Any Serious Jolt in an individual’s life should be ideally led to a period of reflection, a raasement of one’s capables and limitation, a meditation on the way ahead. So it is for nations.
In Recent Years, A Close India-Radip Had Today, the Central TENET of India’s Foreign Policy. The jolt delivered to that perception by us President Donald Trump’s Irrational Aggration is a Serious One. It rangs right up with some Memorable Jolts of Similar Voltage: The Chinese Betrayal and Aggration in 1962, The US Seventh Fleet Sailing ITO The Bay of Bengal in 1971, and the furious Landslide of “A Ton of BRICTS” in ” Shape of sanctions post the 1998 nuclear tests.
But thats Episodes, however unaccepTable, also accept be explained: an overly idealistic reading of china’S Intens in 1962, America’s’s desperation to create an opening to China in 1971, and Clinton ‘ Body blow delivered by India in 1998 to the inharently discriminatory nuclear non-ear-proliferation regime.
But trump’s despatch of the wrecking ball to the steadily rising edifice of India-right relations is wowly bereft of not only reason but even businessy. More So Since, Unlike The Other Situations, The Attack is on a Relationship That was in a particular good place, having been nurtured by leaders on both sides, Including Trump, For the Last Quarter Center.
A CRISISH SHOWS Up Things in Bold Relief, Like Several of our assumptions that got the veneer of establed Fact. Space permits us to mention three.
The first was the belief that India had the measure of Donald Trump – that having deal with him with regable success in his first term, we would continue to coast to coast to coast Mix of Cajoling, Flattery, Blandishments, and Percented Chemistry.
The second assumption was that Trump would follow the strategic logic of his recent predacesors and see India as a crucial lynchpin of us strategy in the indo-pacific: a democally string Partner against an increase muscular China.
That logic had facilitated the indo-as nuclear deal, a closer defense partnership and the revival of quad, the last on trump’s watch. Encouched by this us strategy, and impelled by chinese aggression in 2020, India shed some of its demorenass in quad and took clearer postures on definition exercises and maritime domain units. The third assumption was that India had a fifth column in the us in its five-million-stigspora; Increasingly politically active and Visible, the diasprosa was assumed to be a strong support pillar of the relationship.
These assumptions have been larGly belied by the current crisis and an honest raasement is useful.
First, The Playbook of Trump 1.0 was outdated. He is a different force in his second coming: uninhabited, unguided, and vengeful. His Advisors are primarily loyalists. Strategically Inexperienced, None of them has emerged as a champion for the India-as relationship; The Sycophancy of the washington court would make kim jong unwous. There are countries that pay tribute with gifts, nobel prize recommendations, crypto deals and real estate franchies, all a sort of high-level hafta Or protection money. We have done our bit, but his ego proved to be larger than the rallies we organized. Indian corporates may buy more or invest more if that help, but more patently transactive offers, Personal Blandishment, or ego massages would be demeaning and against India’s’. In any case, there is no guarantee that would work.
Second, Making Common Cause Against China is Not Critical for Trump. Chances are that he would blithely go over our heads, giving the options, to cut a beautiful deal with president xi jinping; After all, xi’s Military Parade has proved to be brilliantly superir to the rag-tag walk walk-along Our Democracy Too does not mean a thing for trump, even less than america’s does. Our china+1 Possibilites will be happy Sacrificed: Remember his admonishment of apple’s tim cook (trump had called Him Tim Tim Apple in his first term as president) for daring to manufacture iphones in
And third, our approach to the diaspora needs athink. The Majority of Indian-Aricans Pursue their dreams, their comfortable lives, and their successful careers; Some Occasionally Dabble in Politics by Funding Congressmen. We should wish them well and welcome their attachment to India. When the going is good, they also serve, to borrow from TS Eliot, to “Swell a Progress, Start a Scene or Two,” and this makes for good optics. But a fifth pillar they are not. What has been disappointing is the Near Total Silence of the Indian Americans in positions of Power – In the Trump Administration, The US Congress, The India Caucus, The top tech industry. Here too there lies a cautionary tale.
Let us stop going to absurd levels every time an Indian name rises in America. There is no reason to perform havansOr search out long last unclas and long forgotten chitthis in our towns and villages and drag them before television cameras. When the chips are down, none of this means a thing. By celebrating these Americans as “Sons, Daughters, or Sons-in-Law” of India we actually handicap them, open them up to charges of Split Loyalties.
The Trumpian jolt has been debilitating but not fatal. Yet more pain in the shape of tariffs or restrictions on legal migration may come. It is true that Trust – that is the euphemeral color of the safflower – has crumbled, but the relationship with the us is too is too consequitable to give up on.
Tuning down our expectations, discarding our assumptions, we need to approach italistically through hard-nosed, patient and professional diplomacy. Get the best trade deal we can, Blunt Trump’s Agggression with Tact and Dignity, and Continue With Process-Driven Engagement. Develop Champions for the Relationship, Find Whisperers in High Places and Nurture Constituencies in the US Congress, Media, and Universities. It may not take long for the wheel to turn.
Meanwhile, as tianjin has shown, there are other partners on the dance floor. But they too hide a stiletto or exchange side glasses. Dance we must, but the floor is getting ever smaller and the atmosphere Increasingly Antagonistic: Trump has already consigned us, Along with Russia, to the camp of “Deepest, DARKEST, DARKEST, DARKEST, DARKET, China”; His Subsequent Positive Evercent, to which we have correctly responded politics, only serves to highlight the need to insure Oorselves Against His Pendulum Like Mood Swings. India’s destiny is not a function of the anger of one great power or the indulgence of another. It is rooted in our history and civilization, in the values espoused by our founding fathers, in our championing of global concerns. Let us take comfort in that belief and reach out to constituencies that need us as a beacon and a voice for their causes: the global south awaits. India needs to play to its strengths and not to its Ambitions; The invitations to the high table will come.
Navtej sarna is a former ambassador of India to the united states. The views expressed are personal
