One of the only predictable things about Donald Trump is that the US president’s fidgety fingers won’t rest until they’ve pushed out misspelt, provocative rants on Truth Social in the middle of the night.
As he did on the night of April 22-23.
Trump didn’t type out the post himself on this occasion, so it didn’t have typographical errors. But that small mercy was offset by the contents of the post.
Referring to arguments before the US Supreme Court against Trump’s plans to limit birthright citizenship — the principle under which anyone born in that country is automatically entitled to citizenship — Michael Savage, a pro-Trump, conservative commentator, described China and India as “hellholes”, while also suggesting that Chinese and Indian nationals scammed the system to get their relatives American citizenship. By sharing that screed, Trump appeared to be endorsing Savage’s views. Hours later, Ram Madhav, a senior leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and a foreign policy ideologue of the ruling establishment, was seemingly not angry but hurt about why the Indian government despite, according to him, bending over backwards to appease Trump, was not seen as loyal enough by the White House.
“India agreed to stop buying oil from Iran. We agreed to stop buying oil from Russia despite so much criticism from our opposition. India agreed to a 50% tariff without saying too much. So where exactly is India not doing enough to work with America?” Madhav wondered. He later said that he misspoke.
But as much as what was said, India should be hurting over what was not said.
At the ministry of external affairs’ weekly media briefing on April 23, Randhir Jaiswal was asked to respond to Trump’s post. His response: “We have seen some reports. That is where I leave it.”
After the US embassy in New Delhi tried to suggest that Trump values his relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India, the government decided that it couldn’t quite “leave it”. So it issued a mealy-mouthed statement that spoke of “a social media post that referred, among others, to Indians.”
“The remarks are obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste. They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship…”
Sorry, but this was not “a social media post” that happened to be “uninformed” and “inappropriate”. This was the president of the US.
Unfortunately, the episode does appear to “reflect the reality of the India-US relationship”. If one partner feels it can abuse the other, and the other feels it can’t even identify the abuser directly, that relationship is not healthy.
To be sure, Indian diplomacy has always been measured. And there is no value in trying to match Trump’s gutter talk. But there’s a range of options that Indian governments have previously explored when unhappy with US actions: from diplomatic protests to tit-for-tat measures when Indian diplomats in America have been targeted, for instance.
Did the current government at least demand, quietly, that Trump pull down that post? That if not Trump himself, the White House or the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, publicly make clear that they do not endorse the view that India is a hellhole? Did it even summon the US ambassador to India to lodge a protest?
We know of no such action.
What we do know is that the Iranian consulate in Hyderabad has defended India more boldly than the Indian government has. “China and India are cradles of civilisation. In fact, the #hellhole is where its war-criminal president threatened to decimate the civilization in Iran,” it wrote on X.
For a government that boasts of an assertive foreign policy, this should be a moment of embarrassment.
Four days after it was shared, Trump’s post describing India as a hellhole is
still up. And because of its feeble response, India’s stature as a nation capable
of standing up for itself is down.
Charu Sudan Kasturi is a journalist who specialises in foreign policy and international relations