Well, they are the rulers of the world, according to them, and they have the authority to interfere into others. But, how can you be a part of the western empire and act like an emperor yourself?
Anyone that wants to join the western alliance has to conform to US dictates and India is never going to do that. But US gave India a lot of leeway because it was so worried about China's rise. US thought it needs India eventhough India is too much of a superpower-wannabe. But I think they are realizing now that India took advantage of US generosity for too long without giving anything back. So, Now they are lashing out at India.
There are two ways how this ends. India realizes it needs the west to survive the rise of China and thus bows its head down to US dictates and thus becomes a vassal. Or US gets too desperate about China's rise and thinks it needs India too much to be a counterweight. Then it gives up on trying to make India bow down, and again gives India lots of perks to try to entice India to join US alliance.
I think this back forth between will continue for sometime, where both US and India will have good relations for a while and then again bad relations.
I think there's a lot of merit in what you say, but I think that the Americans have decided that the Indians simply isn't very useful. All that India really offers is an way to challenge China, but does really though? If you look at economics, industry, diplomacy, resources, and military, the only thing that India could help would have been on the military front. But May 7 showed how weak India's military is, and there's no signs that it'll get any stronger within the next decade. So until India gets a lot stronger, the US just doens't have much use for them.
And on the other side, the one thing that India can't do is to be a proper vassal to anyone. That hurts the Jai Hind pride too badly, and it'll lead to suicide at the next election. There's no way the BJP can do that, and so they simply can't bend the knee. Unless there's another military flashpoint, it's hard to see how India will align with the US. And as China isn't interested in military adventurism, it'll be up to India to start a crisis.
Nice but long. They talk about how it's bad for the US to believe in all the wrong things out there about China on why it's challenging the US because it's just as excuse for Americans not to do what it takes to be in the competition.
It'd be a good idea for Americans to look into what Chinese leaders say, but that's not going to happen any time soon. They don't even seem to know what Chinese leaders say about
Taiwan, so expecting any more than that just seems impossible. It's an utterly self-destructive practice, but Americans seem to love indulging in self-destructive practices so that's par for course.