Sifting wheat from chaff

Barack Obama has become sort of persona non grata for sullying the narrative of the recent prime ministerial visit to the United States. Freed from the clutches of diplomatese mandated by the Oval Office, Obama now speaks his mind more unguardedly. He did so in his 2020 presidential memoir, A Promised Land. The contents of that book give insights into the mind, concerns, and personal preferences of Obama. Therefore, Obama’s recent observation on the Indian politico-social landscape is consistent
and unsurprising.

In the memoir, Obama had recollected former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a man of “uncommon wisdom and decency”, as also ideally suited to temper India’s “baser instincts”. He also opined that Singh was not necessarily “elected” but “selected” and alluded to dynastic dynamics by stating that he, perhaps, in the Congress chairperson’s view, “posed no threat to her forty-year-old son, Rahul”. Obama called a spade a spade, as he perceived it.

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However, it is the foundational mooring of Obama and his reverence for Mahatma Gandhi (who is facing a crisis of relevance in today’s India) that explains Obama’s disconnect with the sensibilities of the current dispensation in India. Obama notes, “More than anything, though, my fascination with India had to do with Mahatma Gandhi. Along with Lincoln, King, and Mandela, Gandhi had profoundly influenced my thinking. As a young man, I’d studied his writings and found him giving voice to some of my deepest instincts”.
Obama then recalls Gandhi getting, “shot at point-blank range by a young Hindu extremist”.

Later, Obama calls out the “divisive nationalism touted by the BJP” and thus contextually his recent concerns on majoritarianism. He alludes, not so subtly, to a situation where a “charismatic leader chose to ride the wave of people’s fears and resentments.” Clearly enthralled by the civilisational-constitutional ‘Idea of India’, Obama is not optimistic about its ‘new normal’. He said it then, he has only reiterated it now. There is a distinct sense of political aesthetics and instincts that an Obama naturally valourizes and empathizes with, which perhaps militates with the persuasions and anchorage of the current dispensation in Delhi.

That Prime Minister Narendra Modi had an ostensible chemistry with Obama and a relationship of ‘personal friends’ on a first-name basis (as was claimed with much aplomb then) was part of platitudinous niceties that go with officialdom – it is, and was, important to sift the wheat from the chaff. But, as is increasingly the nature of news reportage in India, the supposed bonhomie between the leaders then was milked to suggest the winning ways of our diplomacy!

Reality is, all sovereigns afford a pretense of visibilised civility in bilateral optics in the ‘larger interest’ of their countries. That some (like India and the United States) may share many common concerns and opportunities makes the equation more than just a pretense, but it does not mean that there aren’t disagreements that are deliberately played down, tactically. It is realpolitik, and India and the US are no exceptions.

For all the supposed personal equation between Obama and Modi, our Prime Minister did almost canvass for Donald Trump’s re-election bid with his ‘Ab ki Baar, Trump Sarkar’ (opponent to Obama’s Democratic Party candidate, Joe Biden), betting on Trump’s second term, which didn’t happen.

It’s not that President Biden has forgotten that slight to not just himself but to free and fair elections in America, but for the sake of ‘larger interests’ and better sovereign outcomes, he will play along, as he should. To read too much into the psychoanalytic babble of ‘standing ovations’, ‘body language’, ‘boss’, ‘hugs’, etc., may make the BJP cadres ecstatic but it doesn’t count for much in the hardnosed world of realpolitik. India is simply invaluable due to its size, scale, potential and geography – that is what matters, irrespective of the so-called ‘personal chemistry’ or whichever partisan strain i.e., Democrat or Republican, an incumbent US President may be.

Those attacking Obama tend to forget that it was under his watch that visa-denial to Narendra Modi was revoked – a denial issued by the administration of Republican George Bush, who also feted Manmohan Singh and offered India the civil nuclear deal that eventually opened up the path to Modi’s recent visit. Such is the complexity of diplomacy that it is way beyond simplistic binaries or logic, as often postulated. So, if Obama himself were to come in for a hypothetical third presidential term (he is not allowed to under the US Constitution), he would still make all the glowing statements and hearty symbolism if he we met Modi. And that wouldn’t necessarily make him duplicitous, as it is par for the course in diplomacy.

Obama has been particularly vocal about the difficult choices and decisions that he took, which willy-nilly acknowledged engagements with dictators, illiberal monarchs or military strongmen. “The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach, condemnation without discussion, can carry forward only a crippling status quo”.

It is the same conundrum that afflicts India as it rebuilds bridges with the Junta in Myanmar, courts undemocratic Arab Sheikhdoms or avoids naming Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine, and it does so in its ‘larger interest’, which it is perfectly entitled to prioritise, even if it disagrees with elements of a regime or its ideological impressions in such countries.

There are enough questions concerning the Obama administration that need to be counterposed to hold him to account for, but calling him ‘Hussein Obama’ (as a sitting Chief Minister did) only reinforces the dangers of majoritarian politics that Obama warned of. So does the neither-here-nor-there sophistry of the Finance Minister and Defence Minister in stating that the “US bombed six Muslim countries”. It may galvanise the party cadres but does not elevate the discourse. Delhi could have avoided reacting to the views of someone who is now a private individual or at least disagreed more gracefully and with facts. After all, diplomacy necessitates the adoption of a Biden – just as Trump was once courted, or even Obama. Delhi shouldn’t normalise officialised intolerance to a contrarian view, as that is exactly Obama’s point.

(The writer is former Lt-Governor of Puducherry and Andaman & Nicobar Islands)