Going by the Indian media coverage of the United States, you might think Washington keeps awake at night worrying about India’s “democratic backsliding” and planning to meddle in the Indian elections. America has far bigger worries keeping it restless, but that barely gets discussed in India. The US is in the middle of a general election that could alter its political, economic and geopolitical orientation. It comes amid Washington’s struggle to cope with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Europe, China’s expansionism in Asia, and the war in Gaza that has enveloped American domestic politics.
The US is yet to effectively counter the Sino-Russian alliance that is chipping away at its interests across the world, including in Europe and among NATO allies. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Europe last week and Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s expected visit to China this week underline the growing strategic coordination between Beijing and Moscow against the West.
Return of Trump and America’s domestic crisis
It’s a pity there is so little discussion in India on the consequential US domestic debates, especially this year amidst the impending elections in November. That former president Donald Trump, the great disruptor, might be back at the White House is sending a shiver down the spine of the US permanent establishment and American allies in Europe and Asia.
Yet, Trump’s recent interview with Time magazine, where he outlined a radical agenda – on border security, immigration, trade, military alliances, all issues that matter to Delhi – got little coverage in the Indian media compared to the running commentary by hapless State Department spokespersons.
The daily remarks in the US State Department press briefings are almost always in response to questions from Washington-based South Asia correspondents. This little theatre that few in Washington pay attention to is amplified into headlines in the Indian media. The state of the debate in Delhi on what America might be thinking barely corresponds to the reality in Washington.
What about the Western media coverage of the Indian elections? Here again, the reports of the India-based correspondents of the Western media, are read more in India than in the West, thanks to the play-back effect. It’s such a pity that our foreign reportage is less about the countries where the reporters are based than what their media says about India.
What about the “hostile discourse” on Indian democracy by the liberal Western commentariat? Commentary about India in the US is a drop in the bucket of the massive daily output of the American opinion industry with its numerous media outlets and countless think tanks.
West’s capital interests
The debate on democracy in general and Indian democracy in particular might suggest that American and European foreign policies are run by missionaries to spread political liberalism. Nothing could be further from reality. Western interests are defined primarily by its capitalists and security planners, not the self-proclaimed missionaries for democracy.
Much in the manner of the Indian debates on “strategic autonomy” that tell us little about the conduct of Indian foreign policy, the slogans on “democracy promotion” and the claimed contradiction between “democracies and autocracies” say nothing about the nature of US foreign policy.
The same can be said about the discourse on “communist doctrine” in China or “Islamic internationalism” in Tehran. All countries have national mythologies about their role in the world. But these narratives are inevitably tempered by the need to pursue a range of interests — economic, political, and security — and the nature of external realities.
If democracy was the main foreign policy objective of the West, it would not have been such a good partner for the Pakistan Army for decades. If finding justice for the politically oppressed is the top priority for Washington, it would have got poor Imran Khan out of jail by now or stopped the hanging of prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto by the military usurper, General Zia-ul Haque in 1979.
If political liberalism was its dominant ideology, Washington would not have helped the Chinese Communist Party make Beijing into a formidable global power. Nor would it have mobilised a global jihad against Afghan regimes in the 1980s that sought to bring political and social modernisation to a tribal society. The world continues to reel today from this deliberate promotion of Islamic radicalism four decades ago in the name of fighting Soviet communism.
This is not to criticise the US’s foreign policy record but to underline the difference between rhetoric and reality and between the bark and the bite. Geopolitical contingencies and commercial interests — not political values — have been at the forefront of shaping US engagement with the world.
Concerns for Delhi
That brings us back to the US elections, where neither India nor the quality of its democracy are political issues. The prospect of a 10 per cent tariff against all imports under Trump is an issue that should keep Delhi alert to the impact of the potential changes in US trade policy. After all, the US is now the most important trading partner for India. Trump’s potential strategies towards Russia and China should be part of India’s gaming of great power politics and its impact on Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington.
Trump’s promise to use the US Army to round up illegal immigrants and evict them should be of concern to India, whose citizens are at the top of the list of those entering the US without valid papers. Trump also wants to leverage the expansive powers of the US presidency to bring sweeping changes to the American administrative state. Given its economic weight and global role, America’s “democratic backsliding” under Trump would have great implications for the world, including India. Delhi’s chattering classes should be tuning into those debates.
In the end, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s warning about “dictatorship” in India and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi waving the Constitution in his election rallies are more consequential than the editorials on the Indian elections in The New York Times and The Guardian. The battle for Indian democracy, then, is at home and not between Delhi and the Western capitals.
The writer is contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express and visiting professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
