[Modi & Trump]

It is a fascinating subject — how leaders take the measure of each other, what happens subsequent to the first few meetings when the impression gets cemented, and how that impacts policy. In one of their first meetings, the wartime US President Franklin Roosevelt, seeking to convey an idea that had occurred to him, barged into the British Prime Minister’s living quarters to discover Winston Churchill standing stark naked in the room. Unruffled, the PM famously drawled “Britain has nothing to hide!” The two leaders got along rather well thereafter!

Nothing as revealing has happened between the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US President Donald J Trump. But both being, personality-wise, in the same narcissist-autocrat mould — with everything that happens within their governments, and by their governments, being about themselves, may have had mirror impressions of the other.

Very likely, Modi must have been reassured that, unlike the quicker-on-the-ball and more cerebral Barack Obama, who had a Pakistani as his room mate at Columbia University and was familiar with the subcontinental ways — Trump could be pata-oed with a lot of people screaming it up in support, and the colour and the frenzy of a big Indian tamasha. Whence the two big “get to know” PR events in Houston (“Howdy, Modi!” — arranged by the Indian embassy and the Indian NRI community) and in Ahmedabad (“Namaskar, Trump!” — courtesy the Gujarat State and Central governments) would have convinced him of this, especially as Trump, in his first term, wanted to make sure that every noisy American at the Houston circus would convert into a vote for him in the 2020 Presidential elections. Modi, perhaps, calculated that having Trump attend the Ahmedabad do would signal his closeness to Trump, and his ability to get India’s interests realised in the US and the West, and also help him out in the 2024 general elections.

Modi’s belief that he could get what he wanted from the Trump Presidency was, however, misplaced. Indeed, over the past decade, he was able to extract nothing of note from America, even as his government has shaped not just its energy policies around American santions, but India’s relations generally with Russia, and with Iran, while surrendering a great deal of digital sovereignty to boot as well (as revealed in the previous post). But Modi’s flattering of Trump reached its limit when the US President virtually demanded the Indian leader endorse the American’s self-propagated case for the Nobel Peace Prize for terminating Sindoor. Had Modi given in, there was no guarantee Trump’d have kept from hosting Munir and moving the US policy Pakistan-wards. But there was every certainty the Prime Minister would have had the somewhat tenuous credit for Sindoor from being slashed from underneath him providing, at the very least, a lot of campaign fodder to the opposition in the Bihar state elections.

So, it is clear Trump has got most everything he desired from Modi, including huge multi-billion dollar purchases by Delhi of transport aircraft, P-8I maritime recon planes, and vintage M-777 mountain-use light howitzers. And, especially, the “four foundational accords” — the 2016 Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), the 2018 Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), the 2019 Industrial Security Agreement (ISA), and the 2020 Basic Exchange and Coooperation Agreement (BECA). India thus placed itself squarely in the crowded American security tent in Asia without obtaining any real security benefits and, worse, shortchanged itself in terms of negotiating leverage. Sharing of spatial digitised data vide BECA has permitted the US, for instance, an entry point into the Indian satellite communications setup, meaning it may have gained for Washington access that can be used, if its interests so dictate, to onpass critical military information to Pakistan, China, any other adversary!

The only thing the Modi regime retained for Delhi was the decision on the logistics support the US forces could avail of, but only on a case-by-case basis, and the level of participation in the military activity of the Quadrilateral of US, Japan, Australia, India. The fact that India had, in fact, got little in return for putting out with so much was evidenced in the tremendous frustration expressed by many who served in the US government about India’s not doing that little bit extra!

Of course, Delhi’s stalling tactics, and unwillingness to engage militarily in Quad Indo-Pacific operations more fully were also because Russia had to be kept in good humour both as arms supplier and as source of critical mil-tech that Washington would not part with, and as counterweight to both America and China. The US understood this as India furthering its traditional balancer role. With the Quad not pulling its weight, the Biden Administration in 2021 announced the formation of AUKUS — Australia, UK, US, an uncomfortable reminder to the peoples of the Indo-Pacific of an old world Anglo-saxon confederacy.

Now, let’s view this picture from the American angle.

Trump is a professional New York city schmoozer — who cultivated pals everywhere — no knowing when someone might be of use! — to advance his family-commercial-real estate interests. As President in his second term, he has only become more brazen in exploiting his position, leaving no opportunity unexploited to increase his personal and family wealth. This was the reason why Trump cottonned on to Asif Munir, who promised to lay Pakistan at Trump’s feet to use as he saw fit. Islamabad facilitated a crypto currency base in the country — a move to personally enrich Trump, who has invested hugely in it, and offered concessions to US mining companies to extract whatever minerals they can find in the country. And he hinted, after his 2nd White House lunch and meeting with Trump of Pakistan’s pleasure in playing the Central Asia frontier policeman and outpost for America and Western interests, and assist in curtailing China in the region. And Pakistan’s history of having its generals in the US pocket and, more formally, as a longtime American client state quickly cemented the new deal. The US has enough of a hold on the Pakistan establishment and armed forces — as it has, to be fair, on the senior-most echelons of the Indian bureaucracy, MEA, and military (with liberal entry visa/green card issuals for progeny, as well), to ensure this.

Modi was a less known commodity to Trump, but the deals he secured from the Indian PM without parting with much in exchange was because Modi wore his admiration of America and American life too much on his sleeve not to have his American counterpart exploit it to the fullest, which Trump did. All it required was for Trump to pay Modi attention, talk up their supposed “friendship” and, from the other end of his mouth, skewer the Indian Prime Minister with his insistence that it was he who stopped Op Sindoor cold, and in his latest pronouncement, that 8 aircraft were shot down in the 3-day fracas — the tally of Indian losses apparently going up everytime Trump opens his mouth! It is, in fact, Trump turning Modi’s trademark hugs and embraces inside out to string Modi along, even as he plays kitty-ball with Munir, letting slip a reference about Pakistan conducting “nuclear testing” aimed at simultaneously unsettling India and pumping up Islamabad.

What could be plainer? Well, the Panchtantra tales has precisely such cautionary story — recall the one about the monkey inserting itself between two cats squabling over a pat of butter only to have the ape, doling out a “balanced” share of the goody to each, which involved, it first divying up the butter and, in the process of balancing, taking a little from the portion of one cat and then from that of the other cat until the monkey consumed all of it! Same monkey business here, once again, which, as on earlier occasions, has ended up equating/hyphenating India and Pakistan, cutting Modi and India to Pakistan’s size and proportionately elevating Munir and Pakistan!!!

The Modi government has not learned anything after repeated humiliations heaped on the Prime Minister and insults to India. Now the Trump Administration is dangling a US presidential visit to keep Delhi on the hook. Not sure why such visits are so prized by the Indian government and why Indians generally so desire to please the US and the West, and are prepared to suffer no end of indignity, and to jump through all kinds of hoops.

The irony is that while Munir and Islamabad are entirely aware that whatever the cost to the country of playing up to Trump and the US, the benefit to Pakistan is in the deliverables by way of military assistance — especially crucial tactical military intelligence feeds in realtime that have made a difference in the past, Modi and New Delhi have deluded themselves into believing, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that it is they who are in the driver’s seat, and able to get more out of continuing to be nice to Washington!

The question to ponder is whether there’s a point in the bilateral relations beyond which the Modi regime will not allow itself to be pushed, and won’t budge? There seems to be no such point — to wit, the Free Trade Agreement being negotiated which, reportedly, has all sorts of giveaways and concessions to America. Except, there is a worrying trend for Modi, who has invested so much political capital to stay on the right side of Washington. One of the main pillars of his US policy — Indians and the NRI community in America cultivated as potential South Asia policy influencers, are under assault from Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) support base what with the techie flow channel (higher education visa = green card, Indian IT techie posting = green card) being shut down, is crumbling right before our eyes.