Opinion J D Vance in India: A case of frontstage confidence, backstage jitters
Now that US Vice President has returned home, the question remains: Will the poise of the US-India frontstage hold amid the chaos of the backstage?
JD Vance with his family, in Rajasthan on Tuesday. 
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The US Vice-President JD Vance’s recent visit to India concluded with impeccable optics for both sides: Pictures of his children playing with the Prime Minister, visits to Jaipur and Agra and, of course, the Indian media going into an overdrive, tracing the relatives of Vance’s wife Usha. Thankfully, no one asked him if he likes butter chicken. The acoustics also synced: In his Jaipur speech, Vance stressed the special relationship between India and the US — predictably enough — and called for a deepening of economic and strategic ties between the two countries. However, beyond the “hum saath saath hain” frontstage, the diplomatic backstage offers much that needs to be unpacked.
Let us start with the speech. While some of it invoked the oft-repeated theme of India-US ties, the way Vance described this relationship was perceptibly different. Gone was the emphasis on the two countries’ shared democratic, pluralist, and free-market ethos. Instead, Vance lambasted previous attempts by Western leaders to “flatten” the world into secular, universal values, and emphasised a relationship based on the acknowledgement of difference. Subtly but surely, Vance signalled two tendencies. First, a growing distance between the US and its traditional allies (Western Europe) as well as the liberal international order that they constituted. Second, by criticising the “condescending” attitude of previous regimes towards India, Vance pointed towards an alternate conception of world politics that is now emerging from the global right, one which dispenses with any belief in universalism. Based on a particularistic idea of the “self” (in opposition to the “other”), it is at best a world of coordinated parochialisms. Cooperation in such an order, while seemingly transactional, is also internally constituted by an idea of a hierarchy of the self and the other (especially if one feels that they are in a superior position). Let me explain.
In his speech, Vance stressed the need for India to purchase defence equipment from the US, especially the F-35. This is noteworthy, as the F-35 programme has often been called a “boondoggle” due to persistent issues and cost overruns. Furthermore, as Srdjan Vucetic notes, countries that have signed onto the programme have found it difficult to opt out due to sunk costs and the fear of upsetting a hegemonic alliance partner (the US). Now that the US-Europe alliance has been called into question, Portugal, Canada, and Denmark are openly questioning the rationale for staying on the F-35 programme. Thus, India emerges as the perfect candidate: All you have to do is placate our egos and call us tough negotiators (besides, of course, offering benefits for the lobby-chain that helps smoothen things). This also aligns well with a hierarchical worldview where the US is the core, and the developing world is the pliant periphery which can be persuaded to buy unsold stock at a good price — or, as in the case of China, an unruly one whose “peasants” take unfair advantage of globalisation, according to the Vice President.
Thus, despite the bravado, Vance’s speech unwittingly reveals the nervousness of the American backstage. Trump’s 90-day tariff U-turn was justified on the basis of his government’s ability to engineer the “best deals” for America. So far, while there have been some murmurs, there have been no formal announcements. Furthermore, the trade war with China shows no signs of abating, and many are predicting a slowdown in the American economy. The volatility in policy has also meant that long-term trust in the US has dipped globally. Thus, even if countries manage to secure bilateral deals with the US, many have begun to silently hedge against it. India could use this to its advantage. The fact that the Trump government is in a “formally” strong position domestically (having secured control of the US Congress), should make India’s negotiation position even stronger, for New Delhi can claim that it is bound by coalition politics and would therefore need a better deal to sell to its population and coalition allies.
I am skeptical, however, because of a different kind of jitteriness in India’s backstage. There appears to be a certain diffidence on New Delhi’s part in sending even the slightest signal of dissent in reaction to various developments — Indian citizens being brought in chains, the unlawful detention of the Indian researcher Badar Khan Suri, the treatment of Ranjini Srinivasan, or the arbitrary cancellation of student visas and green cards. Again, this comes from the same commitment to hierarchy and power, which exhibits itself as psychological domination with respect to the weaker, and subordination with respect to the perceived superior.
This is also exacerbated by India’s weakness in its neighbourhood. Our wish to “escape” South Asia, a non-policy, has now resulted in India’s alienation from much of the region. Just days ago, Bangladesh made clear overtures to China, to which our collective media discourse could be summed up as the reaction of a jilted lover. And now, as I write these lines, the shocking news of a terrorist attack on tourists in Kashmir means that the India-Pakistan hyphenation is probably back. But I digress – India’s inability to take the neighbourhood along has meant that we may have a weaker hand while dealing with the US (and China).
Thus, now that Vance has returned home, the question remains: Will the poise of the US-India frontstage hold amid the chaos of the backstage? Or will this be akin to that famous sequence in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, where Akbar appears in the middle of a scene from the Mahabharata?
The writer is an assistant professor of International Relations, Ashoka University. Views are personal
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