New Delhi: If Prime Minister Narendra Modi revives his agenda on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the Joe Biden-led US administration will be under pressure to criticise India, said renowned British journalist and columnist Edward Luce while speaking at the Girish Karnad Memorial Lecture for 2021 Friday.
Luce was responding to a question on whether US President Joe Biden will raise concerns about CAA-NRC and the situation in Kashmir, as he has done in the past, or will these concerns be swept under the rug as Washington looks towards New Delhi to counter Beijing.
“I think a lot depends on the Citizenship Amendment Law and related National Registry (NRC). If these are revived, after the farmers’ protests recede and Modi’s back to master his agenda … if he (Modi) does revive these with a vengeance, it’s going to create a lot of pressure on the Biden administration to criticise India,” said Luce. “Ditto with Kashmir,” he added.
Though, there is a sense that “Americans tend to preach and Indians don’t like it”, he added.
Luce is the US national editor and columnist at the Financial Times and previously worked as the speechwriter for the US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers during the second Clinton administration. He is also the author of books such as ‘The Retreat of Western Liberalism’ (2017), ‘Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent’ (2012), and ‘In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India’ (2007).
The virtual event, hosted by Bengaluru-based New India Foundation, was held in honour of Karnad, the late playwright and actor. ThePrint was a digital partner for the event.
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‘Biden faces challenges on domestic, foreign fronts’
Speaking on ‘US Politics: Why here and where from here’ during the virtual event, Luce assessed Biden’s first seven weeks in office, calling it the “smoothest opening to a presidency that I can remember”.
He compared it to Trump’s “rolling chaos”, Barack Obama facing the controversial Tea Party protests and Bush passing an unpopular tax cut in his early days and then having to deal with the 9/11 terror attacks.
Luce added that Biden was lucky to have entered office at a time when Covid-19 cases began to reduce and the vaccines received emergency approval.
However, he pointed out that the new US president could face challenges on the domestic and foreign front.
“The populist moment in American politics is by no means over,” remarked Luce, adding that this will be the domestic challenge. The 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump and still believe there was widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election are waiting for Biden to “slip”, he said.
He also took a dig at Biden’s ‘America is coming back’ slogan by quoting Greek philosopher Heraclitus. “You cannot step into the same river twice. The river that Biden got out of in 2016 as vice president to the outgoing Obama administration is a very different river to the one that he has stepped back into. Trump has roiled the waters.” He also pointed out that Trump remains the 2024 candidate of choice for most Republicans.
On the foreign front, Biden faces the challenge of “misplaying the US-China relationship”, said Luce.
He explained that democratic ideals are at the core of Biden’s foreign policy which may complicate matters because while this may seek to ensure China does not “ride roughshod” over global rules in its rise as a global power, it will also mean holding other allies to high democratic values. “And I think India is a very good example [of this complication],” he added.
Luce also criticised the US’s record of promoting democracy abroad by citing its failure to democratise Cuba for decades and the ongoing Afghanistan war.
(Edited by Manasa Mohan)
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