By M D Nalapat
Those
eager to ensure friction, want Trump to bring up issues that impinge on
India’s sovereignty, aware that Modi would react strongly to any such
efforts.
Both
during the 2016 Presidential campaign trail and in his previous avatar
as a billionaire businessperson, President Donald John Trump had
integrated India as a core component of the global order in his policies
and actions. However, since his inauguration on 20 January and
subsequently, very little mention has been made of India in the
statements made by spokespersons for the Trump administration, while, as
yet, several posts relevant to relations with India (such as that of
Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia) remain unfilled.
However, the incoming US Ambassador to
India, Ken Juster, was informed two months ago that he was the White
House choice for the post, and his nomination has been made official
days before the 26 June first-ever meeting between Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and President Trump. The chemistry between the two will
play an important role in ensuring that the India-US alliance, which was
first initiated by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, becomes a reality during the terms in office of Trump and Modi.
This may already have occurred during the first two years of NDA-II,
which began in 2014, but for foot-dragging by those loyal to Bill and
Hillary Clinton, who were disproportionately influential during the
Barack Obama administration, relative to the Obama loyalists, although
less so in the 44th US President’s second term (2013-17). It was known
within the Washington Beltway—the US equivalent of India’s Lutyens
Zone—that (former) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held the view that
the benefits of a close alliance with India were “oversold” by
Condoleezza Rice and others in the Bush team, and that far greater
emphasis needed to be paid on ensuring improved relations with China,
her rhetoric to the contrary. Although Defense Secretary Ashton Carter,
in particular, sought to speed up the process of partnering with India
in matters of security, he met a stone wall on the Indian side with
Defence Minister A.K. Antony, whose view of the world seems to have been
unaffected since the 1960s’ heyday of the Soviet Union. While President
Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saw the advantages, to both, of
much closer India-US ties, the former was slowed down by the
Clintonites in his administration and the latter by the leadership of
the Congress Party, which went largely by the views of Antony in such
matters, despite the close personal friendship between Sonia Gandhi and
Hillary Clinton.
Once Prime Minister Modi came to power on
26 May 2014, he adopted a careful approach towards transforming the
chemistry and approach of the Central higher bureaucracy, even inducting
several into his team who were charter members of the Lutyens’ Zone.
President Trump had (in the start of his administration) a different
approach, looking for a speedy transition from the traditional Beltway
policies and practices to a construct more in tune with current
realities. However, the blowback that Trump has been receiving from the
Beltway shows that Modi was correct in his caution, as overall the Prime
Minister of India has in three years had a far more peaceful innings
than the US President in just six months of his term. However, as a
consequence of the high initial level of representation of the Lutyens’
Zone in the NDA II government, progress has been slower than expected on
some fronts, including that of US-India relations. This despite the
warmth and commitment of both President Obama as well as Prime Minister
Modi to each other, and to much closer ties. Prime Minister Modi, now
that he has mastered the intricacies of Central administration, rather
than that of a state, may be expected to accelerate towards a much more
transformative structure of governance, in this sense matching the
attempted speeds of President Trump in his own administration. The
bureaucratic speed-breakers to a much more rapid overall congruence and
in several respects convergence of Washington-Delhi policies and actions
are getting weaker on the Indian side. However, in Washington, the
“Beltway” establishment (both Republican as well as Democrat) is still
powerful enough to have a high degree of success in blocking many of
President Trump’s initiatives.
EFFORTS TO DERAIL
In the US, the higher layers of the
federal bureaucracy are composed of what may be termed “political
bureaucrats”, i.e., officials chosen by politicians and usually on
political considerations. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus,
apparently, still considers himself to be beholden to the entire
leadership of the Republican Party, which he was while Chair of the
Republican National Committee, forgetting that from 20 January onwards,
his loyalty needed to be directed solely in the direction of President
Trump. Over the past months, Priebus has instituted a quota system in
the US administration, trying to select candidates for high positions
that are a mix of those loyal to George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John
McCain and other Republican Party heavyweights. The problem is that
these party grandees would be (not so secretly) delighted were Trump to
be made to step down as early as possible. Hence, some of those
appointed to high office by the Trump team see as their primary interest
the failure of the 45th President of the United States to implement the
agenda for which he was elected. Should the 26 June Trump-Modi meeting
go well, it would redound to the credit of President Trump and lead
substantially towards the long-cherished objective of an India-US
alliance for security and prosperity that would in its effects span the
globe. Hence, they are seeking to ensure that the meeting goes badly, by
seeking to ensure that President Trump brings up issues that impinge on
the sovereignty and self-respect of India, aware that Prime Minister
Modi is 100% a nationalist, who would react strongly to any such
efforts.
Among the issues they would like Trump to
bring forward for discussion are issues relating to some NGOs operating
in India that have been reported as having indulged in activities that
have the potential to cause mayhem and violence. Other issues sought to
be introduced into the conversation relate to some of the matters that
have been exciting both foreign and domestic media during the past
weeks, including matters of diet. Another googly being suggested is to
bring up the cordial relations that Delhi has with both Teheran and
Moscow, of course for valid geopolitical reasons. The expectation of
those in the Trump administration who are eager to ensure friction, and
not understanding, during the Modi-Trump summit is that the introduction
of such issues into the Modi-Trump dialogue would visibly set relations
back, thereby slowing down the momentum already generated by previous
heads of government in both Delhi and Washington. However, the few
within the Trump administration who are genuine loyalists of the 45th US
President (and not of his Republican traducers) say that Trump is fully
aware of such moves and will ensure that they are not given a chance to
work. They say that while such issues may figure in some conversations,
these would be at a lower level and privately.
From the very first days of his ascension
to office, Prime Minister Modi showed his goodwill for the US by
casting aside years of hostility manifested in the denial of a US visa
to him and making thus far four successful visits to the US. Those
familiar with President Trump say that he is in sync with Modi on the
need for the US and India to work closely together, and can be expected
to ensure that the Prime Minister’s potentially very consequential visit
to Washington ends up as productive and ground-breaking. On the Indian
side, although there are issues relating to US policy that are of
concern, such as recent changes in visa rules in some categories or
climate-related matters, these are expected to be dealt with at a lower
level and mostly in closed-door sessions, so that the overall
atmospheric remain cordial, an important consideration in a democracy.
Prime Minister Modi is going the extra mile to ensure this, for example,
by refusing to accept the invite by some organisations in cities across
the US to address mass rallies of Indian-Americans during his latest US
visit. Such meetings may give rise to anti-immigrant feelings in a
section of Trump supporters about Indian-Americans, despite this group
being the most law-abiding and high (average) tax-paying of any ethnic
community settled in the US. Hence the expectations on the part of both
Modi as well as Trump loyalists are that there would be a Trump-Modi
breakthrough in US-India relations on 26 June. This would ensure that
the two democracies move largely onto the same page in confronting
threats and taking advantage of opportunities in the Indo-Pacific
century.
No comments:
Post a Comment