How Obama managed to win over India
In Frank Capra’s classic film, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, the protagonist is chosen to be packed off to become a US senator as the result of a mere coin toss. It was the modern day equivalent of casual and capricious – an exchange of tweets – that brought Mr Obama to India for the ceremonies of the 66th Republic Day. His unceremonious departure left many feeling jilted.
Memorable
Why, in the scheme of things, did the need to pay respect to the recently deceased Saudi king, give or take a day, have to result in the president’s failing to accord due homage to the favourite wife of emperor Shah Jahan? Her glorious place of repose had been all spruced up for the occasion, a Herculean clean-up effort that had the Taj Mahal and its environs gleaming. Some 600 workers, many of them toiling on their knees, took pride from the fact that POTUS would bear witness to their handiwork. Alas, it was not to be. By severing his stay midstream, Obama was all the talk with friends from the desi diaspora. Jai, a politically savvy tech entrepreneur, was irritated at the insensitivity of the move. Rohan, equally astute, remarked that at least there was a positive by-product – a cleaner Taj Mahal. A visitus interruptus, I daresay, is certainly better than no visit at all.
This blip on the trip notwithstanding, Obama’s visit was memorable in many other ways. POTUS’s gum chewing at the parade made front pages. Had he snuck in a surreptitious smoke just prior? And then people wondered why FLOTUS was so absent. Last visit, she danced, hugged children, walked barefoot on hallowed ground. Maybe this time Mrs O was holed up in her hotel getting crash courses in kriya yoga? When she did make an appearance, FLOTUS sported bold and garish prints, embracing the generous colour palette of the sub-continent in all its kaleidoscopic variegations.
Still on matters sartorial, one has to reference the monogrammed suit that launched a thousand quips. In all its pomp and spectacle, the Mobama hugfest could be summed up as a hugely successful photo-op of conspicuous conscious coupling. Moving from the symbolism to rhetoric, fluff and froth abounded. There was President Obama evoking Horatio Alger-like tired tropes that keep alive the irresponsible myth of radical social mobility for the masses. Trotting out that we bros (the Mobama-dyad) are “living proof of what you can be too” is dangerously flawed and causes us not to face up to the structural and institutionalised realities that stymie genuine equality of opportunity. It’s a ghastly category error conflating outliers with the norm.
Then there was the homage to Mahatma Gandhi that glossed over the ahimsa principle of non-violence at the core of everything Gandhian. In a moment of supreme irony, at nearly this very same moment, a peaceful recreational drone crash-landed on the White House lawn.
Substance
More substantive was the president’s important message about religious tolerance and women’s rights. It was a script rapidly torn up and forgotten as Air Force One took off for its next destination.
To their credit, the Obamas must be lauded for accepting the tweeted invitation to hurtle halfway round the world, bringing the Beast (the presidential behemoth of a vehicle) along for the ride. The logistical arrangements for orchestrating these visits are colossal. There were even comedic reports of the presidential detail carting in breathable air to ensure POTUS remained well oxygenated in Delhi’s harsh pollution. Big brownie points go to President Obama for breaching long-standing protocol by sitting out in the open for a full two hours, well over and beyond the requisite maximum of 45 minutes in public. Unfortunately, it rained on his parade, but the tableaux of liveried camels, lively floats, song and dance, military displays and vibrant tunics and turbans cannot fail to have elicited some delight from the leader of the free world.
Hindi
President Obama further impressed with his breaking out Hindi phrases. This excursion into the vernacular is seemingly a must-do, ever since JF Kennedy’s memorable oratory in Berlin in 1963 when he proudly declared in German to cheering crowds, “I am a jelly donut!”
Lest the whole visit be taken for mere fun and games, there were serious moments too. Ongoing nuclear issues, at least a decade long, continue to be on the table. Murkiness surrounds just how much foreign firms will be absolved from tort liabilities in the event of nuclear accidents in India; the matter needs to be properly debated. Lessons from government back stops for banks too-big-to-fail must give us pause. When private industry is accorded free lunches from the public sector, it becomes an invitation to shoddiness around standards and risk-taking.
Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima should still be seared in our collective consciousness. So should we also recall the horrendous carnage of Bhopal. Robust punitive and restitutional protections form solid legal guardrails that keep big business honest.
US-India relations have come a long way from the low-points of the 1970s. Princeton Professor Gary J Bass’s recent book, The Blood Telegram, along with freshly declassified documents expose verbatim the egregious, toxic attitude of Nixon and Kissinger towards the subcontinent.
With everyone courting India now, the country needs to assess how its historical position of non-alignment jibes with becoming captive to geopolitical ambitions of any other nation and what the immediate and longer term consequences will be for ongoing regional peace, stability and prosperity. India also needs to get serious about climate change and sustainability for its own sake if nothing else.
Beyond coin tosses and tweets, these are serious, weighty matters upon which the fates and futures of billions of people depend. Shortsightedness, abject failure to assess the unintended consequences of actions and compounding policy mistakes are apparent all around the world. The Modi administration (bread and circuses and inept pinstripes aside) appears to understand just what’s at stake and the need to proceed pragmatically.