Correct. During China's Wuhan Covid-19 crisis. The US-China trade war was still raging. China was getting ripped by the Western media. Themes like "Yellow Alert", China is the Real Sick Man", and Gordon Chang's prediction that finally, China is going down. India must have drank a lot of that Gordon Chang Kool-Aid. Thinking that this is its time to shine. By kicking China when its down.
India launched a full blown smear campaign against China. It was not just the Indian phony media, there were also the Indian companies, Indian government, Indian intellectuals, and even the Indian citizens doing their part. There are media hit pieces, government offering incentives for big corporations to move to India, lobbying in Western countries, and anti-China social media campaigns. Months before Galwan. India had already started a boycott campaign against China. At that time it was because of the "Wuhan Virus". The most well known was the boycotting of Chinese test kits and PPEs.
Indeed, China made compromises with India during the 2017 Doklam crisis. They stopped their road building and launched a charm offensive with Modi. (I'm not sure today if China walked back on that road building halt agreement. Why bother to honour it anymore?) China had thought that its goodwill will be reciprocated by India. But BJP India had no concept of diplomatic etiquette. To them, China's compromise is a weakness, and India had won by playing hardball. Whether its hubris, or shallow strategic thinking, or both. India thought that China's 'weakness' is something to be taken advantage of. Its an Indian thing to take advantage of another's weakness. After all, India had blockaded Nepal in Sept 2015, when Nepal was still recovering from their April 2015 earthquake.
China had made a mistake in assuming that India's 'non-alignment' is neutrality. India's version of non-alignment is not the same as ASEAN's non-alignment. India wants to be its own hegemon in Asia, but it would also scheme its way to get there. If India could scam (or think it is scamming) another Superpower to take on China for it, all the better. It was the Soviet Union then, its Uncle Sam today. India was already in the US's camp starting from the George W. Bush presidency. India and the US had signed their Civil Nuclear Agreement in 2006, just eight years after India's 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests. How many countries can boast such a quick recovery of ties with the US from nuclear test outrage to signing a nuclear agreement? NK would be so jealous. Plus the US and India had being doing many military exercises already, long before Modi came to power.
In short, India just wants China out of the way. Whether its ruled by the Congress government, or the BJP government. Even in India's early years, India never saw China as a fellow Asian equal who also suffered from Western imperialism. Its was never about anti-imperialism. Its about replacing old Western imperialism with new Indian imperialism.
