Why Does Putin Keep Taking Modi for a Ride?

 

The recurring Modi-Putin car rides look like diplomatic theatre. They may actually reveal something much more important about how India is navigating a world where every great power wants a relationship on its own terms.

By: Manish Kumar, Founder & Editor, Explain It Clearly

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First Tianjin. Then Delhi. Now Bishkek. Somehow, whenever Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin finish talking, they keep ending up in the same car. The latest episode came on August 31 in Bishkek, after the two leaders met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. Instead of separating into their respective motorcades, Modi and Putin climbed into Putin's Russian-made Aurus and travelled together to the opening ceremony of the World Nomad Games. It was almost a replay of Tianjin a year earlier, when they had shared a car before their bilateral meeting. Putin later did something similar during his December 2025 visit to India.

The internet can have its fun with the image. “Modi-Putin carpool again” is irresistible social-media material. But the car is not really the story.

The access is.

Diplomacy is full of rooms designed for diplomacy. There are conference halls, bilateral meeting rooms, carefully arranged chairs, officials sitting behind the leaders and prepared statements that have already passed through several layers of government. A car is different. It is still public enough to be photographed, but private enough to create a different atmosphere. There are no rows of officials sitting between the two leaders, no podium, no delegation across the table and no carefully choreographed press conference immediately capturing every sentence. There is simply a journey. And journeys create something diplomacy increasingly lacks: time.

That matters particularly in the India-Russia relationship. The Bishkek meeting itself was hardly ceremonial. The two leaders reviewed cooperation across defence, energy, space, trade and other sectors and discussed conflicts in West Asia and the Black Sea region. Modi reiterated India's position that dialogue and diplomacy are the way forward and told Putin that the world must move away from “endless war” towards an “end of war.” Putin is not hearing that message from an adversary demanding surrender. He is hearing it from a country that remains one of Russia's most important strategic partners.

That is precisely what makes the car interesting. India can disagree with Russia without breaking the relationship. It can buy Russian energy without becoming Russian. It can maintain defence ties with Moscow while simultaneously expanding strategic cooperation with Washington, Europe, Japan and others. And it can tell Putin, directly, that wars need to end while keeping the larger relationship alive. That is not alliance politics. It is strategic autonomy in motion.

The mistake would be to look at the photographs and conclude that India and Russia are constructing some new geopolitical bloc. The reality is more complicated. India has no interest in becoming anybody's junior partner, whether the capital in question is Moscow, Washington or Beijing. That is also why the repeated car rides are more revealing than they initially appear. The symbolism is not necessarily that Modi and Putin agree on everything. It is that they can disagree without appearing to need permission from anyone else.

That distinction has become increasingly important in a world where great powers are trying to organise countries into camps. Washington wants strategic alignment. Beijing wants influence. Moscow wants strategic relevance. Europe wants dependable partners. India, increasingly, wants something more difficult: room to manoeuvre among all of them. The Putin car ride is therefore less a symbol of India choosing Russia than of India refusing to make every relationship a choice between two opposing camps.

There is another layer. The first famous Modi-Putin car ride at the 2025 SCO summit in Tianjin became a diplomatic curiosity because Putin and Modi spent significant time together in the Russian Aurus before their bilateral meeting. Putin later revealed that they had discussed his talks with Donald Trump in Alaska during that journey. That should make us rethink the joke.

A leader does not necessarily share a private ride with another leader because they want the photograph. Sometimes the photograph is merely the visible residue of a relationship that has already acquired enough trust to make the private conversation useful. And trust, in international politics, is not friendship.

It is utility.

Putin needs countries that will still talk to Russia when much of the Western political establishment would rather isolate it. India needs a Russia that remains predictable enough to preserve critical defence, energy and strategic relationships. Both countries have accumulated decades of institutional familiarity. The result is an unusual diplomatic channel. India does not have to agree with Moscow to remain able to speak to Moscow. That may actually be more valuable than agreement.

And this is where the “taking Modi for a ride” joke turns on itself. Perhaps Putin is not taking Modi for a ride. Perhaps Modi knows exactly why he is getting into the car.

India's foreign policy has always been at its most effective when it understands that proximity does not equal submission. New Delhi can sit beside Putin without becoming Moscow's ally in every dispute. It can sit with American leaders without becoming an American proxy. It can speak to Beijing while contesting Chinese power. It can engage Tehran while maintaining relationships with Israel and the Gulf. The car, in that sense, becomes a small metaphor for a much larger Indian strategy: get close enough to talk, stay independent enough to disagree.

There is also something distinctly old-fashioned about it. For all the technology transforming diplomacy—video calls, secure communications, instant messaging and twenty-four-hour media—leaders still need private human contact. Some conversations are easier when two people are moving rather than sitting opposite each other under the lights. The car removes some of the theatre. It does not remove the politics.

In Bishkek, Modi and Putin had plenty to discuss. India is heading toward its BRICS summit, which Putin is expected to attend. Their bilateral relationship continues to span energy, defence, space, fertilisers, trade and other areas. At the same time, Russia's war in Ukraine remains an unresolved geopolitical fault line, and India continues to press for dialogue and diplomacy. That combination is precisely why the relationship deserves to be watched more carefully than the photographs suggest.

The West often asks whether India is moving closer to Russia. Russia often wants to know whether India will remain close. China watches the relationship because Russia remains an important part of the Eurasian strategic equation. But India may be asking a different question altogether: How many relationships can we maintain without allowing any one of them to define us?

That is the real story behind the car. Not friendship. Not alliance. Not some secret geopolitical marriage.

Access.

In an increasingly polarised world, the ability to enter the room—and occasionally share the ride—with almost everyone may become one of India's most valuable strategic assets. So yes, Putin and Modi are in the car again. The joke writes itself. But perhaps the more interesting question is not why Putin keeps taking Modi for a ride.

It is why Modi keeps getting in.

Because maybe he understands something the rest of the world is only beginning to learn:

In geopolitics, sometimes the most important seat is not at the table. It is beside the driver.

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