a long way to go

 

THough United States President Mr. Donald Trump is trying to make amends to improve quality of strained relations with India, and Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi also has expressed a cautious optimism saying that India and US are natural partners, there is still a long way to go for India to reach anywhere near the previous level of trust it had about the American ways and means. In spite of the fact that Commerce and Industry Minister Mr. Piyush Goyal, too, has stressed that India is in active dialogue with the US on Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the Indian camp needs to be extremely cautious about moving too fast and too forward to close the gap between the two countries -- created, of course, by the sudden stiff stance against India by the American President and a few of his cronies. Though it is imperative that the two countries work together for improving bilateral ties, the distance between the two has got widened beyond normal understanding -- which will take a good time to get finally bridged.

 

True, the world’s top economy and the world’s biggest democracy will have to mend matters between them -- so that the world heaves a sigh of relief. But the world knows it too well that matters started getting murky when the US suddenly started insisting that India stopped buying Russian oil (and thus stop funding Moscow’s war effort). Though India responded with much caution and dignity, the American highhandedness was far too troublesome to be taken lightly. India did continue its ‘normal’ conduct as much as it could. Yet, matters only worsened with time and now any genuine thaw would be achieved only when the US makes heavy readjustment in its stance and also employs correctional methods. For Mr. Donald Trump, such a readjustment would be rather excruciating, to say the least. For India, the road ahead will have enough doubt-spots and dark corners to tackle.

 

By now, the American economic think-tank has begun realising the high degree of difficulty in handling the issue of high tariff-imposition on Indian goods. Its domestic consumer is beginning to face greater trouble with recurring higher payments for the same stuff he must buy (as usual). There also is a supply-chain dry-up the US domestic market is beginning to encounter. And more critically, the goodwill the US has built with India over the past two-plus decades appears to have got diluted beyond comprehension. This is a matter of sincere concern in the US -- which the American intelligentsia is beginning to express with increasing intensity. The change in President Mr. Trump’s stance is, possibly, due to this changing American social mood and realisation of the stark economic reality. Though India understand all this in great detail, its own survival instinct does not allow New Delhi to get bowled over by Washington’s sudden (though explicable) softening.

 

Any rash decision at this juncture will land India into a trouble emerging from which would be a darned difficult task. Hence the caution on Indian side -- despite a new sense of urgent push from the American camp. There is little doubt that in due time, most issues between New Delhi and Washington would get sorted out more or less. Yet, that point -- when things would appear settled -- would be the toughest test of India’s diplomatic maturity. Creating a win-win situation, for example, is none of India’s concerns now. The main aim should be to establish its moral high ground in the dispute and make the US mend matters on its own in visible and loudly verbal manner. If India is able to handle that point deftly, then it will emerge as a boss in the international realpolitik. And that is not an occult or abstract goal; it has all the attributes of a concrete achievement which India needs at this point to consolidate its global presence. Thanks to the fine mix of sternness and accommodation, Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi is fully capable of achieving it.