If this summer hadn't presented a bushfire crisis of unprecedented scale in south-eastern Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison would have spent this week in India.

A whirlwind three-city expedition was the plan, aimed at building closer ties to India generally and better military co-operation specifically.

Having holidayed in Hawaii as the bushfire crisis built, and with the disaster response still in its early stages, Mr Morrison could not afford to spend this week abroad.

So, instead of a state reception in New Delhi and delivering the keynote address to the Raisina Dialogue — India's high-profile security forum — the Prime Minister sent an apologetic video explaining his absence, leaving the trip in the hands of Foreign Minister Marise Payne.

Quad goals: Australia, India and the Indo-Pacific

Three of the four leaders of "The Quad": Donald Trump, Japan's Shinzo Abe and India's Narendra Modi. ( Reuters: Kevin Lamarque )

Central to the trip to New Delhi and the planned stop-over in Tokyo was improving defence co-operation.

As power shifts in the region, with China's growing assertiveness and the ebbing of United States primacy, so too does Australia's calculus on how to manage those changes.

Increasingly, that means working with the other countries of "The Quad" — India, Japan and the United States.

A bit of history: In 2007, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe initiated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which drew together Japan, the US, India and Australia for security talks.

It was short-lived. China lodged formal protests to each government, viewing "The Quad" as the neighbourhood ganging-up against it, though participants always denied it was part of a containment strategy.

The Rudd government withdrew in 2009, but a patchwork of co-operation between the nations continued through government and military links.

But "The Quad" was revived in 2017 and Australia now wants a role in Exercise Malabar — the annual military exercises between the other three countries in the Quad.

Exercise Malabar sees Japan, India and the US hold joint military exercises — but Australia has so far been excluded. ( Reuters: Nobuhiro Kubo, file )

India blocked Australia from participating in 2018 over concerns it would aggravate China at a time when those two nations were entangled in a border dispute of their own.

Whether the circumstances have changed sufficiently, or Australia's case for inclusion is more persuasive now, is unclear.

But aside from Exercise Malabar, Australia is likely to draw closer to India militarily.

An agreement for the Australian Defence Force and Indian Armed Forces to use each other's military bases is expected to be struck and more joint exercises are likely.

Morrison and Modi: a missed opportunity?

A picture with Mr Modi is politically valuable, something Mr Trump was well aware of when the Indian leader visited the US. ( AP: Evan Vucci )

While military co-operation will progress without Mr Morrison's personal presence, it is a missed opportunity for him to push Australia's interests with one of the most powerful political leaders in the world.

Successive Australian governments have seen a bounty of business opportunities in India, but each has struggled to turn the potential into actual economic gains.

Education, science and technology and agribusiness, among others, are sectors that have been identified as waiting to fulfil that potential.

But the postponement also means less focus on the Federal Government's support for increasing coal exports to India, at a time when Australia's climate change policies are under international scrutiny.

No future date has been nominated for the trip and it won't be easy to reschedule, largely due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's busy schedule more so than Mr Morrison's.

Mr Morrison may also have anticipated electoral positives with Australia's growing Indian diaspora from being pictured with Narendra Modi.

Mr Modi is also partial to taking selfies with world leaders, sharing them with his millions of Twitter followers. ( Twitter: @narendramodi )

US President Donald Trump saw political benefit from standing alongside Mr Modi before American-Indians in Texas.

However, Mr Modi is currently facing a domestic backlash in some quarters for a new law, the Citizenship Amendment Act, that discriminates against Muslim immigrants.

On hold: Official handover of Indian statues delayed

For India, Mr Morrison's absence appears to mean yet another delay in the return of culturally significant artefacts from the National Gallery of Australia.

In 2014, then-prime minister Tony Abbott returned the "Dancing Shiva" statue to Narendra Modi, which had been stolen from a temple and sold to the gallery by disgraced New York art dealer Subhash Kapoor.

While the Dancing Shiva has been returned, many more artefacts remain in Australia. ( ABC News )

The NGA has more than 20 items of questionable or unclear provenance and Mr Morrison intended to hand back three of them on this trip — a pair of 15th-century dvarapala (door guardians) and a Nagaraja (serpent king) statue dated to the 6th to 8th century.

But while the three items are now in India's custody, the formal handover will be delayed until Mr Morrison's trip is rescheduled.

This is likely to disappoint the government in New Delhi, which has been eager for more progress on the repatriation of significant cultural items, particularly the cache of high-profile pieces held in Australia.

As the Federal Government assesses its future in the Indo-Pacific, the strength of Australia's ties to India will be more important than ever.

Merely noticing India's potential will not be enough.

While Scott Morrison has higher priorities at home right now, he will need to make that voyage to India sooner rather than later.