CIA Mole
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- May 1, 2019
- Messages
- 3,263
- Reaction score
- -2
- Country
- Location
https://on.ft.com/323Ugvl
Kamala Harris nomination adds to New Delhi unease as US vote looms
Modi record on rights likely to face scrutiny if Biden and Indian-American senator win White House
Amy Kazmin
Wishful thinking maybe?
Kamala Harris nomination adds to New Delhi unease as US vote looms
Modi record on rights likely to face scrutiny if Biden and Indian-American senator win White House
Amy Kazmin
Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants to the US, as his Democratic running mate in November’s presidential election, has sent a frisson of excitement across India.
Bollywood superstar Priyanka Chopra praised the choice of Ms Harris, whose mother came to the US as a PhD student in the late 1950s, as “a historical, transformational and proud moment for all women”. In New Delhi, journalists laid siege to the home of her uncle, retired academic and specialist in US politics Gopalan Balachandran, who opined that the women of his family were always stronger than the men.
In southern Tamil Nadu state, where the family’s roots lie, giant billboards with Ms Harris’ face appeared, proclaiming “P.V. Gopalan’s granddaughter is victorious”. Industrialist Anand Mahindra tweeted that Ms Harris “epitomises what the world should be — borderless and interracial”.
But while many may thrill to the prospect of an Indian immigrant’s daughter just a heartbeat away from the US presidency, New Delhi’s foreign policy establishment is apprehensive about how a potential new occupant in the White House might respond to the aggressive pursuit of a Hindu nationalist agenda by Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, that has deeply alienated India’s Muslim minority.
Over the past four years, Mr Modi has forged a strong personal rapport with Donald Trump, the Republican US president, who has paid little heed to allegations of rising authoritarianism and repression of minorities and dissent by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The bonhomie was on display last year when the two leaders appeared at a political rally at a stadium in Houston, where Mr Modi appeared to endorse Mr Trump’s re-election bid before a crowd of 50,000 jubilant Indian-Americans.
A Democratic administration in Washington would, however, be likely to take a far greater interest in Mr Modi’s domestic policies and push the country to live up to its oft-proclaimed democratic ideals, say analysts.
“It would certainly be more comfortable [for the Modi government] if they had four more years of Trump,” said Suhasini Haider, diplomatic editor of The Hindu daily newspaper.
“A Democrat establishment will be much more vocal about human rights, civil rights, internet bans, privacy issues as well as minority freedoms. Mr Trump has by and large given this government a free pass.”
Ms Harris has already raised some of these issues. She expressed concern about conditions in India’s Muslim-majority Kashmir region after Mr Modi’s government last year revoked its statehood, arrested its politicians and suspended nearly all telecommunications in the region for months.
She was also outraged when S. Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, sought to exclude Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who had been critical of Mr Modi’s Kashmir policy, from a briefing he was holding on Capitol Hill last year.
Rudra Chaudhuri, author of the book Forged in Crisis: India and the United States Since 1947, said conditions in Kashmir and other civil liberties issues, would gain more prominence in the US-India relationship if Mr Biden were elected.
“The question of rights and human rights will be brought up into the spotlight and will be part of the conversation,” he said. “For Biden and Kamala Harris, what distinguishes American leadership in these changing geopolitical times partially rests on the position America takes on rights.”
Relations between the US and India have been totally transformed since their prickly, often adversarial Cold War era encounters. Today, Washington and New Delhi are strategic and defence partners, bound by shared concerns about an increasingly assertive China and tied together by a 4m-strong Indian-American diaspora that retains strong family, social and economic ties to India.
But frictions remain — Mr Trump has taken a hard line towards India on trade, last year withdrawing India’s preferential access to the US market over concerns about Indian protectionism. Many liberal minded Indian-Americans are also uncomfortable at India’s rightward lurch under Mr Modi’s leadership.
Ms Harris’ India-born mother, Dr Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher who died in 2009, was herself a radical for her time, breaking taboos with her involvement in the US civil rights movement and marriage to a fellow student from Jamaica. Ms Harris has retained strong ties to her mother’s side of the family. As a child she spent holidays in India with her grandparents, and her uncle was among several Indian relatives to attend her swearing-in as California senator three years ago.
Amitabh Mattoo, a professor of international relations at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, said her election would captivate the Indian-American community and reaffirm India’s deep-rooted affection for and admiration of America.
“It’s the coming of age of the Indian diaspora,” he said. “It can only happen in America.”
Mr Balachandran believes his niece would, as vice-president, be a friend to India — though not necessarily uncritical of all New Delhi’s policies.
“It seems people think that somebody of Indian extraction should say, ‘hail to India’ whatever India does,” he said. “But no right-thinking Indian would say that. A true friend will say when you are doing something that is not good for you. She will speak her mind, but she will not be dogmatic.”
In the end, “larger strategic sense will prevail”, Mr Chaudhuri said. “India needs America as much as America needs India.”
Wishful thinking maybe?
Last edited:
