return to India equipped with US knowledge and connections. Indian start-ups, too, thrive on American venture capital and access to dollar-denominated global markets.
This dollar-centric advantage has contributed to India鈥檚 rise as a major tech and service hub. Indian firms such as the TCS, Infosys and Wipro make much of their revenue from contracts with US clients. Indian pharmaceutical companies sell generic drugs in the United States at lower costs, benefitting from American IP and regulatory frameworks while lobbying against reforms that might challenge their market access. Yet, while India draws value from the dollar system, it has increasingly aligned itself with efforts to bypass or dismantle that very system.
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De-dollarisation drive
SINCE 2022, India has actively negotiated with Russia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and even some African nations to conduct bilateral trade in national currencies, rupees, rubles, dirhams, anything but the dollar. When Russia was hit with US-led sanctions over Ukraine, India stepped in not just to buy discounted Russian oil but also to pay for it outside the dollar system. India-Russia trade has ballooned, reaching more than $65 billion in 2024, with most of it flowing one way into India. Yet, Russia is unable or unwilling to repatriate the rupees that it accumulates, turning India鈥檚 currency into an illiquid stockpile.
While this may seem like a win for India alone, it represents a quiet strike against the dollar鈥檚 role as the neutral arbiter of international trade. India is also engaging in talks with BRICS nations to explore alternative payment systems, possibly through a new BRICS currency backed by gold or commodities. Such efforts, even if still in experimental stages, are designed with one goal: to erode the dollar鈥檚 dominance in global transactions. And, make no mistake, dismantling dollar supremacy is dismantling American power.
President Donald Trump has threatened to impose significantly higher tariffs on countries that benefit from US trade while continuing energy deals with Russia. He argued that such arrangements undermine American interests and global security. If implemented, the proposed tariffs could have serious implications for India鈥檚 energy and trade sectors, especially given its increasing reliance on discounted Russian oil.
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Ideological irony and diaspora duality
A SECOND layer of irony is cultural and ideological. India鈥檚 educated elite, many trained in American universities, have become leading voices in a hyper-nationalist, often anti-western worldview promoted under prime minister Narendra Modi鈥檚 Hindutva-driven leadership. Indian-origin academics, tech CEOs and influencers in the United States often walk a delicate double line, celebrating American meritocracy while championing India-first policies.
Many prominent Indian Americans hold influential positions in US politics, business and media. While many do serve the broader American interest, some toe the line of dual loyalty, vocal in defending India鈥檚 authoritarian moves, silent on its human rights violations and complicit in funneling American goodwill into strategic cover for India鈥檚 aggressive regional and monetary ambitions.
More troubling is how some Indian political operatives in the United States lobby for American resources, foreign aid, trade concessions, tech transfers, while simultaneously backing initiatives that reduce American economic leverage. It is, in effect, a strategy of harvesting American openness while seeding a parallel economic order hostile to it.
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Not alignment, but autonomy
WASHINGTON鈥橲 deepening embrace of India as a counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific has blinded policymakers to a critical reality: India is no true ally. Unlike Japan or Australia, India does not participate in binding alliances. It did not condemn Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine. It abstains from US-led sanctions. It trades with America鈥檚 adversaries when it is profitable. And it pursues global multipolarity, not the American-led order, as its ideological compass.
What India seeks is not alignment, but autonomy. Not cooperation, but strategic hedging. Its ultimate vision is a post-western world where no single currency, particularly the dollar, reigns supreme. In this, its interests often overlap more with those of China, Russia and Iran than with the United States. India is not the only country looking forward to eroding US monetary dominance, but it is perhaps the only country doing so while being funded, trained and elevated by America鈥檚 own institutions.
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Dollar鈥檚 slow unmaking
THE dollar鈥檚 supremacy is not just a matter of economic inertia. It rests on trust, networks and legitimacy. When countries like India chip away at it through non-dollar trade, gold-backing experiments and rupee diplomacy, they plant seeds of doubt about the dollar鈥檚 universality. But when they do so while simultaneously extracting wealth, knowledge and institutional capital from the US, they turn the American system into the source of its own erosion.
This is the paradox at the heart of US鈥揑ndia relations today: a relationship celebrated for shared democratic values, yet slowly unraveling America鈥檚 most important instrument of global leadership.
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Caste, caution, and economic enclaves
ACROSS America, from the sprawling suburbs of California to the quiet townships of the Midwest, Indian-owned grocery stores, restaurants, convenience shops and service centres are proliferating. While this reflects admirable entrepreneurship, it also raises questions about integration versus insulation. Many such businesses primarily hire from within their own caste, religion, or linguistic groups, often excluding locals, including black, Latino, and white Americans.
There are growing concerns of imported caste discrimination, the use of family labour under exploitative conditions and even visa misuse to fill jobs with underpaid workers brought from India. Far from being melting pots, these ethnic business clusters often become economic monocultures, reinforcing internal hierarchies and resisting outward engagement. The result? Self-segregated micro-economies that profit from American capitalism while rejecting its core ethos: openness, fairness, and integration.
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Exceptionalism has limits
EVERY American has a right to economic opportunity, but not at the cost of civic unity, fairness and the core values of an integrated society. If ethnic entrepreneurship becomes a vehicle for exclusivity, caste preservation or economic colonisation, then we must recognise it as a systemic issue, not just a cultural quirk. America opened its doors to the world not to be subdivided into global fiefdoms but to be unified in liberty, opportunity and mutual respect. Among the many traits that define American exceptionalism is its generosity, in education, immigration, opportunity and trust. India has gained tremendously from that generosity.
At the same time, a word of warning is necessary, both for India鈥檚 political leadership and for its global diaspora. If India鈥檚 foreign and trade policies continue to drift towards anti-American alignment, by deepening ties with US adversaries, promoting de-dollarisation and undermining US-led global frameworks, it is only a matter of time before backlash follows. That backlash may not strike New Delhi directly, it may be felt instead by the growing Indian diaspora in the United States.
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Public perception matters
AND, if ordinary Americans begin to associate Indian communities, businesses, or professionals with policies that work against US interests, the social and political consequences could be severe, ranging from heightened scrutiny and policy restrictions to fraying trust at the community level. This is not a threat. It is a geopolitical reality.
Diaspora populations often carry both the pride and the burden of their homelands鈥� behaviour. India does not need to be anti-Russia or anti-China to maintain its relationship with the United States. Nor is such alignment demanded of true allies. But, it cannot thrive by working against American interests while continuing to reap the benefits of American exceptionalism. India cannot help dismantling the very system, the dollar-centric global order, that fuels its rise, and still expect privileged access to US markets, capital, institutions, and goodwill. Mutual benefit must go hand in hand with mutual respect. India must tread carefully, or the very diaspora it so proudly celebrates may become collateral in a geopolitical miscalculation of its own making.
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Dr Abdullah A Dewan is a former physicist and nuclear engineer at the BAEC and professor emeritus of economics at Eastern Michigan University, USA.