Days before US President Donald Trump arrives in India on 24 February, the Ministry of External Affairs rebuffed UN secretary general Antonio Guterres’ Sunday offer to mediate between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, insisting there was no role for any “third party” in the bilateral issue.
Also on Sunday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told a prestigious security conference in Munich that the United Nations “is far less credible than it has been” and “something” should be done about it.
Jaishankar’s realist rib was showing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that in the wake of tough decisions, like the dilution of Article 370 and the passage of the pro-Hindu refugee amendment in the Citizenship Act, there was bound to be a backlash by the naysayers and human rights champions of the world.
And so, Modi knows that he needs to square his strong shoulders and wean powerful global leaders over to his side one by one – just like Atal Bihari Vajpayee did after the 1998 nuclear tests.
It took then-US President Bill Clinton two years to come to India after the nuclear tests. Today, Trump is coming a mere six-and-a-half months after Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was revoked, three former chief ministers remain incarcerated despite habeas corpus petitions seeking their release, internet communication remains down and hundreds of Kashmiris are jailed under preventive detention – one has even died.
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A shrewd Pakistan
Modi and his team are determined to stick it out what they see as one-sided international opprobrium. After all, Pakistan is negotiating this week at the parleys in Paris to be taken off the “grey” list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in order to be rewarded for its good behaviour of helping the US exit Afghanistan. India, on the other hand, is realising it has a bit of a fight on its hands just to keep Pakistan on the “grey” scale, leave alone pushing it to “black.”
You have to hand it to Pakistan for patiently repeating the farcical cycle of history. Ahead of the FATF meeting, it threw Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, into jail on terrorism charges, but shrugged its shoulders on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, who, it said, is “missing.”
How could Azhar, whose sprawling headquarters in Bahawalpur in the heart of Pakistan is usually crawling with ISI spies who have exact information on what he does every minute of the day, go missing?
Perhaps, that’s the beauty of a state ruled by its army and intelligence agencies – unlike a democratically elected leadership in India.
One thing common between India and the US these days is the nature of the divided politics: the Democrats hate Trump – although it’s more than likely he’s coming back in November. In India, the combined Opposition wants to bring Modi down – but as an India Today ‘Mood of the Nation’ poll recently noted, if elections were held today, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would lose only 32 seats. Modi would comfortably return to power.
The Gujarat government is laying out a grand welcome for Trump in Ahmedabad, with its “Namaste Trump” mela in Motera Cricket Stadium. Kailash Kher will be pumping up the crowd while artistes will be performing at the 50 stages set up along the route of Trump-Melania’s cavalcade.
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Matters of mutual interest
What is relevant is that apart from offering to mediate between India and Pakistan at least nine times and his own State Department issuing statements on the need for rule of law in Kashmir, Trump hasn’t shown much interest in the direction India-Pakistan relationship takes.
Instead, he is deeply interested in whether “tariff king India” is going to allow American cow-milk into the largest milk market in the world, whether Harley Davidson bike duties are going to be both slashed and burnt, and whether chicken legs become cheaper.
The answer, as S. Jaishankar would have liked to tell US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, is that it’s complicated.
But Lighthizer cancelled a visit to India anyway, and may not come at all. But Trump’s visit cannot be cancelled, so Jaishankar & Co., India’s ultimate realists, are preparing the lay of the land, negotiating with an India Inc that is still feeling the pinch of demonetisation and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that doesn’t like imports.
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Trade before any trade deal
So, here’s what’s on offer: Chicken legs tariffs are being brought down from 100 per cent to 25 per cent – the US wants 10 per cent. “Some access” to India’s dairy market, which protects about 80 million rural households, is being given, with 5 per cent tariffs and some quotas; one key restriction is that “dairy imports would need a certificate they are not derived from animals that have consumed feeds that include internal organs, blood meal or tissues of ruminants,” said Reuters.
India has also sought to ease Trump’s distress over goods and services trade, at $142.6 billion, being in favour of India (with a $23.2 billion goods trade deficit), by opening the door to American cherries and blueberries.
But India wants the US to further open up its market to its mangoes and grapes.
Then there’s the issue of Harley Davidson bikes – a constant sore point with Trump ever since he came to power in 2017. Last year, India slashed the 100 per cent tariff to 50 per cent and today promises to come down to “single digits.”
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Trump’s interest in India
So why is Trump really coming to India? Apart from the fact that he’s hardly that welcome in the rest of the western world, and China, with which he has just signed a trade deal, is in the grip of coronavirus, “millions of people” in India will be lining the streets from the airport to the city in his honour.
Trump knows that Modi’s India is probably the only country in the world that can take on a buoyant China. ASEAN is too small and Europe a little too tired. There are weapons to sell. And then there’s Modi, a strong leader like himself.
As for India, Pakistan and Kashmir – that problem has gone on for 72 years. It can wait a bit longer, at least until the last American leaves Kabul.
Jyoti could have just written the article consisting of the last two paras and made her point and also saved readers the trouble of reading the unnecessary trash!
Trump is not interested in human rights. He is interested on his country’s interests more than anything else. India should take a leaf from China how to deal with Kashmir insurgents as China did with Uighur.