Obama's remarks were not against India — they were about India

Obama’s standing is not going to suffer if a clutch of Indian ministers or social media trolls pour scorn at him. On the contrary, India is gaining notoriety.

Something very bizarre is going on in our country’s public domain that has serious implications for India’s image abroad, and its foreign policies and diplomacy — our ruling elite’s assault on former United States President Barack Obama for his candid remarks about the state of the Indian nation, which coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US.

The 17th century expression ‘quixote’ comes readily to mind, which is used to describe people who do not distinguish between reality and imagination. With even senior Cabinet ministers gleefully joining the melee, what might have been the stuff of burlesque is taking a tragicomic hue. The only good part is that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has opted to watch from the shade, presumably for undertaking damage control if push comes to shove.

The quixotic element here is, paradoxically, the Indian ministers and the acolytes of the ruling elite are declining from illusion to reality. Both Obama and John Kirby, the spokesman of the National Security Council in the White House, are authoritative voices in the US discourses. Both are extremely well-informed men, and their opinions are taken seriously. In fact, not many Indians seem to be aware that all former US presidents are entitled to top secret briefings during their entire lifetime — something unthinkable in our political culture. The chances of Obama or Kirby gassing irresponsibly simply doesn’t arise.

Obama underscored the crucial importance of US President Joe Biden having an honest conversation with Modi regarding the growing disquiet in the American mind over happenings in India, and the strains they might put on the national unity eventually. Did Obama call India a ‘pariah’ state? His remarks were not directed against India — they were about India. It is a liberal internationalist perspective that Democratic Party administrations traditionally stood for. He spoke from his own country, exercising the freedom of speech that he was entitled to. Why should we take umbrage over it? It is for Biden to pull up Obama — which, significantly, he hasn’t done.

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Biden, an experienced politician, knows that Obama voiced an opinion that is widely shared within the Democratic Party. Whether our ruling elite like it or not, Obama is an iconic figure in US politics. His standing is not going to suffer if a clutch of Indian ministers or half-wits getting excited in the social media pour scorn at him. On the contrary, we are unnecessarily gaining notoriety. Saudi Arabia’s experience shows that such notoriety can eventually hurt Indian interests, as public perceptions do matter in US politics, and the Modi government’s focus is to project itself as a paragon of tolerance and pluralism.

Beyond a point, it becomes difficult to cherry pick drones and jet engines or Artificial Intelligence and microchips from the US-Indian basket. An expansive relationship with the US that the Modi government is desperately keen about can only come as a package. Successive Indian governments understood that value-based ties would be one defining characteristic of India-US ties. The Modi government cannot claim that India is a democracy and part of the democratic world, and at the same time, get worked up over what that entails.

This contradiction can be resolved only in two ways. One is the route that countries such as China, Russia, Iran, Vietnam or Cuba have adopted, which is to remain autarchic; the second route is to make a sincere effort to blend with like-minded countries. One can’t have it both ways. The choice is the Modi government’s.

Historically, India’s ruling elites have craved for acceptance in the West. Between the two mainstream parties, however, the Congress had a long history dating back to the freedom struggle when Western liberalism attracted its erudite leaders, many of whom were exposed to the European Enlightenment. That is evident in the making of India’s constitution itself.

The dilemma of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is that its leaders lack a cosmopolitan, liberal outlook, and espouse what passes for an ideology that is actually more of a tunnel vision. Besides, although Indian nationalism remained a strong undercurrent during the Congress-led freedom struggle, and in the navigation of government policies in the post-Independence period, including foreign policies, the BJP’s addiction to the muscular version of nationalism polarised the nation — and has no takers abroad.

Even in our immediate neighbourhood, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, two practising democracies, regard the recent avatar of Indian nationalism to be grotesque, lacking in compassion and humanism. Our close friends such as Japan or Australia, Iran or the UAE or even Russia and the Central Asian states who have an abiding interest in India, also must be sharing a sense of unease — although for reasons of expediency, they may keep their thoughts to themselves.

The Modi government cannot resolve this contradiction unless it resorts to a massive course correction, which involves nothing less than dumping the Hindutva ideology, but that of course is not going to happen. The politics of communal divide, which the BJP practices, requires that the cadre are kept perpetually in an animated state of militancy.

The BJP seems to estimate that even while whipping up jingoism by tearing into Obama, the government can also quietly cozy up to the Western liberal democracies and claim to be their natural allies. According to a Guardian report, while the Indian ministers are grandstanding in such vitriolic anti-Obama tirade, on another track, the Modi government is cogitating measures for damage control. This is a flawed assumption.

It is a wrong notion that modernity is about sartorial skills such as keeping silk pocket handkerchiefs. Whereas modernity is about the mind — values, thought processes, actions and attitudes, the scientific temper. The metropolis will never accept interlopers as equals.

(M K Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.