A sense of unconcealed glee has marked India’s Opposition to the punitive ‘sanctions’ that President Donald Trump has imposed on India for its refusal to heed Washington’s instruction to stop purchasing Russian oil. It is not that the cluster of parties that span the entire ideological spectrum from the Left to the far-Right is somehow enamoured of the American president. Far from it. Their disavowal of Trump equals the intensity of the radicals who are dreaming of creating an alternative republic centred on New York City. What appeals to them about what a writer in the Financial Times described as Trump’s “roving banditry” is that it is giving many awkward moments to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The taunts that the entire Right
ecosystem in India have been subjected to for its belief in a new, enhanced relationship with the United States of America are, of course, understandable. Unlike many governments — not least India’s neighbours, Pakistan and Bangladesh — that greeted the emphatic Trump victory with considerable
trepidation, India was among the few countries where a lot of hope was pinned on the new dispensation. The crackdown on illegal immigration which would undoubtedly affect many Indian nationals living without proper documentation in the US was never a cause of undue concern. The image of Indians overseas as exemplary, enterprising, educated, law-abiding people with value systems that corresponded closely with those of the Republican Right was always
expected to give India-US ties an additional boost. Instead, what has transpired in the past few months has been totally unexpected.
To repose excessive hope in India finding a cushion in repairing its relationship with China is unreasonable. India isn’t a totalitarian country where public opinion is expected to follow the journey of the leader. Joseph Stalin may have got the entire communist movement to do a sudden U-turn after the non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in 1939, but it is unlikely that public opinion in India will suddenly discover hidden virtues in Xi Jinping, even if, as is expected, Beijing runs an extra mile or two to embrace India on the rebound. There are just too many associated foreign policy shifts that must be made if the handshakes from Beijing are to be more than gestures of courtesy. It would necessarily involve reforging India’s entire foreign policy. There is nothing to suggest that Modi is in a mood to respond to Trump’s dadagiri by stepping into unknown territory.
The challenges before India should not be underestimated. The assertion that Trump has overplayed his hand and will sooner or later come to his senses is based, as yet, on wishful conjecture. The so-called recession and a steep spike in the US’s domestic inflation that the legacy media believed were imminent haven’t quite materialised. Nor is there any evidence that domestic opposition to Trump’s radical reordering of everything has escalated to the level of a political challenge. On the contrary, the world has been gobsmacked by Europe’s quiet surrender before the Trump steamroller at a televised function in the White House. Whether this public announcement of Europe’s collective irrelevance will save either NATO or Ukraine is a matter best left to astrologers to decide. It is entirely possible that Trump will decide that Russia can have a slice of the Russian-speaking provinces of Ukraine if that bolsters his case for being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, it is impossible to entirely discount the likelihood of him starting hostilities against Russia. When it comes to anticipating his future moves, Trump has put the tribe of risk analysts completely out of business.
For India, there are two problems to negotiate. Topping the list is the US president’s profound irritation — that could well turn into rage — at what he believes is India’s unbudging insolence. The list of Trump’s issues with Modi makes for interesting reading. India has refused to acknowledge any Trump role in the termination of India-Pakistan hostilities in the wake of Operation Sindoor; it has chosen to defend its oil purchases from Russia on grounds of ‘strategic autonomy’; and a similar assertion of national independence has been invoked to categorically rebuff US demands to open up the farm sector to American exports. What may have irked Trump more is that India has simultaneously chosen to make a big deal of its bonhomie with Vladimir Putin and its willingness to explore possibilities in its dealings with China. Viewed from his perspective, Modi must be cut to size.
From an Indian perspective, the problems are compounded by the relative paucity of its influence with the Trump administration. The writer, Walter Russell Mead, an influential public intellectual who understands the Republican Establishment well, has suggested that there is no one in Trump’s charmed circle who can persuasively present India’s case to those who matter. The principal reason for this is the fact that Indian diplomacy in the US has been ministry of external affairs-centric. This has meant that two flanks of the Trump ecosystem have been left relatively unattended. The most important has been the non-inclusion of business leaders — both from India and techies with strong India links — in the new Washington environment. To add to this is the complete absence of a parallel political engagement with either the MAGA or the more traditional conservative players. India’s think tanks tend to see themselves principally as global seminarists rather than upholders of the national interest.
Many of these shortcomings can, of course, be addressed without too much internal dislocation. The more difficult business lies in accommodating interests that seem to be either entirely personal or involve a potential loss of sovereignty. The settlement over crypto with Pakistan and facets of the understanding with Qatar give the impression that Trump doesn’t always make a distinction between personal interests and public policy. In the case of the Non-Disclosure Agreement with Bangladesh, the underlying assumption is that the state department will always determine the identities of those who rule nominally from Dhaka. It will be worth examining how many of Trump’s ‘deals’ have a shelf life in the next administration.
There are inherent dangers of Trump’s judgement being dictated by short-term calculations. It has been argued by shrewd Trump-watchers — an emerging growth industry — that the only way to assess the president is through the prism of a day trader in the stock markets. His preferences are entirely guided by what gains can be accrued in the few hours of trading. The next day, he starts afresh notwithstanding his preferences of the preceding day of trading. A close scrutiny of the troubleshooting style of the businessman, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, would suggest that the onerous burdens of history are not necessarily carried on the shoulders of this new diplomacy.