There, obviously, is pain on the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the US slapped a 50 per cent tariff through two executive orders on imports from India. Hints are that India, in return, has decided to hold back the $3.78billion defence contracts vis-à-vis planned acquisitions from the US. India, which had signed a deal with Russia to purchase oil at cheap rates by sidestepping the US sanctions against that country, is now caught in between the muscle-flexing by two superpowers. Clearly, the claims of the prime minister’s diplomatic successes with the high and mighty on the global stage fell like a pack of cards. Diplomacy is more than a rubbing of shoulders, a smile, or the crack of a joke.
This adverse turn is bound to have serious implications for the Prime Minister at a time when there, reportedly, is loud thinking in the RSS about the continuation of Modi in this chair for a longer term. Modi’s own prescription of an age bar for senior leaders has come back to haunt him at this precise hour. He’s reaching the age-bar of 75 in September. The main claim to Modi’s success as prime minister has been his eminent engagements with world leaders, including “friend” Trump. Yet, a closer scrutiny would show his diplomatic outreaches in the past have not produced desired results. Rather, they boomeranged on him – as in the case of his initial infatuation with China’s Xi Jinping, who was among the first to be “courted” by Modi shortly after he became the prime minister in 2014. Hosting Xi in Modi’s native Gujarat with pomp, and later in a seaside resort near Chennai, did little good to India. Xi moved on to do muscle-flexing via Doklam and later the Galwan Valley. Claims are that China under Xi annexed thousands of sq-km of Indian land. Modi denied this, but the issue is still under discussion. At another time, Modi had caught on to Trump and paraded him around in Gujarat. This too ended up in what looks like a “disaster” for India.
It is natural for the PM to now court Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who is tied to Xi too in a friendship. At the same time, the PM is extending an olive branch to the Philippines with the South China Sea in the backdrop. Overall, Indian diplomacy led by the PM – and not the external affairs minister under the three Modi terms – seems to be going round and round. “Friends” are turning foes. Despite all efforts of Modi, the US continues to engage Islamabad both at the political and military levels and is extending them favours in a flurry. At a crucial hour during Operation Sindoor, when Pakistan had its face to the wall, it was the US President who announced a ceasefire and extricated the Islamic nation out of a terrible situation. An obedient response to Trump’s call from India has left many questions unanswered even in Parliament.
