The spoke in the right wheel – Newspaper

FOLLOWING Benjamin Netanyahu’s overtly successful trip to Washington, Narendra Modi would become the second significant right-wing foreigner to meet Donald Trump in the White House. Reports say it could happen as early as this week.

Modi knows that Trump had pointedly insulted Netanyahu before meeting the Israeli prime minister. He re-tweeted a damning comment about Netanyahu that went viral in Israel. World-renowned economist Prof Jeffery Sachs, who happens to be Jewish, has been a strong critic of America’s sponsorship of the war in Ukraine and its arming and funding of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. He recently described Netanyahu as a “deep, dark s**”.

Trump apparently approved and put Sachs’ video clip on his official handle. Trump is also widely seen to have snubbed his Indian friend. He not only excluded Modi from the list of predominantly right-wing invitees to his inauguration. The insult to injury came with the request to communist leader Xi Jinping to come to the event, which was politely turned down.

The diplomatic snafu echoed in India’s parliament where the leader of the opposition rubbed it in. Modi had staged a rally for Trump’s re-election in Houston in 2020 that Joe Biden won. And now this embarrassment from Trump. India’s foreign minister attended the inauguration and got a seat in the front row. He pooh-poohed Gandhi’s accusation, saying that India never sends its political head for presidential inaugurations. The minister forgot to mention that Trump had in fact upended the protocol, inviting a whole bunch of foreign leaders for the first time. The Italian prime minister with whom Modi had enjoyed taking selfies, for example, was invited but the British prime minister was among the European lot that was pointedly overlooked.

Netanyahu actually walked away with a bagful of sawdust from Trump. The US would own Gaza and send its Palestinian habitants to neighbouring countries, Trump assured the beaming guest. The meeting masked the legal comeuppance awaiting the Israeli prime minister and his wife back home, apart from the nagging fear that his extremist coalition would collapse if the bombardment of the rubble in Gaza doesn’t resume given that Trump’s lofty dream already seems a non-starter.

The offer — likelier a threat — has not found the slightest support on the international circuit unless, of course, Modi, a close associate of Netanyahu, breaks ranks and undoes the solidarity that’s found its voice after a long time for a Palestinian homeland.

A more immediate challenge faces Modi on his visit to Washington.

While his Palestine plan is morally reprehensible, Trump’s by now legendary drooling over Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal has left him with little credibility even in the realm of real estate that he sees Gaza as. Besides, building a seaside riviera of his dreams would bring nothing other than trouble in a perpetually turbulent region.

If imperious Twin Towers could be brought down in the most protected country, what building (other than Hamas bunkers) could remain intact without first delivering justice and a homeland to the Palestinians on their stolen land?

A more immediate challenge faces Modi on his visit to Washington. He has been seen as the man to keep India as a western bulwark against China. In fact, Trump on his last visit to India in February 2019 had agreed to sell a host of military hardware to India, including a submarine hunting aerial asset, which the Chinese saw as an offensive transaction. They were already riled by the border dispute’s escalation in the Indian parliament on Aug 5, 2019. The annexation of Jammu and Kashmir took away its special character but also saw the map of Ladakh tweaked without discussion with Beijing. Also, what if Trump strikes a deal with President Xi Jinping, a tricky proposition, but one that’s a hot topic on the diplomatic backstage.

To raise the possibility, Trump emphasised in a video conference with the World Economic Forum in Davos that he has “always had a great relationship” with Xi and that he looks forward to “getting along with China”. The US and China will “have a very good relationship”, Trump said, according to the White House readout. “All we want is fairness. We just want a level playing field … But I like President Xi very much. I’ve always liked him.” To be fair, Trump has also expressed his admiration for Modi on several occasions even if that didn’t get reflected in the list of invitees for the Jan 20 event.

On the contrary, there seemed to be a callous disregard for India’s standing as an ally when Trump packed off 104 illegal Indian immigrants in shackles to Amritsar. Contrary to official Indian denials, women returnees, too, were handcuffed. The US reportedly spent $1 million on the perverse humiliation. What then do Trump and Modi expect from each other?

On his part Modi might be hoping to have criminal cases dropped against intelligence officials in an attempted murder plot of a Sikh American. Relief for a tycoon accused of corruption would help. Protectively, Manipur’s BJP chief minister, accused of killing Christian tribespeople for over two years, resigned ahead of Modi’s trip. This should pacify Trumps’ supporters from America’s Bible Belt.

Trump was less tentative. In his first phone call with Modi after assuming the presidency for the second time, he promptly pressed for an expanded procurement of American-made security equipment. “The President emphasised the importance of India increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving towards a fair bilateral trading relationship,” a readout from the White House said.

Finally, there’s the overarching issue of India’s role as leader of BRICS that Trump wants to dismantle. Panama has pulled out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative following pressure from him. Where does that leave India, particularly since Moscow says that Vladimir Putin has accepted Modi’s invitation to visit Delhi early this year? “May you live in interesting times,” the Chinese would be ad-libbing.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2025