By Anita Inder Singh, Founding professor, Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, New Delhi
President Donald Trump is a bully, but India could have played its cards better with him—on Russia, Pakistan, and tariffs. Because it did not, in one fell swoop the Trump administration belied India’s claim to be a global player. The salvoes fired by Washington in the form of 50% tariffs on Indian exports to America and as a penalty for India’s huge oil purchases from Russia are reminders that no foreign country believes either India’s claim to be a world actor or the Vishwaguru. If some Indians believed Delhi’s assertions they were poorly informed about international opinion.
With one of Asia’s lowest GDP per capita, high unemployment, many goods that are uncompetitive for exports, and with considerably less to offer developing and industrialised countries than its Asian arch-rival China, India has a long way to go, despite its $4-trillion economy which cannot compete globally with China’s $19-trillion one. Most developing countries, some members of the European Union (EU), and India’s South Asian neighbours are in any case on China’s Belt and Road Initiative which does give China a worldwide economic presence. Moreover, it is not just a question of high Indian tariffs: labyrinthine bureaucratic procedures stifle economic ties with trading partners and India’s own progress.
Relatively a weak economic player, India has dismayed even the EU, with whom it hopes to sign a free trade agreement, by its huge oil buys from Russia over the last three years. If geography makes it hard for India to buy more American oil from across the Atlantic Ocean, larger oil purchases from Iraq and Saudi Arabia—from whom it already buys some oil—would not have offended the US and EU. That might have helped India to avoid the penalties Trump wants to impose over and above the tariffs he intends to levy on India’s exports to America. But Delhi ignored diplomatic urging by a friendlier President Joe Biden and West European democracies to take a stronger stand against Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine in the name of India’s national interest. It is entitled to do that. However, now that national interest has come into open conflict with Trump’s wish to stop India from propping up Russia’s war economy and to prevent Moscow from extinguishing Ukraine’s statehood.
Furthermore, India’s weakness as an economic player is evidenced by its refusal to join Asia’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in 2019. India has also lost global ground by labelling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as Europe’s war. Many countries, including Trump’s America, have not supported India’s stance on Pakistan’s terror attack in Pahalgam. The logic is that if Ukraine is Europe’s war, then the recent Indo-Pak air war, representing a territorial-cum-ideological feud which dates back to the partition of British India in 1947, is an Indo-Pak problem. Unfortunately, this implies that Delhi has failed to overcome the international hyphenation of India and Pakistan despite its claim that India is a global actor.
Trump—and Delhi—have dealt with the Indo-Pak conflict in ways that are highly disadvantageous to India. His many assertions that he prevailed upon India and Pakistan to cease fire have been vociferously denied by Delhi. This implied Trump was lying, while Trump’s insistence that he persuaded Delhi and Islamabad usher in a ceasefire implied that India was lying.
In contrast, Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, complimented Trump by offering to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his “leadership and proactive role” in facilitating the ceasefire. Trump then invited Munir to the White House. He blasted the “dead-end economies” of Russia and India—and delivered the biggest blow to Delhi by announcing that America would help Pakistan to develop its oil reserves and adding that India would soon be buying oil from Pakistan. To Indians generally, the idea that they should be dependent on an economically weaker Pakistan, which India broke up through war in 1971, is unacceptable.
This brouhaha could have been avoided if, for instance, Delhi had thanked Trump for persuading Pakistan to cease fire. Instead, the White House has rebutted India by asserting that Trump’s mediation makes him the ideal Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Where India fits into Trump 2.0’s calculations is a mystery. Delhi must clarify where it stands with the US—which is the largest single buyer (18%) of Indian exports. India in contrast buys only 2.1% of US exports and provides America with a mere 2.9% of its imports. Military ties have become stronger over the last two decades but America is not one of India’s top three arms suppliers—those are Russia, France, and Israel.
On another plane, no political point is made by lecturing Washington about the contribution made by the Indian diaspora in America. China’s skilled diaspora competes with them but Beijing neither regards itself, nor is it viewed as, a strategic partner by Washington. Those diasporas—like many others—have been in America because of its liberal culture. The US is the only country to have prided itself as being a nation of immigrants. If Trump succeeds in transforming it into a more closed country, India will certainly lose, if only because remittances by Indians in America account for some 3.4% of India’s GDP—which is more than the 2.4% of GDP that India spends on defence.
Seventy-eight years after achieving independence, it is time for India to learn from Asian countries, including democratic Japan, whose progress has enhanced their ability to offer America more than India and also their reputation as global actors.