Trump Blinked At Multipolarity

 What got lost in the din of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday celebrations, vote-chori allegations by leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and the Asia Cup India-Pak match chatter was the fact that US President Donald Trump blinked. Modi picked up the phone when Trump called for the fifth time, now to wish him on his birthday. According to a German newspaper, Trump’s previous four phone calls were left unanswered. That was the only way to handle a bully ––– stare him down.

Early this week, the US trade negotiation team led by Assistant Trade Representative Brendan Lynch was in Delhi. And that visit was a strong indicator to show the direction the talks were taking. Why would the chief negotiator fly down if not to hasten a deal? Meanwhile, India’s Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran said yesterday that he believed that the penal sanction would not go beyond November 30. He was quick to add that his optimism is purely intuitive and not based on facts.

The details of the give-and-take between the two negotiating parties have not been made public. The prospect of Indian red lines drawn around its farm and dairy sectors and its sovereign right to engage in trade with Russia remaining or getting diluted is too early to predict, as the India-US relationship has become unpredictable altogether. Soon after the phone call, Trump has gone around repeating his boastful lie of using trade tariff to force India and Pakistan to end the conflict. Trump is vaingloriously thundering that, “I have sanctioned them.”

No wonder India is seeking alternate markets for its exports. Garments, fisheries and leather are the most affected by the sanctions. Now, the exemption to US sanctions on the Chabahar port too are being revoked. India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is on a tour to find markets for the troubled sectors in the United Arab Emirates. He is talking about doubling the $50 billion trade with UAE and seeking newer markets in Central Asia and Africa.

Multilateralism, thus, is the key to safeguard sovereignty in all its manifestations –––security, trade, et al. Trump or any other US administration will blow hot or cold depending on its political, economic and security exigencies. But India can no longer afford to be at the receiving end of Western diktats, not because of any false notions of greatness, but because of genuine fears of loss of sovereignty. Even this visit by the US trade team and Trump’s fifth phone call were necessitated by Modi’s China visit for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

All those who poo-pooed the idea of multilateralism as a failed notion of being friendless should now sit up and take note. Is it not India’s dexterity in walking up to the Chinese leadership that made Trump blink; that led the US trade team to visit India just two weeks after the grand Russia-India-China huddle? Even a New York real estate wheeler-dealer would know when he has overplayed the cards. And the best of intelligence networks could easily pick up signals of new possibilities in global groupings.

Imports worth $86 billion are indeed a lot, no doubt. But it is not too much for a post-colonial nation to pay for its sovereignty. While Trump and his advisors were heaping abuses and relentlessly attacking India, it refused to respond, instead quietly mending its relations with China. Import markets can be found elsewhere, but sovereignty once lost will be lost forever. In today’s world, China offers a countervailing force and multipolarity.

India’s urgency was not met with cold cynical calculations. China’s response of warmly inviting, respectfully hosting and offering the all-important visual symbolism of the Russia-India-China pull-aside at Tianjin proved that the Asian giant is willing to play its role in balancing the geopolitical poles. Russian President Vladimir Putin had a big hand in making all this possible, but not without equal Chinese enthusiasm. This balancing act cannot be a one-off, but a perennial struggle to retain strategic autonomy to fight forces of neocolonialism.

In fact, Western enthusiasts baulk at this term. But if the Indian government had acceded to the Western diktat and stopped buying crude oil from Russia, India would have effectively become a neo-colonial vassal without sovereign agency. India refused to budge. It was at that juncture, the Russia-India-China huddle helped to restore the balance. Had it not happened there would have had no compulsion for Lynch to travel or Trump to call. The huddle worked.

That is a lesson that India needs to carry for two reasons: One, India shares a 3500-km-long civilisational border with China, unlike those created by the British with Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is militarily impractical and economically inconceivable to have inimical relations with a superpower on one’s border. Two, when China guarantees multipolarity, it is worth holding hands because unipolarity would only mean strategic servitude. So, it is in India’s interest to have a peaceful border and to strengthen multipolarity, which assures trade with everyone including the US.

The latest development of Pakistan-Saudi Arabia mutual defence pact signed by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif yesterday with Pak army chief Asim Munir accompanying him should be seen more in the context of Trump feting Munir than as an immediate aftermath of Isreal’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar. Pakistan has never posed an existential threat to Israel like Iran, and in return the Zionists never attempted to take out Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and missiles, which many believe are guarded by the West.

After all, West Asia was carved up by the British after the demise of the Ottoman empire making many Persian Gulf countries a Western creation like Pakistan. When two of them come together, it obviously cannot be against a third, favourite child of the same forces. Any Pak defence pact directly threatens India, particularly in the context of Op Sindoor. If this is another attempt by the West to corner India, it need only move eastwards opening its doors and windows to easterly winds of change.

Containing China, Threatening India

The letter “z” is pronounced as ijjed, issed or sometimes zed and rarely zee in India. Coming to think about it, these variations are a function of geography, mother tongue-influence and social class. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it is ijjed and that makes one wonder who would be calling themselves gen zee in neighbouring, poorer Nepal. Obviously, only the western educated, the wealthy or the Thamel crowd that caters to Western tourists; not the poor, unemployed, angry, frustrated young man who is waiting to catch a bus to Sitamarhi and then to Delhi to sell momos on the streets.

That seething youngster on the bus wouldn’t have a clue about “nepo babies”. In fact, only nepo babies use this term to attack fellow favourites of the entitled class. To see this phrase on a banner carried around as part of the anarchic violence is to identify a telltale sign of the well-heeled triggering a regime change, after failing to win elections. A viral video clip of a school kid adds to this doubt. A boy in expensive school uniform with a fake Western accent is attacking political parties over unemployment and corruption without probably ever having suffered lack of opportunity. His breathless schoolboy performance (now when seen during the violence) tragically ended up as a bad rehearsal for what happened later ––– cruel cops shooting down boys in school uniform. Then there are theories abound on social media about a Western-funded colour revolution bringing in regime change in Nepal.

Sudan Gurung, a 36-year-old activist at the centre of the tumultuous episode in Kathmandu, fits the bill. He used to run a nightclub OMG and became a “born-again” philanthropist after the 2015 earthquake, launching Hami Nepal, a non-governmental organisation (NGO). But the problem here is two-fold: Only a nepo baby can have a nightclub at the age of 26, whether he is in Kathmandu or Delhi. And if the nightclub is indeed in Thamel, then he ought to have very wealthy and hugely indulgent parents. Then again, only the blue-blooded can pull family strings to get multinationals like Coca Cola and Al Jazeera to support an NGO. That is how sickeningly nepotistic the Indian subcontinent is. But if Gurung had built his nightclub and his NGO with his own money and networking skills, then undoubtedly, he deserves to be the executive president of Nepal.

But the plot of a political upheaval unravels in its process and the identification of the beneficiary. Here, one can see that as in Bangladesh, the army let vandalism and violence play out before stepping in as an arbiter. A redux of the Bangladesh drama. It was army chief Waker-uz-Zaman, who announced Sheikh Hasina’s resignation on August 5, 2024, after the student protests. Two days later he invited the unelected Western darling Mohammed Younus as the new head the of the interim administration. The uncanny similarity gives away the plot.

According to news reports, Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli was asked to resign by army chief Ashok Kumar Sigdel as a precondition for restoring peace. Soon after ensuring Oli’s exit, Sigdel asked former Chief Justice of Nepal Sushila Karki to head the interim government. Nepal’s Constitution does not allow a former CJI to take up a post-retirement constitutional job. Someone’s South Asian playbook is in circulation. Elected representatives and the electoral process are getting discredited, while chosen individuals are being foisted on the nation after unconscionable violence by gen x, why or zee.

Is this a harbinger of regime change in India, as a social media influencer “followed” by a former armed forces chief, hopes? Or is it a Western attempt to contain China? Or is it both ––– containing China and threatening India. Though the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) between US, India, Japan and Australia was initiated in 2007, it became a coherent grouping only in 2017. China saw this as an attempt at containment and the Ladakh standoff of April 2020 was its response. Though India actively participated in the first-ever Quad military exercise in November 2020, it soon began diplomatic efforts to de-escalate and disengage. India did not want to play the proxy role offered by the West to clash with and diminish China ––– a role that could have destroyed its economy and security.

Once India stepped back from the Himalayan brink, governments in the Indian subcontinent began falling one after another, to be replaced by assets, proxies and tinpot generals. The first to go was Imran Khan in April 2022. He is still languishing in jail. In July 2022, the Sri Lankan government was forced to kneel down to violent street mobs in Colombo with the Prime Minister first resigning and then the President fleeing the country. Two years later, elected Prime Minister Hasina was replaced by the unelected Western favourite Younus. Now, a year after that, Nepal’s Parliament has been gutted as if those who are going to replace the current set of political leaders would all be lily white puritans.

Myanmar is reeling under a crippling civil war which offers immense potential for trouble against neighbouring countries. Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir has already warned India that the next attack would come from the east. And now Nepal is on the boil. It can be read as a Western ploy to ring fence China, something that India failed. It could also be a two-pronged strategy because this line of containment faces both China and India.

Interestingly, the immediate trigger for violence in Nepal was a ban on Western social media platforms. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had in a recent statement on US tariffs pointed out that the US export of software services far outweighed its import of goods. This is particularly true about social media services run by tech giants, which are a huge drain on national wealth, productive energy; and they can also be used to create political upheavals. The Nepal violence could also be seen as a warning sign to those who consider measuring the export surplus created by social media platforms against import of goods.

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.

Trump's Tantrums Are A Sideshow

India’s entry into the World Trade Organisation ––– rather Indian politicians rushing into a global trade minefield where the Chinese were wary to tread ––– left the country’s manufacturing sector bankrupt. Now, Indians can’t hook up to a Wi-Fi connection without a Chinese dongle. It was impossible to replace a faulty telecom equipment during the Ladakh standoff, when restrictions were imposed on Chinese imports. India’s dependence on Chinese Active Pharma Ingredients to produce antibiotics is near total ––– 80 to 90 per cent.

While India joined WTO under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao the very first day itself on January 1, 1995, China took nearly seven years to study and prepare and only then did they step in on December 11, 2001. And now China rules the manufacturing world, while India is struggling to set up assembly lines for foreign industrialists.

India is where it is solely because of the Western assets in Indian politics, bureaucracy and media. Anyone who had then questioned India’s entry into the WTO used to get damned and named a dinosaur, who wanted to reinvent the wheel. The West wanted China to be the world’s factory and India a poor, underdeveloped market. But then, the assumption that the Chinese would be perpetually and mindlessly running factories for Western profiteers was proved wrong.

When China became a threat and a competitor, the West dumped the “rules-based international order” and “multilateralism” and has begun sealing bilateral trade agreements. Now, the West wants to reinvent the wheel, everywhere, particularly back home.

 

Trump’s insults, accusations and rants should only be seen in the light of a post-WTO continuum. His personal style and slights have little to do with all the bilateral treaties that are getting finalised all over the world. The UK, the UAE, Australia and European Free Trade Association have signed trade treaties with India. Trump’s tantrums are just a side show.

But what is at stake is India’s sovereignty, food security, rural employment, farming income and the steep climb from starvation-level poverty. Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput are three districts of Odisha known not-so-long ago for starvation deaths and sale of infants for a bowl of rice. Naveen Patnaik’s miracle in Odisha was to make people grow food grains that the state government would buy. This assured payment made these districts along with the rest of the state surplus in rice.

It is that surplus, which Trump has set his eyes on. India’s green and white revolutions that turned a post-colonial misery into a food-surplus, self-respecting nation are sought to be dismantled. India is being asked to turn the clock back and allow US imports in agricultural and dairy sectors. If while pushing the country into WTO, Indian policy and opinion-makers had brought in manufacturing servitude, the new Bilateral Trade Agreement seems to have all the ingredients to throw the nation into food-dependency.
Cheap electronic, telecom and digital device imports made India into a country that only produces cyber coolies and coding cooks without a single breakthrough innovation in hardware or software. Neither a Blackberry, nor a Nokia, nor a Harmony OS!

Worse than Trump’s cheap digs at India having to buy oil from Pakistan was the news of Microsoft switching off its services to Indian oil refiner Nayara Energy, which is partly owned (49.13 per cent) by Russian oil major Rosneft. The West is trying to deny India its sovereignty not just through coercive trade practices but by weaponising technology paid for by Indian entities.

If Big Tech companies are operating according to the military objectives and foreign policy dictates of the West, should not their sales and revenues in India be reported by Indian authorities as import expenses? If so, do not their Indian revenues contribute towards balancing the so-called trade surplus that India has with the US?

India has been so mindful of the US interests that it still has not publicised all the red lines that the US team wants to cross in the Bilateral Trade Agreement negotiations. There could be a groundswell of opinion in favour of Modi, if India decides to put out in the public domain all those unreasonable US demands that threaten the country’s food security and sovereignty. Trump has made it more and more difficult for the US to get a favourable deal with India as his insults cross the threshold of diplomatic tolerance.

In fact, Trump has offered a reality check to Modi about the possibilities in India-US relations ––– present and future. The widely held perception in India was that a Democrat President was detrimental to bilateral relations with even some BJP insiders speculating an attempt at a regime change operation in India. Hence, Trump’s win was seen as Modi’s position getting bolstered with many believing in some sort of a personal rapport between the two leaders. That belief is in tatters.

Trump has done a great favour to Modi and India at large by revealing US’s bipartisan support for Pakistan –– being the guardians and guarantors of its nuclear arsenal. The alacrity with which Trump jumped in to save Pakistan when its nuclear storage facility was targeted must have sent a message to China as well. After all, the target of a weapon is determined by the one who really owns it.

And it is to Modi’s credit that his perceived friendship with Trump did not deter him from drawing red lines to protect India’s food security and trade concerns. Despite Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi using every bit of Trumpian abuses to target Modi, the latter has not flinched yet. The difference between 1995 and 2025 is that India’s market is no longer up for grabs.

The world becomes multipolar only when the oppressed people desire so. This is one such moment. It is India’s destiny to strengthen genuine multilateralism where in the name of trade self-respecting nations are not expected to surrender their sovereignty and pay tributes to a bully.

While India joined WTO under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao the very first day itself on January 1, 1995, China took nearly seven years to study and prepare and only then did they step in on December 11, 2001. And now China rules the manufacturing world, while India is struggling to set up assembly lines for foreign industrialists.

India is where it is solely because of the Western assets in Indian politics, bureaucracy and media. Anyone who had then questioned India’s entry into the WTO used to get damned and named a dinosaur, who wanted to reinvent the wheel. The West wanted China to be the world’s factory and India a poor, underdeveloped market. But then, the assumption that the Chinese would be perpetually and mindlessly running factories for Western profiteers was proved wrong.

When China became a threat and a competitor, the West dumped the “rules-based international order” and “multilateralism” and has begun sealing bilateral trade agreements. Now, the West wants to reinvent the wheel, everywhere, particularly back home.

Trump’s insults, accusations and rants should only be seen in the light of a post-WTO continuum. His personal style and slights have little to do with all the bilateral treaties that are getting finalised all over the world. The UK, the UAE, Australia and European Free Trade Association have signed trade treaties with India. Trump’s tantrums are just a side show.

But what is at stake is India’s sovereignty, food security, rural employment, farming income and the steep climb from starvation-level poverty. Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput are three districts of Odisha known not-so-long ago for starvation deaths and sale of infants for a bowl of rice. Naveen Patnaik’s miracle in Odisha was to make people grow food grains that the state government would buy. This assured payment made these districts along with the rest of the state surplus in rice.

It is that surplus, which Trump has set his eyes on. India’s green and white revolutions that turned a post-colonial misery into a food-surplus, self-respecting nation are sought to be dismantled. India is being asked to turn the clock back and allow US imports in agricultural and dairy sectors. If while pushing the country into WTO, Indian policy and opinion-makers had brought in manufacturing servitude, the new Bilateral Trade Agreement seems to have all the ingredients to throw the nation into food-dependency.

Cheap electronic, telecom and digital device imports made India into a country that only produces cyber coolies and coding cooks without a single breakthrough innovation in hardware or software. Neither a Blackberry, nor a Nokia, nor a Harmony OS!

Worse than Trump’s cheap digs at India having to buy oil from Pakistan was the news of Microsoft switching off its services to Indian oil refiner Nayara Energy, which is partly owned (49.13 per cent) by Russian oil major Rosneft. The West is trying to deny India its sovereignty not just through coercive trade practices but by weaponising technology paid for by Indian entities.

If Big Tech companies are operating according to the military objectives and foreign policy dictates of the West, should not their sales and revenues in India be reported by Indian authorities as import expenses? If so, do not their Indian revenues contribute towards balancing the so-called trade surplus that India has with the US?

India has been so mindful of the US interests that it still has not publicised all the red lines that the US team wants to cross in the Bilateral Trade Agreement negotiations. There could be a groundswell of opinion in favour of Modi, if India decides to put out in the public domain all those unreasonable US demands that threaten the country’s food security and sovereignty. Trump has made it more and more difficult for the US to get a favourable deal with India as his insults cross the threshold of diplomatic tolerance.

In fact, Trump has offered a reality check to Modi about the possibilities in India-US relations ––– present and future. The widely held perception in India was that a Democrat President was detrimental to bilateral relations with even some BJP insiders speculating an attempt at a regime change operation in India. Hence, Trump’s win was seen as Modi’s position getting bolstered with many believing in some sort of a personal rapport between the two leaders. That belief is in tatters.

Trump has done a great favour to Modi and India at large by revealing US’s bipartisan support for Pakistan –– being the guardians and guarantors of its nuclear arsenal. The alacrity with which Trump jumped in to save Pakistan when its nuclear storage facility was targeted must have sent a message to China as well. After all, the target of a weapon is determined by the one who really owns it.

And it is to Modi’s credit that his perceived friendship with Trump did not deter him from drawing red lines to protect India’s food security and trade concerns. Despite Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi using every bit of Trumpian abuses to target Modi, the latter has not flinched yet. The difference between 1995 and 2025 is that India’s market is no longer up for grabs.

The world becomes multipolar only when the oppressed people desire so. This is one such moment. It is India’s destiny to strengthen genuine multilateralism where in the name of trade self-respecting nations are not expected to surrender their sovereignty and pay tributes to a bully.

While India joined WTO under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao the very first day itself on January 1, 1995, China took nearly seven years to study and prepare and only then did they step in on December 11, 2001. And now China rules the manufacturing world, while India is struggling to set up assembly lines for foreign industrialists.

India is where it is solely because of the Western assets in Indian politics, bureaucracy and media. Anyone who had then questioned India’s entry into the WTO used to get damned and named a dinosaur, who wanted to reinvent the wheel. The West wanted China to be the world’s factory and India a poor, underdeveloped market. But then, the assumption that the Chinese would be perpetually and mindlessly running factories for Western profiteers was proved wrong.

When China became a threat and a competitor, the West dumped the “rules-based international order” and “multilateralism” and has begun sealing bilateral trade agreements. Now, the West wants to reinvent the wheel, everywhere, particularly back home.

Trump’s insults, accusations and rants should only be seen in the light of a post-WTO continuum. His personal style and slights have little to do with all the bilateral treaties that are getting finalised all over the world. The UK, the UAE, Australia and European Free Trade Association have signed trade treaties with India. Trump’s tantrums are just a side show.

But what is at stake is India’s sovereignty, food security, rural employment, farming income and the steep climb from starvation-level poverty. Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput are three districts of Odisha known not-so-long ago for starvation deaths and sale of infants for a bowl of rice. Naveen Patnaik’s miracle in Odisha was to make people grow food grains that the state government would buy. This assured payment made these districts along with the rest of the state surplus in rice.

It is that surplus, which Trump has set his eyes on. India’s green and white revolutions that turned a post-colonial misery into a food-surplus, self-respecting nation are sought to be dismantled. India is being asked to turn the clock back and allow US imports in agricultural and dairy sectors. If while pushing the country into WTO, Indian policy and opinion-makers had brought in manufacturing servitude, the new Bilateral Trade Agreement seems to have all the ingredients to throw the nation into food-dependency.

Cheap electronic, telecom and digital device imports made India into a country that only produces cyber coolies and coding cooks without a single breakthrough innovation in hardware or software. Neither a Blackberry, nor a Nokia, nor a Harmony OS!

Worse than Trump’s cheap digs at India having to buy oil from Pakistan was the news of Microsoft switching off its services to Indian oil refiner Nayara Energy, which is partly owned (49.13 per cent) by Russian oil major Rosneft. The West is trying to deny India its sovereignty not just through coercive trade practices but by weaponising technology paid for by Indian entities.

If Big Tech companies are operating according to the military objectives and foreign policy dictates of the West, should not their sales and revenues in India be reported by Indian authorities as import expenses? If so, do not their Indian revenues contribute towards balancing the so-called trade surplus that India has with the US?

India has been so mindful of the US interests that it still has not publicised all the red lines that the US team wants to cross in the Bilateral Trade Agreement negotiations. There could be a groundswell of opinion in favour of Modi, if India decides to put out in the public domain all those unreasonable US demands that threaten the country’s food security and sovereignty. Trump has made it more and more difficult for the US to get a favourable deal with India as his insults cross the threshold of diplomatic tolerance.

In fact, Trump has offered a reality check to Modi about the possibilities in India-US relations ––– present and future. The widely held perception in India was that a Democrat President was detrimental to bilateral relations with even some BJP insiders speculating an attempt at a regime change operation in India. Hence, Trump’s win was seen as Modi’s position getting bolstered with many believing in some sort of a personal rapport between the two leaders. That belief is in tatters.

Trump has done a great favour to Modi and India at large by revealing US’s bipartisan support for Pakistan –– being the guardians and guarantors of its nuclear arsenal. The alacrity with which Trump jumped in to save Pakistan when its nuclear storage facility was targeted must have sent a message to China as well. After all, the target of a weapon is determined by the one who really owns it.

And it is to Modi’s credit that his perceived friendship with Trump did not deter him from drawing red lines to protect India’s food security and trade concerns. Despite Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi using every bit of Trumpian abuses to target Modi, the latter has not flinched yet. The difference between 1995 and 2025 is that India’s market is no longer up for grabs.

The world becomes multipolar only when the oppressed people desire so. This is one such moment. It is India’s destiny to strengthen genuine multilateralism where in the name of trade self-respecting nations are not expected to surrender their sovereignty and pay tributes to a bully.

While India joined WTO under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao the very first day itself on January 1, 1995, China took nearly seven years to study and prepare and only then did they step in on December 11, 2001. And now China rules the manufacturing world, while India is struggling to set up assembly lines for foreign industrialists.

India is where it is solely because of the Western assets in Indian politics, bureaucracy and media. Anyone who had then questioned India’s entry into the WTO used to get damned and named a dinosaur, who wanted to reinvent the wheel. The West wanted China to be the world’s factory and India a poor, underdeveloped market. But then, the assumption that the Chinese would be perpetually and mindlessly running factories for Western profiteers was proved wrong.

When China became a threat and a competitor, the West dumped the “rules-based international order” and “multilateralism” and has begun sealing bilateral trade agreements. Now, the West wants to reinvent the wheel, everywhere, particularly back home.

Trump’s insults, accusations and rants should only be seen in the light of a post-WTO continuum. His personal style and slights have little to do with all the bilateral treaties that are getting finalised all over the world. The UK, the UAE, Australia and European Free Trade Association have signed trade treaties with India. Trump’s tantrums are just a side show.

But what is at stake is India’s sovereignty, food security, rural employment, farming income and the steep climb from starvation-level poverty. Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput are three districts of Odisha known not-so-long ago for starvation deaths and sale of infants for a bowl of rice. Naveen Patnaik’s miracle in Odisha was to make people grow food grains that the state government would buy. This assured payment made these districts along with the rest of the state surplus in rice.

It is that surplus, which Trump has set his eyes on. India’s green and white revolutions that turned a post-colonial misery into a food-surplus, self-respecting nation are sought to be dismantled. India is being asked to turn the clock back and allow US imports in agricultural and dairy sectors. If while pushing the country into WTO, Indian policy and opinion-makers had brought in manufacturing servitude, the new Bilateral Trade Agreement seems to have all the ingredients to throw the nation into food-dependency.

Cheap electronic, telecom and digital device imports made India into a country that only produces cyber coolies and coding cooks without a single breakthrough innovation in hardware or software. Neither a Blackberry, nor a Nokia, nor a Harmony OS!

Worse than Trump’s cheap digs at India having to buy oil from Pakistan was the news of Microsoft switching off its services to Indian oil refiner Nayara Energy, which is partly owned (49.13 per cent) by Russian oil major Rosneft. The West is trying to deny India its sovereignty not just through coercive trade practices but by weaponising technology paid for by Indian entities.

If Big Tech companies are operating according to the military objectives and foreign policy dictates of the West, should not their sales and revenues in India be reported by Indian authorities as import expenses? If so, do not their Indian revenues contribute towards balancing the so-called trade surplus that India has with the US?

India has been so mindful of the US interests that it still has not publicised all the red lines that the US team wants to cross in the Bilateral Trade Agreement negotiations. There could be a groundswell of opinion in favour of Modi, if India decides to put out in the public domain all those unreasonable US demands that threaten the country’s food security and sovereignty. Trump has made it more and more difficult for the US to get a favourable deal with India as his insults cross the threshold of diplomatic tolerance.

In fact, Trump has offered a reality check to Modi about the possibilities in India-US relations ––– present and future. The widely held perception in India was that a Democrat President was detrimental to bilateral relations with even some BJP insiders speculating an attempt at a regime change operation in India. Hence, Trump’s win was seen as Modi’s position getting bolstered with many believing in some sort of a personal rapport between the two leaders. That belief is in tatters.

Trump has done a great favour to Modi and India at large by revealing US’s bipartisan support for Pakistan –– being the guardians and guarantors of its nuclear arsenal. The alacrity with which Trump jumped in to save Pakistan when its nuclear storage facility was targeted must have sent a message to China as well. After all, the target of a weapon is determined by the one who really owns it.

And it is to Modi’s credit that his perceived friendship with Trump did not deter him from drawing red lines to protect India’s food security and trade concerns. Despite Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi using every bit of Trumpian abuses to target Modi, the latter has not flinched yet. The difference between 1995 and 2025 is that India’s market is no longer up for grabs.

The world becomes multipolar only when the oppressed people desire so. This is one such moment. It is India’s destiny to strengthen genuine multilateralism where in the name of trade self-respecting nations are not expected to surrender their sovereignty and pay tributes to a bully.