The Rediscovery of India

A RELATIVE DECLINE IN US NATIONAL POWER HAS DRAWN THE attention of several strategic thinkers, including the late Joseph Nye who agreed that America’s dominance had peaked but contended it remains significantly ahead of competitors. Its nearest rival China continues to lag in economic and military power and will not be able to close the gap anytime soon. Although Ameri­can hard power was never much in doubt, a reluctance to get involved in overseas disputes and a bitterly polarised discussion on migration, law and order, cultural values, and race at home made America appear inward-looking and distracted. The last decade saw the view of the world as increasingly multipolar gain traction and the rise of middle powers seemed to confirm a more diffused distribution of power rather than one hegemon ruling the roost.

Belligerent leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin kept testing America’s preparedness to put its foot down, annexing the Crimea in 2014 and then intervening in Syria on behalf of the now-deposed Bashar al-Assad. Declaring that Russia was attacking terrorists, Putin challenged then-US President Barack Obama to provide the coordinates of Islamic State fighters for Russian jets to bomb. Indeed, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 and the declaration of a “no limits partnership” with China was more grist to the mill of multipolarity as seen by revisionist powers. US President Joe Biden’s attempts to forge and lead “blocs” to counter Russia and China was seen as an effort to reuse an outdated Cold War “playbook” in an era of dispersed power and varying interests. India, too, found merit in multipolarity that provided an alternative to being straitjacketed and helped retain strategic autonomy despite growing proximity to the US, which was seen as a vital partner offering technology and capital.

But even before incumbent US President Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to the international order the US had led in constructing, some voices swam against the current. Jo Inge Bekkevold, a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, wrote an influential essay in Foreign Policy in September 2023, arguing that only the US and China could lay claim to be being a “pole”. Despite the emergence of other powers, none was in contention. Although its land mass and nuclear weapons and the war it is waging in Europe make Russia a contender, its economy is no larger than that of smaller European nations. Bekkevold acknowledged India as an emerging power and noted, “India is too concentrated on its own development. It has an undersized foreign service, and its Navy—an important yardstick for leverage in the Indio-Pacific—is small compared to China’s… India may one day be a pole in the system, but that day belongs in the distant future.” Despite European leaders voicing support for a multipolar world, Brussels is not a pole either. For Russia and China, multipolarity is a way to limit US power. For the most part, Bekkevold concluded, multipolarity is a lazy way to ignore facts.

Trump’s return to office and his decision to impose retaliatory tariffs on nations with which the US has a trade deficit unleashed a severe assault on the idea of a multipolar world. The speed with which his targets capitulated—with the European Union (EU), Japan and South Korea suing for peace and many countries rush­ing to Washington—demonstrated the coercive clout of the US. Though China and the US have agreed to pause their trade war till November, Chinese goods face an additional 30 per cent tariff as compared to pre-Trump days and US goods a 10 per cent duty. US-India relations ran into worse weather with Trump using emergency provisions to announce a “penalty” of a 25 per cent tariff above the 25 per cent already in place, holding India guilty of aiding Moscow’s war effort by buying Russian oil. The charge is clearly an afterthought. It could be, as some commentators sug­gest, a way of applying pressure on Russia, but it is an unfriendly act. Unless there is a breakthrough in the Trump-Putin talks slated for August 15—no broker will offer any odds on an outcome—In­dia is staring at a 50 per cent cumulative tariff on several goods. If it is Trump’s idea to beat down India on trade negotiations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that the “red lines” on protecting Indian agriculture and dairy sectors will not move.

Where does this leave India’s pursuit of multipolarity and a de­sire to navigate an uncertain world by ensuring no one relationship becomes a zero-sum game?

Events have shown that Trump can get away with unilateral decisions forcing others, including long-term allies, to do things contrary to their beliefs. The NATO decision agreeing to raise de­fence and security spending to 5 per cent of GDP militates against the ethos of countries like Germany. And though China is locked in a fierce trade war with the US, it is certainly feeling the pressure to reduce the trade deficit. A multipolar balancing of interests, intended to provide room for autonomy, does not seem to be working. India’s growing economy and its current size of $4.3 trillion and a large market are substantial bargaining chips but its developmental journey is a work in progress.

There were early signs that the second Trump administra­tion would place tariffs at the forefront of domestic and foreign policy and while Indian negotiators did try, the American de­mands could not be met. In hindsight, a case can be made that faster resolution of negotiations with the EU might have aided India, but it is also true that talks gained urgency on both sides after Trump unleashed his tariff war. India needs massive up­grades in its technological-industrial base and a steady infusion of capital to meet the demands of modernisation. There are no other sources apart from the US and the rest of the West. A partnership with Japan, and to some extent with Korea too, has helped but will not be enough to realise a Viksit Bharat by 2047. The aspirational benchmark, despite varying estimates of how long it will take to reach, is essential to propelling a national effort to become a country with rising incomes and low poverty. Despite the recent jolts to the international order, India is not giving up on multipo­larity. Speaking at a BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi- Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) cultural event in New Delhi recently, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, “We live in complicated and uncertain times. Our collective desire is to see a fair and representative global order. Not one dominated by a few. That quest is often articulated as political or economic rebalancing.” The value of traditions, the minister said, lies in that they define identity. “We must be confident about what we are if we want to be confident about shaping the future,” he said.

THE LINE INDIA drew when Modi responded to US tariff an­nouncements, by declaring that he is ready to pay a heavy price for protecting the farm and dairy sectors, was one of self-respect. He did the same when he told Trump in a telephone conversation that India never has, and never will, accept mediation in relation to Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan. When he did so, he was articu­lating close to eight decades of consensus upheld by governments of all hues, including the weak coalitions led by HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral. Allowing the impression to gather that Trump’s outlandish claims of mediating a halt to the May 7-10 hostilities between India and Pakistan, that too by holding out the carrot of trade, are based on reality would have meant courting disaster.

Did the US president take Modi’s refusal to endorse his claims to have worked out a truce to heart? The truth is that while US Vice President JD Vance spoke to Modi, the intervention hardly added up to a mediation, such as in the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia where the former was granted a corridor to its enclave. The backchannel role has been played by the United Arab Emir­ates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia too. In a Trumpian universe, it’s who got the ‘deal’ done. The propensity to place himself in the middle of events is matched by Trump’s ability to tell his base that he is setting right years of unfair treatment by trading partners.

In the circumstances, India had no option but to set the record straight. The rough edges in the relationship might prove to be passing but tariffs as an issue may well outlive Trump’s tenure and require internal action. Even as estimates of the tariff impact range from 0.4 per cent to 0.6 per cent of GDP, how India deals with imbalances in its own import duties will have a bearing on its pursuit of multipolarity. Jaishankar has sometimes made the point to Eu­ropean leaders that a multipolar world requires a multipolar Asia, indicating that China’s dominance needs to be bal­anced by a strong and confident India. This needs India to fix things at home too.

Partnerships can be challenging when a nation has multiple needs and the sources that can satisfy its require­ments are limited with no alternate poles to gravitate to. The argument about not placing all the eggs in one basket is valid but only in relative terms. India could step up its engagement with other nations which some commenta­tors feel need more attention, but this will partially offset the turbulence in the US relationship. The challenge is not unidimensional and neither is the West predictable. Relations with China can improve and while Russia has been an ally, its leverage is limited, having had to turn to Iranian drones and North Korean weapons and troops in its war with Ukraine.

India has achieved significant success in reducing poverty but the number of the underprivileged is large. An $18,000 per capita income by 2047 will be an achievement but incomes in the developed world would have risen too. As Trump has shown, it is not trade alone. His ire against Canada is over Ottawa’s position on Palestine. His grouse with Brazil is equally political. The op­tions before India, hinted at by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in an interaction with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, are to segment the relationship with the US. Apart from trade there is convergence on defence, space, technology, and security.

Given that Trump is prone to frequent boasts, even about mat­ters he has not influenced or done so only slightly, it makes sense to let his comments wash over. The prime minister did the right thing by drawing the boundaries of a trade deal. The message was amplified by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who said those who consider themselves “sabke boss (everybody’s boss)” could not di­gest India’s rise. The point having been made, it would be best to concentrate on actualising important parts of India-US coopera­tion, such as the setting up of a General Electric factory in India for the production of F414 engines for homegrown Tejas II fighters. That would be a big step towards securing India’s interests.

The hard truth is that even if Trump withdraws the 25 per cent penalty at some point, as it is a political measure with no relation to trade, the previously announced 25 per cent remains. The In­dian economy has the resilience to withstand the tariff aggression much better than countries exporting primarily to the US. Accord­ing to some estimates, Indian exports earn around $50 billion a year and there is an undeniable case that duties on several imports remain high. A relook at the tariffs India imposes on imports is required, the earlier the better. This needs not just next-generation reforms but also measures to prepare Indian industry for genuine competition. It may not be realistic to expect any significant reduc­tion on the basic 25 per cent tariff. Maintaining ties with the US on an even keel by not allowing trade to sour other aspects of the relationship provides India room to pursue multipolarity and, more importantly, set itself the goal of being a pole in its own right in future. This means taking Trump’s current infatuation with Pakistan and its army chief Asim Munir in its stride while continu­ing and deepening engagement with the US military.

There are limits to the utility and dependability of godfathers in international affairs, and just as New Delhi adjusts to new reali­ties in its relationship with the US, it must examine China’s trade surplus with India or its own with Bangladesh. Despite the body blows it has suffered, multipolarity is not dead as crosscutting agendas defy bloc-thinking. But it is time to chart a path to becom­ing a confident and powerful nation that seeks partnerships on an equal footing.

Donald TrumpgeopoliticsMarco RubioNarendra ModiRussian oilS JaishankarTrade tariff warUS-India relationsVladimir Putin