STUDY THE DONALD TRUMP VISIT

STUDYING THE TRUMP VISIT-

Not such the 1950s has India serenaded an overseas leader with such relish as US President Donald Trump this week. This in spite of the reality of India's major power relations has been as great and controversial as those with the United States. If public rallies with visiting chief are a singularity was the norm during the 1950s, when large crowds joined Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in greeting leaders like Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. The receptions of the 1950s were about surveying newly sovereign India's international possibilities. The famous Welcome to Trump was about finishing the residual domestic reservations in India about partnering with the United States. The awareness and warmth showered on Trump at Motera and Delhi marks a conclusive turn in India's thinking about America. Despite much development over the last two decades, distrust of the US settled in the bureaucracy, the political class, and the intelligentsia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent precessors, including PV Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Manmohan Singh, were all eager to transform the relationship with the US  but ran into deep internal resistance against even the easy forms of cooperation with Washington. Security cooperation with the US, in particular, was, by mainstream definition, a deviation from the foreign policy canon. What was superbly all right with Russia or China was just not kosher with America. Put another way, collaboration with Russia and China was progressive and cooperation with the US was regressive. Modi has lastly broken through that systemic prejudice against the engagement with the US. In his lecture to the US Congress in the summer of 2016, Modi had asserted that India's historic hesitations with the US were over. If that was an announcement of intent, Motera was proof of that transition. Modi's assertion that the US was the most important relationship for India was based on the fact that there is a new level of confidence between Delhi and Washington. This was the key to conquer India's past inhibitions about partnering with the US. It is this new belief that let Modi go all out to publicly flaunt the new possibilities with America. Skeptics will continue to argue that India tends to be emotional about its international friendships. They might remember the intensity of India's fellowship with China in the 1950s marked by the slogan"Hindi-Chinni Bhai-Bhai".That view came crashing down in less than a decade amidst the structural contradictions between the two countries on Tibet, territory, and a host of other issues. Modi's planned embrace of Trump looks quite similar to India's enthusiasm for Soviet Russia during the Cold War. Although no one tagged it as"Hindi-Russi, Bhai-Bhai", the Russian cooperation was quite central to India's foreign policy for decades. Trump's call on this week should remind us of the extended moves through India by the Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, and Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin in 1955. As the two Russian leaders proceed across the nation from Ooty in Tamil Nadu to Srinagar, massive crowds showed up everywhere. As Soviet Russia tried to shatter away from international isolation in the mid-1950s, its leaders were delighted by the affection they received in India. Trump too, seemed touched by the huge turnout at Motera. Trump's visit is also similar to Khrushchev's in the signaling the visitors did on Kashmir at a time when the Anglo-American powers were trying to put pressure on India at the UNSC. Nothing developed trust between Delhi and Moscow more than the frequent Russian veto at the USC on Kashmir. In the fixation with Trump's talk on mediation, the Indian discourse misses the extraordinary support that Delhi has experienced from Trump's White House on the Kashmir question and on pressing Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism. America's support was condemning in fending off the Pakistani effort to get the UNSC to examine Kashmir after India Changed the constitutional status of the state last August. It was also pivotal in sustaining the pressure on Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force. Even more important is Trump's absolute endorsement of Modi's recasting of the Kashmir question. Since August, the US  has not queried the constitutional change in Kashmir. That American backing has come amidst China's support for Pakistan on Kashmir and protection against international action on terrorism, is one part of the unfolding story of the India-US alignment. he other is about China itself. f support for Pakistan on Kashmir and protection against international action on terrorism is one part of the unfolding story of the India-US alignment. he other is about China itself. f support on Kashmir brought Soviet Russia closer to India in the 1950s, the rift between Moscow and Beijing in the 1960s consolidated the Indo-Soviet partnership.Today the deepening schism between Washington and Beijing and the growing imbalance between India and China have set the stage for Delhi and Washington to work together to stabilize the Asian balance of power.To be sure, his theme has been in the background for the last two decades as Presidents George Bush and Barck Obama assigned out to India.But it is under Trump that the Indo-Pacific strategy was formalized and Washington to work together to stabilize the Asian balance of power.To be sure, his theme has been in the background for the last two decades as Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama reached out to India.But it is underTrump that the Indo-Pacific strategy was formalized and Washington has finished its own ambivalences in cooperating with India on a range of issues, from technology transfers to Kashmir and terrorism.Unlike the leaders of many of America's traditional allies, ho tended to treat Trump as an American political aberration, Modi saw significant possibilities in the President's America First approach that opened up space for India in the subcontinent, he Indi-pacific, and on security and defense cooperation.Unlike many of America's friends, he Modi government was willing to take some political risks in appearing to endorse Trump's reelection at the Howdy Modi rally last September in Houston.This has certainly generated some bad blood with the opposition Democrats in the US.But the real threat to the deeper partnership comes not from Washington, ut Delhi.An India at war with itself can hardly take advantage of the huge possibilities presented by the Hindi-Amreeki, hai-Bhai phase in the US relationship.