The myth of Western superiority

IN PERSPECTIVE

As the November US presidential elections approach, there is a sense of foreboding that nothing is going right for a nation that has taken its global leadership position seriously for more than a century now. For a purported example of liberal democracy, there are questions if the election verdict delivered in November would even be respected. There is fear of violence which is charging up an already intense polarisation.

Washington’s response to Covid-19 pandemic has been so haphazard that no one is even looking at the US for answers. Early reports in January of an outbreak of an unfamiliar virus in Wuhan morphed into a full-blown global pandemic by the end of February. In the absence of an effective medical response, the only available option was to shut down the entire economy. As a consequence, today the US is reeling under an unemployment crisis with numbers that match those of the Great Depression. There are concerns that as many as 100,000 small US businesses are likely to go bust. The US-China trade and technology conflict is fast becoming the fundamental faultline in global politics, with no real prospect of a reconciliation.

The self-professed image constructed by the US of itself as a global leader stands tarnished beyond recognition as the devastation caused by the coronavirus still continues unabated, with no sign that the political system is able to contain the damage. This crisis has exposed the weak underbelly of the US as the country’s weak welfare state and shambolic policy response have only exacerbated the current crisis. Around 43% of people live in the US without any type of health insurance or with minimal protection from the government’s Medicare or Medicaid programmes and this crisis has been wreaking havoc on them.

And even as this crisis was brewing, racial tensions got ignited in America by an ugly incident of police brutality. The killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, at the hands of the Minneapolis police in May, sparked a furious backlash from all sections of American society, leading to protests, violence, rioting and police crackdowns. For a nation that has often lectured the rest of the world on governance and human rights, America has been found wanting at a time of grave national crisis. The protests in the US, which continue even today, have further polarised America as violent reprisals against the police have increased.

The political leadership in America is not interested in healing, in unifying and bringing the country together. These are election times and pandering to their respective vote banks has meant that US President Donald Trump is trying to project it as a law and order issue even as his own rhetoric towards his political opponents has been incendiary, like saying that “the only good democrat is a dead democrat.” The legitimacy of American institutions is at an all-time low. The protests are fuelled by anger at other recent deaths of minorities due to police brutality, and at the disproportionate effects of the coronavirus pandemic on African-Americans.

The issue of race sits at the very heart of American society and polity, and for a nation that has often been contemptuous of other nations, such as India, when it comes to how they manage their internal dissonance, today America finds that its internal lack of cohesion has no real short-term quick fix.

The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, growing socio-economic disparities, surging nationalism and racial tensions are a potent mix that will shape the trajectory of the US in ways that few can comprehend today. Many observing this are talking about the end of American supremacy in global affairs. That may or may not come true. The US has immense internal capacity to regenerate itself, as it has shown in the past. But what the present moment in American politics has done is to shatter this idea that America is somehow superior in managing its internal turmoil.

Compared to the US, India is a young nation. It is a democracy that manages to survive despite internal contradictions and faultlines. Yet, Western elites have never been shy of bemoaning the challenges India faces as it seeks to construct a modern nation-state. More recently, whether it is the Citizenship Amendment Act or the issue of minorities, there has been a tendency to hector India to follow what is believed to be a superior Western model. Today, as that superiority myth gets shattered, India can provide an alternative model, one which is more organic and rooted in Indian values.

America is likely to become even more polarised and its polity even more contested in the short to medium term. It is time perhaps for India to provide the US a piece of advice or two on how to manage its internal dysfunctionalities. For many in India, criticism of India’s internal matters by the US is a great sign that it is India that needs to change track. An article in a Western media outlet is taken as a sign that something is definitely wrong in the way India manages its business. But it is time now to be more self-confident about India’s achievements and to ignore gratuitous interference in its domestic matters with the contempt it deserves.

(The writer is Director, Studies, at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)