India will have no role to play in any anti-American conspiracy. Russia seems to be positioning SCO differently to India in order to get us on board. Asking us to join SCO to 'counter' the Chinese influence. But lets consider the geopolitical significance of this organization from an Indian perspective.
1) India has only 2 natural adversaries, Pakistan and China. Both these countries are (or will soon be) members of SCO. We know fully well that Pakistan is not committed to ending terrorism anywhere in the world. They just butter the american bread whenever Bush or someone else is on a visit, with staged arrests of Jihadis. So SCO is another useless organization on the anti-terrorism front.
2) Why would India join an organization called "Shanghai" Cooperative Organization to counter Chinese influence in it as Russia would want us to? The significance is too heavy in the name itself.
3) India s more to gain from trade with the USA than trade with China. China might be growing much faster as a trade partner but being a trade partner is both buying and selling. Indians aren't happy to sell their raw materials to the Chinese who dump cheap stuff on us after.
4) So why does India not reject the organization outright?
- OIL - Central Asian countries have reasonably good relations with India. We don't want the Chinese to monopolise central-asian oil. This will happen if India doesn't play ball with these dictators. The fact that it was Murli Deora, the Indian oil minister who visited Shanghai for the SCO meet, supports my point.
- Russian Arms - We must admit that Russian arms are important to us. We don't care for much else from the Russians. But they have stood by us through a lot of sanctions that the Americans had placed against us. When America can come through as a more dependable supplier of Arms, we might want to align ourselves more openly against America's enemies.