K.C. Singh | To improve India's image, govt needs a reality check

External affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s five-day visit to the United States needs closer examination, not for what was publicly articulated but their real intentions. In the middle of the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India, the considerations must have been really weighty.

US secretary of state Antony J. Blinken tweeted that the two leaders had a productive discussion on “regional security and economic priorities to include Covid-19 relief efforts, the India-China border situation and our support for Afghanistan”. The tweet ended by saying that as friends the two nations will address these “areas of shared concern”. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who also met Mr Jaishankar, emphasised people-to-people contacts and shared values as the foundation of the US-India partnership, and finally listed three issues:“pandemic elimination, leading on climate change and support for an open and free Indo-Pacific”. The emphasis on Covid-19 by both close advisers to President Joe Biden assumes significance. The rest are only a reiteration of the usual subjects on the US agenda, including China.

President Biden’s foreign policy priorities, as adumbrated from the start of his presidency, are: China, climate change, US withdrawal from Afghanistan despite a paltry face-saver and reaffirmation of the trans-Atlantic alliance. Now, the Israel-Palestine standoff has got added due to the sudden outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East. Mr Blinken not even being in Washington for much of Mr Jaishankar’s stay in the US capital underscores the sudden importance of the Mideast crisis. They met literally on the last day of Mr Jaishankar’s visit.

Mr Jaishankar in turn described his meeting with Mr Blinken as having “further solidified our strategic partnership and enlarged our agenda of cooperation”. Ignoring the usual hyperbole, it’s unclear how the agenda has “enlarged” when all the issues are old. India has been cautious to prioritise, keeping in mind the need not to provoke China, while working with the US and its partners in the four-nation Quad and carefully balancing India’s traditional ties with Russia with closer US engagement. Mr Jaishankar also met the defence secretary, US trade representative and congressional leaders, but there was no contact with either President Biden, who has been known to “dropby” when key ministers are at the White House to meet the NSA, or Indian-origin vice-president Kamala Devi Harris, with whom Mr Jaishankar has had differences during the Trump presidency over India’s handling of Kashmir.

What then was the real purpose behind the visit, as indeed its timing? Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have been on the backfoot since the BJP’s embarrassing defeat in West Bengal and the Covid-19 second wave, which the government clearly did not foresee or simply ignored despite warnings. To Mr Modi’s consternation, he has also lost face internationally, damaging his carefully nursed post-Godhra image as a statesman. The government seriously erred in resting its Covid handling strategy on the premise that neither the Kumbh Mela nor the endless election rallies would exacerbate the lingering pandemic. The vaccination strategy was tailored to this assumption, with increased vaccine supply, treble the current production capacity of the two indigenous manufacturers, becoming available only after August. The aim was to ratchet up the daily vaccination rate in the period September-December to 10 million jabs a day, to in theory vaccinate the entire 45-plus and bulk of the over-18 population before the Uttar Pradesh election in February next year.

This tendency to have even our health policy bend to electoral priorities rather than medical science has proven disastrous. A C-Voter survey indicates that for the first time since the Prime Minister assumed office seven years ago those dissatisfied with his performance exceed those who are satisfied. With pictures of overflowing cremation grounds and even bodies dumped in the Ganga or buried along its banks, and the international media carrying those pictures on their front pages, the government’s immediate need was twofold --get an emergency supply of vaccines to bridge the gap till September and mend the Prime Minister’s shattered image.

Mr Jaishankar began his visit to address these two issues in particular. But instead of facing the editorial boards of major newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post, he chose the easier option of a calibrated chat at a thinktank to answer the critics of his government. Unlike someone like late PM Atal Behari Vajpayee who would have allowed an urbane Jaswant Singh leeway to meet the media halfway to allay their concerns, Mr Jaishankar simply dug in stubbornly. He went on the offensive on the Modi government being portrayed in a “certain way”. In a tweet I asked if the minister understood whether this “way” was actually the media simply speaking truth to power? Which is their right, if not their duty, in a democracy. The US state department released its 2020 Report on Religious Freedom on May 12, as the BJP-appointed administrator of Lakshadweep was busy imposing the Hindutva agenda on the Muslim-majority islands. The minister may pummel the Indian media all he wants, but such actions bring international focus back on whether India under today’s BJP any longer shares “values” with the US?

Mr Jaishankar’s other agenda item was the emergency procurement of vaccines, out of the 80 million doses the US promised to release for international use. Two hurdles are in the way. One, some AstraZeneca stock is feared contaminated during production and thus needs an audit. Two, the US may not divert the bulk to one nation, to maintain equity and its image. Interestingly, not a word was heard about the US pressing for a waiver at the World Trade Organisation on intellectual property. In the coming days, America’s willingness to bail out India will be known. Global Times, the Chinese government’s English mouthpiece,is taunting that Mr Jaishankar’s US visit was just “fanfare” and “blank checks”.

The US will help but may extract greater alignment with its interests in the Indo-Pacific against China, on climate change and trade. It may also force India to curtail its Russian arms purchases, especially the S-400 missile system. The US would also want India to not rock the boat in Afghanistan and meet Pakistan halfway on Kashmir. Meanwhile, the US is silent on restoring the Generalised System of Preferences, revoked by President Trump. Thus, the vaccines may come at a strategic cost, as global hegemons don’t run charities. Mr Modi’s image is another matter, to recover which he needs more than aggressive wolf ministers. He needs a reality check.