Tariff As Regime-Change Tool

Extra 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods –– “sanctions” is the correct expression used by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt –– for buying Russian oil is the latest proof of the continuing bipartisan US efforts to enforce a regime change in India. Prime Minister Modi should go. Period. Otherwise, there is no need for all this fake outrage when it was the Biden administration that had “asked” India to buy Russian oil, when China remains the largest oil importer and the European Union the biggest Russian gas buyer. India is “perplexed”, as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar put it, because other than a regime-change attempt there is no plausible reason for these “sanctions”.

Now is the time to look back at Pahalgam. Hindsight always offers a 20/20 vision. Did Pakistan’s tinpot army chief Asim Munir believe that he had US on his side when he sent terrorists across the LoC to carry out the worst communal attack on innocent tourists in recent times? Did Munir wargame a situation wherein, after Balakot, India was sure to have responded kinetically to a terrorist attack? Did he expect the US to jump in to protect Pakistan? The US did rush in to safeguard the nuclear arsenal and to seek a ceasefire. Then President Trump invited Munir for lunch, and again for CENTCOM chief Michael Kurrilla’s farewell.

All Indian domestic pressure points were being jabbed mercilessly: a Pakistani terror attack; retaliation being countered by US diplomacy; Americans hyphenating India and Pakistan; summoning Modi to the White House to have lunch with Munir; and letting Munir threaten India with a nuclear attack on American soil. Meanwhile, the Opposition, as if picking up the cue, began the chorus of “Narendar Surrender”. Tariff was the only quasi-legitimate weapon left for the US to unleash on Modi. Now, that is also done.

The Russian oil bogey is a diversionary tactic, and the so-called attack on Mukesh Ambani is laughable because he had a meeting with Trump at Doha in May, which was his second since January. The US would have beef about Russian-owned refiner Nayara Energy making a decent profit refining Russian crude, if at all. But the refining margins are legal and the very idea of de-legitimising these profits is an attempt to criminalise the Indian government in a grand attempt at regime change.

If India acquiesces, the Narendar-Surrender slogan will be raised and if India upholds its sovereignty, the government would be attacked for war profiteering –– a dirty accusation to be made against any government.

Indian policy makers ought to have taken a close look at a picture from the Oval Office where all the European heads of government were sitting studiously across the President’s table. They represent countries that were captured/liberated by the Allied forces at the end of World War II. UK PM Keir Starmer’s absence was significant. After all, the UK, unlike France, was not under Nazi occupation. It is the 1945 world order established by the Western winners of WWII that is at stake. India achieved its freedom fighting one of the biggest winners of WWII and obviously doesn’t belong to this group.

India’s success and its continuing growth story should be read against this backdrop. That Indian soldiers and resources helped UK retain its sovereignty and the fact that their sacrifices helped Allied forces in their crucial turnarounds like the Battle of Kohima are forgotten. In fact, they are remembered only while wargaming secessionist and separatist scenarios in India where the grandchildren of the “loyal collaborators” are expected to secede to become mercenaries all over again.

After all, America was built with British colonial loot. Where did the investible surplus that created the rail roads, canals, textile mills, steel factories and mining industry come from? Would America have industrialised so fast and so well without British capital? Utsa Patnaik, the Indian economist, had assessed the colonial plunder and arrived at the figure of $45 trillion –– some of it, obviously, would have got invested in creating the American miracle. Grownups know that there are no real miracles or magic, but only a sleight of hand. Without colonial or neocolonial pillage there is no Western magic.

So, the attack on Indian sovereignty is nobody’s eccentricity. It is rather a necessity for the West to have a pliant Indian leadership, which they were used to since the late 1980s. A single party rule with a strong leader in India thus becomes anathema to the West. It is interesting to note that the same geopolitical forces that were mobilised against Indira Gandhi are now trying to corner Modi. Of course, with the big difference of a reduced Russia and a rising China, which when combined would give the world a countervailing force against Western dominance. The Rupee-Rouble era is being revisited when Russia and India agree to increase bilateral trade in their sovereign currencies.

All that Modi lacks are the camaraderie of SA Dange and Mohit Sen and an alliance with the CPI. Jokes apart, the most astonishing diplomatic feat achieved by Modi is the recalibration, or rather total reversal, of India’s relationship with China in the face of domestic political heat. India’s animosity towards China was a Western construct that had to be demolished at some point in time. And Modi grabbed the opportunity delivered by the hostile West to swing towards China, proving true the old claim of India being a swing state.

The new dawn in Asia has been hastened by Western avarice. A Russia-India-China axis could stabilise global political and economic turbulence and create a more just world order. The Tianjin SCO summit, just a few days away, holds much in store for India, which needs predictable borders on the north and east, and trade routes to east. The Chennai-Vladivostok Sea link revives memories of the Soviet nuclear-armed flotilla ensuring Indian victory in the Bangladesh liberation war. Now, the Eastern Maritime Corridor should have an important Chinese port en route. China is an iron neighbour, which can and should become a friend.