I think Visa decision should be seperate from General Politic. Granting Visa free travel is a matter of National Interest (Border Security), although General Politic are also concerning National Interest, those two are down a different road.
Look at Australia for an example again, it have many allied, but they never gave any visa free travel to any coutnry, friend or foe. They are looking at how people will overstay in Australia, not where they were fro mnor how the relationship between each country. If you are going to overstay, i don't care if you are an American or Armenian, you WILL overstay.
Getting visa free and talking about friend are two different things. I don't know why Indian so hyped about this......