India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar granted an interview with reporters in Politico’s European division on Friday and he has some interesting things to say. Regarding President Trump, he expressed optimism that any disputes over trade and tariffs could be settled amicably through compromise, but he was much less optimistic about resolving the current argument over buying oil from Iran.

By contrast, he admitted that energy-hungry India’s desire to purchase Iranian oil was “rather complicated” and that he hoped for “greater clarity.” When asked whether there were really no grounds to negotiate because Washington simply had zero tolerance for Iranian oil purchases, he chose not to commit himself. “One of the nice things about an interview is that when you reach a level where you don’t want to say what you don’t want to, you don’t say it.”

As for the current kerfuffle over receiving S-400 missile systems from Russia, Mr. Jaishankar was outright combative. He stated that India has a “solid, time-tested” relationship with Moscow and that “We would not accept any country telling us who to buy weapons from and who not to buy from.”

Overall, I’d say that the current relationship between the Trump and Modi administration is much less congruent that we might expect from two like-minded nationalist parties.

Where they seem to be having fewer disagreements is precisely in the area where we would traditionally expect the United States to get upset, and that’s in the heavy-handed tactics Modi is taking in Jammu and Kashmir which is risking a nuclear war with Pakistan.

Mr. Jaishankar towed the Modi line in the interview with Politico, especially in refusing to negotiate with Pakistan at all.

India’s foreign minister on Friday predicted that security restrictions across Kashmir would be eased in the “coming days,” but rejected Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s call for talks over the divided Himalayan region.

In an interview with POLITICO in Brussels, India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he hadn’t had time to read Friday’s New York Times op-ed by Khan, which sought the opening of a dialogue between Islamabad and New Delhi, but argued the idea was a non-starter while Pakistan “openly practices terrorism.”

Khan argued that it was urgent to begin discussions while a “nuclear shadow” hovered over South Asia, but the Indian minister said there was no hope of negotiations until Pakistan reined in its financing and recruitment of militant groups. “Terrorism is not something that is being conducted in dark corners of Pakistan. It’s done in broad daylight,” he complained.

No doubt, it’s accurate that Pakistan’s government promotes terrorism in broad daylight, and it’s also indisputable that India has suffered greatly as a result. But it would be nice if the government in New Dehli would at least be willing to have a dialogue over an issue that is driving hostilities to a boil between two nuclear-armed countries.

Additionally, many of Pakistan’s complaints are shared by many other more disinterested observers around the world who agree that the move into Jammu and Kashmir is best explained not as a matter of national security but as the fulfillment of a long-standing Hindu nationalist priority. I was particularly strike by the way Mr. Jaishankar went about denying this accusation:

The former ambassador to Washington and Beijing also adamantly denied that there was a Hindu nationalist agenda in removing Kashmir’s special status in order to allow more non-Muslims to buy property there and muscle aside the Muslim majority.

“The kind of people who say this are people who don’t know India,” he said. “Does this sound like the culture of India?”

When I wrote about this situation a couple of weeks ago, I noted that the culture of India was very unlike the culture of Pakistan but that under the Hindu nationalist leadership of Modi the two countries were beginning to resemble each other. Unfortunately, this not because Pakistan is becoming more like India but because India is becoming more like Pakistan. So, no, what’s going on in New Dehli and in Kashmir does not sound like the culture of India. I think that’s what is most worrying about the fiasco.

Actually, the most worrying part is that a nuclear war might break out, but losing the traditional Indian culture with its reputation as the largest democracy in the world is definitely a close second.

The Trump administration seems totally disinterested in any of this, which shouldn’t surprise us. We’d be safer being led by the kind of mold culture you normally find at the back of your refrigerator.