On September 10, Narendra Modi led Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Justin Trudeau and other world leaders on a morning wreath-laying visit to Rajghat, a New Delhi memorial to India’s slain independence hero Mahatma Gandhi. 

The spectacle, on day two of the G20 summit, of the Indian prime minister leading the world’s most powerful people, either barefoot or slippered and wearing shawls, produced striking images that reinforced both Modi’s image domestically and India’s ascent globally as a diplomatic and economic power.

But behind the scenes, a conflict was brewing that within a week would escalate into an acute diplomatic crisis, alarming India’s western allies, and raising fundamental questions over the image the country curated at the summit of itself as vishwaguru, or teacher to the world.