CAUGHT BETWEEN TRUMP AND XI?

Readers might remember that a week ago this column noted that despite a climate of enmity India had alerted Pakistan about rising levels in one of the rivers descending to its smaller neighbor. I am obliged to report that the enmity level has since been restored. Although in the last few days immense damage has been caused in Pakistan by swollen rivers and a volley of cloudbursts, the Indian media does not seem interested in reporting it. On the other hand, India has mercifully offered aid to Afghanistan following the terrible quake that on August 31 struck an eastern portion of that country, not far from the Afghan-Pakistan border, killing at least 1,400. 

The people of Pakistan do not seem deserving of concern to India’s realists. This indifference does not rhyme with the regret that nationalist India claims to harbor over an old but unforgotten event, the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, when, as is still routinely charged, a retreating empire callously divided one people and erected a boundary wall between them. If until 1947 we were one as Indians, why doesn’t distress on the wall’s other side trouble us? 

We shouldn’t be greatly shocked, for we persistently turn our gaze away from suffering within post-1947 India. In any case, people like me will continue to think of the people of Pakistan, and of Bangladesh, as “my people.” Their grandparents were my compatriots and, in some cases, known to me; they themselves seem closer to me than people from far continents. It is with sadness that I look at nature’s wrath in Pakistan. 

TIANJIN SUMMIT 

Both India and Pakistan took part in the “non-Western” summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), hosted by Xi Jinping, which concluded on September 1 in Tianjin, the big coastal city near Beijing. As a key SCO initiator, Putin was very much present. As a full SCO member, Iran also joined the summit. Though Turkey is only a “dialogue partner” and not an SCO member, its president, Recep Erdogan, was there too. 

Well-publicized as the SCO event was, a bigger one will be the Bejing parade of September 3, which will mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will be attending that parade, along with Xi and Putin. If in Tianjin President Xi exhibited China’s diplomatic strength, his country’s military prowess will be showcased in Beijing. We should expect quite a spectacle. 

The question must be asked: is Xi advancing toward his presumed goal of a world where the West plays a reduced leadership role, while non-Western countries, led by China, shape a new, multipolar world order? Before attempting an answer, let us look at what happened at the Tianjin summit. According to media reports, here’s what the group pronounced about Palestine, Gaza, and Iran: 

PALESTINE AND IRAN 

“Regarding the situation in the Middle East, the SCO leaders reiterated their deep concern over the continuing escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and strongly condemned actions that led to numerous casualties among the civilian population and a ‘catastrophic humanitarian situation’ in the Gaza Strip. 

“They stressed the need to ensure an immediate, complete and sustainable ceasefire, access to humanitarian aid, and intensified efforts to achieve peace, stability and security for all residents of the region. 

“Member states note that the only possible way to ensure peace and stability in the Middle East is through a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian question.” 

India’s online portal, The Wire, and Pakistan’s Dawn are among the outlets reporting that the leaders who met in Tianjin ‘strongly condemned the military strikes by Israel and the United States against Iran in June,’ saying that such aggressive actions against civilian targets, including nuclear energy infrastructure, which resulted in the death of civilians, were a ‘gross violation of the principles and norms of international law and the UN Charter, and an infringement on the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran’ that undermined regional and international security with serious implications for global peace. 

These are significant statements, but I don’t know whether Modi, for one, will stand by the lines quoted above on Palestine and Iran. 

All the SCO leaders, including Modi and Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, condemned terrorism and extremism, including the attacks that occurred in Pahalgam in Kashmir last April (for which India blames Pakistan) and attacks in Balochistan in March and May (for which Pakistan blames India). 

TRUMP-MODI DIVIDE 

There is no doubt that for the time being Modi and Trump have had a falling out. The details given in the August 30 New York Times piece by Mujib Mashal, Tyler Pager and Anupreeta Das are pretty convincing. The article showed that in a long phone conversation in June Trump had tried but failed to get Modi to admit that the US (and Trump in particular) played a role in ending the short but dangerous India-Pakistan war of last May. It seems that Trump wants or wanted Modi to propose his name for the Nobel Peace Prize, but Modi demurred. 

In addition, Trump has charged that India’s purchase of discounted Russian oil aids Moscow’s ability to continue its war on Ukraine. Also, he wants India to remove the duties on milk and agricultural produce that seem essential for the survival of India’s farmers. (He has since claimed in a tweet, I don’t know how correctly, that Modi has agreed to remove those duties.) Trump also wants no-duty entry into India of US motorcycles. And there may be discontent among sections of Trump’s MAGA base at the number of Indians receiving H1B and student visas. 

I am quite sure myself that the US and Trump played a role in ending the May war. It’s the sort of thing that influential powers can and should do. But in India it is thought politically suicidal to accept peace with Pakistan unless that peace is accompanied by an announcement of total Indian victory and complete Pakistani defeat. Modi has staked his political reputation in India on a denial of any US role in the ceasefire of last May. “Understandable” this position may be, but I am not sure it accords with the facts. 

Does this mean that Trump’s eagerness for a Nobel plus Modi’s unwillingness to pave the way for it will detach India from one global camp and attach it to a rival camp? I doubt that very much. One international affairs expert from an Indian university has been quoted as follows: “The Indian government hopes the present rough weather between India and the U.S. is a temporary aberration. Then India can return happily to having the Russian cake and eating the American pie as part of its multi-alignment strategy.”

There are larger considerations. The more than three million people of Indian origin who live in the US, most of them in regular, intimate, and valuable contact with the homeland, will be a strong barrier against any anti-American alliance that any Indian government may be foolish enough to wish to join. 

STRONGER BOND? 

Moreover, the large and influential Indian diaspora is not the only deep link between India and the US. A shared love of human freedom and human dignity is another, and possibly stronger, bond. When large tariffs are suddenly levied by country A, when sincere (and probably fruitful) efforts for peace made by country A are summarily denied by country B, and when warmth is shown, inclusive of a top-level luncheon, to the army chief of country C, which is country B’s neighborhood foe, tempers are bound to flare. However, bridges built on tall, thick, and deep pillars do not collapse that easily. 

The real danger to India’s links with the US and the Western world comes from the possibility that either or both sides will steadily reject human freedom and human dignity as values. If India goes further down the road toward Hindu supremacy, and wishes to humiliate its Muslim and Christian minorities, it will lose the respect it still receives from the West’s writers, artists, and thinking citizens. And if the West loses patience with the checks and balances of democracy, and starts yielding to the temptations of authoritarianism, India might well say that “eastern” autocracies offer a better fit. 

It is interesting that NATO member Turkey too was in Tianjin. Erdogan and Modi both have said they want peace over Ukraine, which is what Trump too says he desires. Will Xi nudge Putin towards an honorable peace over Ukraine? And will Spain or Italy or some other country press the UK, Germany and the US for peace, dignity, and sheer life for the Palestinians? Will reality move towards such wishes? 

As for Xi Jinping, while a desire to preside over a China that “rules” the world may on occasion invade his mind, can he really disregard the fact that he and his people have a huge stake in a long-term partnership, based on equality and mutual respect, with the US and the Western world? 

INSIDE INDIA 

Within India, meanwhile, the opposition alliance is showing undeniable energy. Rahul Gandhi’s yatra or march in the important state of Bihar in defense of the right to vote and against alleged stealing of votes permitted by a supposedly impartial election commission seems to have won impressive support. Often inefficient at working together, different opposition groups in Bihar seem to be functioning in harmony, and influential opposition leaders from other parts of the country, some of them controlling state governments, have showed up in Bihar and voiced wholehearted support. 

The Hindu right and far-right have by no means stopped their all-India drive. Their present position is that any Muslim anywhere in India may be required at any time to prove that he or she is not an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh. (The probability is less than half of one percent.) The Wire reports that in recent months Bengali-speaking Muslims, especially in the state of Assam, where the chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, directs a determined “anti-infiltration” operation, have faced “one of the harshest crackdowns in years. Thousands of homes have been demolished in eviction drives, displacing families who have lived on the land for generations.” It’s a deeply disturbing picture. 

Dates have not yet been announced but elections in Bihar should take place in November or December. If the opposition wins there, and if the sense that votes have been tampered with in recent elections in different parts of India gathers momentum, India’s political scene will become quite interesting.