India is the fastest-growing fifth largest economy in the world with a market of 140 crore people, it has no reason to suffer Trump’s bluster

A crucial debate missing from the USAID debate is fundamental to India’s foreign policy, and that is that the USA has admitted that it has been interfering in India’s internal matters. Donald Trump’s statement that USAID funds have been used to improve the voter turnout during elections is an admission of guilt by the US administration. Surprisingly, the Modi government has been keeping quiet, and the opposition has also glossed over the issue.

Even foreign policy experts and former career diplomats are not speaking about it. Should it be then understood that the foreign policy consensus, built since the time of prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and which was the cardinal principle of global world order that no country, big or small, would interfere in the internal affairs of another country, is no longer valid?

Since the Second World War, the idea of sovereignty has been sacrosanct and has been the defining creed of a civilised world. So, can we say that since the entire global order has been in turmoil after Trump became the new boss of the USA, and the idea of sovereignty has been deeply brutalised , India should be at the forefront to oppose these tendencies?

But why the Indian government is silent is a mystery for me. This is more suspicious, as the government has been bragging for the last ten years that India has emerged as a global power and Modi is regarded as a global leader. By now, Trump has repeated the same thing five times, and every statement is a brazen assertion that the USA has been trying to impact India’s electoral process.

It is astonishing that his statement has been turned into a political war between the Congress and the BJP, with each calling the other conspirator in destabilising the democratic process of the country. But no one has the wisdom to call out the main agent, the USA, and question why it is indulging in destabilising India’s democracy? 

Nehru was the architect of India’s foreign policy. After the Second World War, when the world was divided into two ideological blocks, India did lean towards the USSR for ideological reasons, but even then it maintained its independence. It created a third block of newly independent nations, and Nehru, along with Tito and others, gave shape to the Non-Aligned Movement. During the Bangladesh war, when the US threatened to send its seventh fleet, the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, did not succumb under pressure.

India stood its ground and succeeded in creating Bangladesh. After the demise of the Cold War and the disintegration of the USSR, which led to the disappearance of communist regimes the world over, India-US relations took a positive turn, but even then, India refused to toe American dictates. Since then, India has also dismantled its socialistic regime, adopted a market economy and has scaled new heights in improving its economy.

Today, India is the fastest-growing, fifth largest economy in the world, with a vast market of 140 crore people, and it has no reason to suffer Trump’s bluster. In this context, India should have lodged its diplomatic protest to America. Instead, India’s external affairs ministry is saying that the USAID’s disclosure is problematic and the Vice President of India is indirectly accusing the Opposition. Equally baffling is the government’s underplaying of the deportation of Indians in inhuman conditions.

Jaishankar has gone to the extent of telling half-truths to the Parliament that deportation is nothing new and that it has happened in the past too. He forgot to say that the issue was not the deportation of illegally residing Indians in the USA but of Indians being sent in a military aircraft, handcuffed and shackled, and this happened after Modi met Trump in Washington, DC. While countries like Columbia and Venezuela protested against similar treatment meted out to their citizens, India kept mum. 

In 2013, when India’s junior diplomat, Devyani Kharbagde, was handcuffed and strip-frisked, the Manmohan Singh government had lodged a strong protest with the then American ambassador to India, Nancy Powell. What is stopping the government now? I can understand that Trump is a bully, and he is out to disrupt the world order.

At a time when Trump is making outrageous policy statements, that America can buy Greenland from Denmark; that Canada should merge itself as the 51st state of the USA, that Gaza should be cleaned up of Gazans for the creation of a real estate riviera, etc, it is difficult for India to reposition its foreign policy paradigm.  Modi says that every crisis can be turned into an opportunity. However, no opportunity in the world can be availed if an impression is created that India is succumbing to Trump’s pressure. 

India should do three things. One, it should send a clear message to the Trump administration that it can’t be bullied and that America equally depends on India for trade and other matters. The government should use India’s powerful diaspora for this purpose. Second, the Modi government should create a national consensus on its foreign policy formulations. At this time, India should not be seen to be divided on ideological lines. Three, it should try to reach out to European and other powerful Asian countries, as Nehru did at the beginning of the Cold War.

Hope good sense will prevail. India is an ancient civilisation, and it can’t be seen to be intimidated by the bluffs of a man who is out to destroy everything that has governed the world since WWII. This is the time for India to play a historical global role, like Nehru played.