Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) with US President Donald Trump (R)
Credit: Reuters File Photo
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington DC to meet United States President Donald Trump — the fourth world leader to do so after Trump assumed office — requires some deconstruction and demystification. As does his interaction with Elon Musk’s family flanked by the Indian foreign policy establishment.
The visit has been presented uncritically in India as an early engagement signalling India’s growing global influence, its strategic importance to the US, another step forward in strengthening bilateral relations and reflecting mutual respect and personal rapport between Modi and Trump. But it looks very much like bending a knee to the powerful even before being asked to do so.
A useful term to describe India’s responses would be anticipatory obedience — concept coined by Timothy Snyder, professor at Yale University in his book ‘On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century’ analysing fascism.
Anticipatory obedience in diplomacy can sometimes look like efficiency and even strategy, but it is anything but that. A pre-emptive action that involves giving up even before the contest has begun because of fear of consequences of differing with or disobeying a superpower.
India has been trying to appease Trump even before his inauguration on January 20. Four days earlier on January 16, India virtually accepted the US charge that one of its officials had a role in the conspiracy to kill an American citizen, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. An Indian government panel recommended action against the official involved in the plot.
India responded to Trump’s accusations of India being "a very big tariff abuser" and "tariff king" by a conciliatory signal to his administration before Modi’s visit on February 12-13. Presenting the Union Budget on February 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, unilaterally reduced tariffs on several products imported from the US. India is reportedly also considering lowering duty on 30 products imported from the US to avoid reciprocal tariffs.
When on February 5, a planeload of Indian illegal immigrants in fetters and handcuffs arrived from the US in a military aircraft, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told Parliament that this was “standard operating procedure” for deportations. The second and third lot of immigrants have also been brought back in fetters in US military aircraft, even after Modi’s US visit, as something routine. Nations like Colombia by contrast sent their own aircraft to prevent the humiliation of their citizens.
India also lost its position as the leader of the Global South in not criticising Trump’s declaration for ethnic cleansing of Gaza and announcing, as only a real estate dealer can do, that he intends to convert “unliveable” Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
However, the US had already got most of what it wanted during Modi’s visit to Washington DC. The US got a commitment from India to purchase military equipment including F35 stealth fighters on a government-to-government basis (without open tender based on India’s requirements), Poseidon long-range surveillance aircraft, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and Stryker infantry combat vehicles. It also agreed to buy more US oil and gas.
In return, India has got only high-sounding promissory notes — US India COMPACT (catalysing opportunities for military partnership, accelerated commerce and technology) for the 21st Century, the decision to conclude a new 10-year framework for US-India Major Defence Partnership for the 21st Century, and an Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance and ‘Mission 500’ — taking the volume of bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030. All of this is at the proposal stage.
However, if the commitment to defence purchases was to pre-empt pressure on trade and tariffs, India’s anticipatory obedience had clearly failed.
After the Modi visit, Trump in two separate announcements threatened 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium goods (affecting Indian aluminium exports) as well as cars, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals. India exports 47 per cent of generic drugs to the US and India’s pharma exports to the US were $8.73 billion in fiscal 2024, accounting for nearly 31 per cent of the industry’s overall exports.
In a first-of-its-kind joint interview that Trump gave to FOX News along with Elon Musk, he described India’s “100 percent tariffs” on certain goods as “very unfair”. He drove home his differences with Modi recounting their conversation overruling Modi’s objections to reciprocal tariffs and declared victoriously, “Nobody can argue with me.”
Anticipatory obedience did not then take India very far. The promises of purchasing defence goods, underwater technology co-operation, etc. that were given away for free, should have instead been used as bargaining chips during the trade and tariffs discussions.
Nevertheless, India’s leadership continues to respond to the US’ maverick leadership by pandering to its whims and trying to worm its way into its social circle. While in France for the AI conference, for example, Modi attended the birthday celebrations of US Vice President J D Vance’s son Vivek. He posted pictures of the event on social media and had gone carrying gifts for Vance’s three children in what was clearly a planned overture.
This diplomatic gesture was repeated for Musk with India’s entire foreign policy establishment in attendance at a meeting as Musk received them with his partner, children — X, Strider and Azure — and their nanny at Blair House in Washington DC. Modi carried gifts for the children — The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore, The Great R K Narayan Collection, and the Panchatantra by Vishnu Sharma.
All this touchy-feely diplomatic propaganda masked what Musk really wants from India — that his satellite-based Internet service Starlink be allowed to enter the Indian market via an administrative allocation of spectrum (as opposed to the hefty sums paid by the existing Indian players through competitive bidding), a reduction in import duties on electric vehicles, especially Tesla, whose low-cost models he hopes to sell in India, and a possible collaboration between Space X and Indian Space Research Organisation.
The propaganda packaging of Musk’s children etc. was part of a vaudeville show to deflect attention away from his leveraging of Trump’s presidency to expand his business in India. Even today, trade follows the flag as the world enters a new era of American imperialism.
India must realise that attempts to appease the bully could only embolden him. Trump respects strength, as Russia and China have shown. They have bent him to their will — he is seeking peace negotiations with one by withdrawing sanctions and a trade deal with the other. On the other hand, a perpetually obedient Ukraine has been cast aside. Surely there is a lesson for Indian diplomacy in this.
(Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.