It took a couple of hours for the Narendra Modi government to graduate from ‘Abki baar, Trump Sarkar’ to warmly congratulating US president-elect Joe Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris just after midnight on Friday, as the US networks called the contest in favour of the Democratic Party.
That’s the mark of a super-pragmatic nation. One day you are rolling the red carpet out for Donald Trump, wishing him both ‘howdy’ and ‘namaste,’ and another day you are transferring your attention – not your affections, yet — to his opponent.
It seems the Trump team’s mind has boggled at the swiftness with which New Delhi has moved on. Perhaps they hoped India would wait until Trump called off his attack lawyers seeking a recount. After all, few made such a big deal of his friendship with Trump as Modi did this past year.
It seems even Trump underestimated Modi. The PM will surely do everything in the book and outside it to win elections — Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s support is a case in point. Whatever the result of the Bihar assembly election, unlike Trump, Modi will never publicly begrudge another’s fairly won victory.
Significantly, Modi moved quickly to outdo his good friend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who first tweeted his congratulations for Biden a full 12 hours later, and then followed it up with an “effusive tweet” for Trump.
Modi certainly didn’t do that. As they say in Hindi, ‘raat gayi, baat gayi’. When it’s over, it’s over.
That’s why, despite somewhat harsh criticism by both Biden and Kamala Harris in the recent past — notably, on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as well as Harris’ defence of her Democrat colleague Pramila Jayapal for standing up to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar — New Delhi will certainly hope that large, new uncertainties, such as China, will enable both nations to look at the big picture, rather than dwell on smaller differences.
Also read: Trump is not Modi: 6 lessons Donald could have learned from his Indian friend
BJP’s over-reliance on Trump
Sure enough, despite Trump’s refusal to concede, the Biden-Harris transition team has moved in. The former US surgeon-general Vivek Murthy, it is announced, will co-chair the coronavirus task force along with David Kessler.
Soon enough, other political appointments will kick in, including to key ambassadorial posts such as India. Two names for US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, the point person for the region, are doing the rounds — senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Alyssa Ayres and president of US-India Business Council Nisha Biswal. Former US ambassador to India Richard Verma, who has also been advising the Biden campaign, could also return to favour.
One reason for Modi’s early tweets congratulating both Biden and Harris is also to try and smoothen over the past half-empty glass and point to the possibility of it being half-full in the future.
Trump’s defeat is another one of those inflection points in history when the future appears uncertain and the past is hardly a guide. The Modi government put several eggs in the Trump basket – rather than in America’s basket.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leant so heavily in favour of Trump – rather than America – because it saw in the former US president a like-minded politician who shouted his criticism of China from the rooftops, supported the revocation of Article 370 and ignored the maltreatment of India’s Muslim citizens.
Even former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had told former US President George Bush that “the people of India love you.” But under Singh’s rule, domestic Indian politics never became so controversial that domestic critics began to look abroad for support.
Also read: What’s next for India, South Asia as Joe Biden enters White House
CAA to Kashmir to Jaishankar-Jayapal
The Biden displeasure with the CAA — which excludes South Asian Muslims from getting Indian citizenship, but opens the door to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and everyone else — is a case in point. Earlier this year, Biden’s website carried the following statement:
“Joe Biden has been disappointed by the measures that the government of India has taken with the implementation and aftermath of the National Register of Citizens in Assam and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act into law. These measures are inconsistent with the country’s long tradition of secularism and with sustaining a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy,” it said.
Biden also gave Kashmir his fair share of attention.
“In Kashmir, the Indian government should take all necessary steps to restore rights for all the people of Kashmir. Restrictions on dissent, such as preventing peaceful protests or shutting or slowing down the Internet, weaken democracy,” the Biden campaign website said.
As for Pramila Jayapal, Biden named her and Murthy as co-chairs to his healthcare task force only in May.
Jayapal had, of course, hit the headlines when she sponsored a resolution in the House of Representatives urging India to drop restrictions imposed in Jammu and Kashmir after the revocation of Article 370.
Consequently, during a US trip last December, S. Jaishankar preferred to cancel a scheduled meeting with the House foreign relations committee when he learnt that Jayapal would be a part of it – he asked the Americans to drop her, but they refused.
At the time, US Senator Kamala Harris had stood up for Pramila Jayapal, saying “it’s wrong for any foreign government to tell Congress what members are allowed in meetings on Capitol Hill. Similarly, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren had said, “Efforts to silence @pramilajayapal are extremely troubling.” Warren is expected to get a big Cabinet post in the Biden administration.
But Delhi can still take heart. China’s Xi Jinping has still not congratulated Biden or Harris. Biden’s foreign policy advisors say the Trumpian emphasis on China being China’s main competitor will stay, even though Biden’s tone will be far more restrained. That’s what Delhi will surely count upon.
For the moment, though, the Biden-Harris team has much more on its hands than to start worrying about the world, including rifts within the Democratic Party itself. Sooner than later, though, the outside world will assert itself – what better than a crisis to see how the chips fall.
Views are personal.