Far be it for the United States of America to object if India squanders “billions of dollars" (which it can’t afford) on American arms. But does India really need the most expensive US defence product ever, which is also Lockheed Martin’s biggest earner, the F-35 stealth fighter jets, Donald Trump promised after a mellowing, four-hour tête-à-tête with Narendra Modi? Ordinary Indians might find hospitals and schools, homes and potable water, more useful.
The summit sounds like a make-believe Valentine’s Day sale after Delhi’s lieutenant-governor told the capital’s outgoing chief minister that the Aam Aadmi Party had lost because of the “curse of Yamuna maa”. He may not actually have said so but it would have suited the zeitgeist if he had. Millions of Indians would have swallowed the hint of divine retribution, hook, line and sinker. But why dwell on Indian credulity when the also larger-than-life US president says that he was “saved by God to 'Make America Great Again’?” It’s a faith he shares with Modi who told NDTV “I am convinced that ‘Parmatma’ (the Supreme Being) sent me for a purpose. Once the purpose is achieved, my work will be done.”
Was the purpose achieved when one godling promised to enrich the other? Even they may not know yet. “India is a very hard place to do business in because of the tariffs”, Trump moaned. The haggling has been deferred. But India need expect no special concessions although warmed by the glow of the Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods) drama that almost overwhelmed the run-up to the event, Modi hugged almost every American of position as a “great friend of India”. The more selective Trump’s personal invitation to the inauguration was confined to China’s Xi Jinping although Indians could wallow in the glory of Subrahmanyam Jaishankar being allotted a front-row seat at the event. That jubilation faded when 104 destitute and demoralised deportees shuffled onstage with shattered hopes matching the ignominy of iron shackles and the knowledge that the Americans had broadcast their dishonour to the world.
Recalling the Vietnam war slogan and now Asia’s mantra, 'Yankee go home but take me with you', Trump promised tariff exemption to those who set up shop in the US. Presumably, the promise includes green cards, the prize in any Indian dowry. America brings out the most inventive in us. Smug Indian diplomats who were at pains to impress on the natives that degrading deportees is par for the course may already have been thinking of their next US posting and the chances of them or their offspring being able to stay on in the land of the brave and the home of the free. The less privileged look forward to becoming “indentured servants”, as Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at California University, called H-1B visa holders. “These firms of the new economy,” he wrote in The Washington Post, “seem to be awfully fond of the old economy of two hundred years ago — when indentured servitude was in vogue.”
Trade and tariffs, security and strategy, immigration and illegals, AI, semiconductors and space dominated the talks. Underlying that agenda was the grim message that the presence in the US of some 725,000 undocumented — euphemism for illegal — Indian migrants conveys about the so-called vishwaguru among nations. Stamping out human traffickers is fine but they wouldn’t exist without a strong demand. The outlook in India must be really bleak for so many resourceful young Indians to make such tremendous sacrifices and take such enormous risks to escape India. A family of four froze to death near the US-Canada border; another family drowned trying to enter the US from Canada across the St. Lawrence river. The four million Mexican illegals and 750,000 El Salvadorians in the US didn’t suffer such long and arduous distances. Nor were entire families reduced to beggary to enable one member to reach for the crock of gold at the rainbow’s end. Adding insult to injury, the plight of 33 Gujarati deportees was an ironic reminder of the 'Gujarat model', which some want foisted on the entire country. Vikas gando thayo chhe (Truly has development gone crazy) as the protesters’ slogan had it.
None of this belittles America’s historic role in global development. It has distributed more than $3.8 trillion since 1948 when the US Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act after George C. Marshall, secretary of state, called for a comprehensive programme to save a rapidly deteriorating Europe from communism. Ukraine would probably have been welcome in NATO in those balmy days before Trump decided to boycott the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. His decision to freeze billions of dollars in international aid has produced chaos and consternation. Elon Musk, his choice to lead the department of government efficiency, called the United States Agency for International Development a “criminal organization” and said, “We’re shutting [it] down.” It looked like gratuitous sycophancy when a Bharatiya Janata Party MP, Nishikant Dubey, rushed to join vilifying an organisation to which many nations are deeply indebted.
Presumably placation, like lower tariffs and reduced fuel purchases from Moscow, is intended to lay the foundations of a strategic partnership with the lone superpower. It’s flattering that Trump’s first multilateral engagement should be with Quad representatives and that Modi should be only the fourth governmental head he deigned to receive. But Ukraine’s experience warns against expecting too much like direct US involvement on the Sino-Indian border. No matter what was agreed in Washington about Quad operations, weapons sales, technology transfer and intelligence sharing, the real obstacle to a meaningful partnership lies in domestic conditions here. India needs water that isn’t polluted with the fatal Guillain-Barré syndrome or the equally deadly Campylobacter jejuni bacteria more than it does fighter aircraft. Bullet trains might be nice but the Covid pandemic again highlighted the crying need for more than 1.3 hospital beds per thousand persons. The shortage of affordable housing is estimated to reach 31.2 million units by 2030. One reason why illiteracy is endemic is that even a thousand children don’t have a primary school among them. Mamata Banerjee for one makes no pretence of believing official statistics such as only 30 pilgrims dying in January’s Kumbh mela disaster. “Thousands may have died there … thousands!” was her contemptuous dismissal.
Her adviser, the economist, Amit Mitra, was even more sceptical about official claims as he taunted the prime minister about the hollowness of his ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ slogan. “If the bitter truth be told,” Mitra said, quoting the World Bank, “47 million people were unemployed, mainly youths, during the festive month of October 2023.” Mitra also pointed out that youth unemployment hit a record high 23.22% in 2022 when the comparable figures for Bangladesh and landlocked and resource-poor Bhutan were only 12.9% and 14.4%, respectively.
India doesn’t lead the world only in exporting cow dung to the US, Singapore and Maldives. India is also the world’s largest exporter of manpower, providing a not so flattering dimension to its boast of the biggest global diaspora. More than 30 million Indians have fled these shores and settled abroad because the motherland could not — and still cannot — guarantee them a decent living. Nothing reveals the truth of Indian conditions more vividly than last year’s rush of 4,817,441 applicants for 60,244 vacancies for police constables in Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh. It’s also revealing that nearly 42 lakh aspirants were from UP itself, the remainder being from adjoining regions that must be as destitute.
As for the US takeaway, Modi’s 'Make India Great Again' was a reminder of Oscar Wilde’s “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” No wonder Trump isn’t complaining.
