Opinion Express View on BJP and Obama: Making Delhi look insecure

Sometimes, smart diplomacy also means listening, not rushing to grandstand

BJP, Barack Dbami, PM Modi Lectures on democracy, locus standi of the lecturer, INDIAN EXPRESS, INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS

While the larger project this new diplomatic stance is part of has merits — the reclaiming of control over the India story, the signaling that it would now unfold on India's own terms, could be said to have been overdue. (Express Photo)

By: Editorial

June 27, 2023 06:27 AM IST First published on: Jun 26, 2023 at 05:50 AM IST

Lectures on democracy, more often than not, invite questions about the gratuitousness and locus standi of the lecturer. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, when former US president Barack Obama made alarmed and alarmist remarks in an interview to CNN about India’s treatment of its Muslim minority, his timing and tone sounded off-key.

These are times when the American project of exporting democracy around the world seems increasingly shown up by its presumption, and also by the fact that American democracy is beset by its own anxieties. And yet, having said that, the response to Obama’s remarks by the Delhi establishment has been uncalled for.

One of the stated achievements of the Modi government has been on the foreign policy front — it claims, with more than some justification, to have upended the traditional diplomatic paradigms and reimagined India’s place in the world as a more confident and assertive player. But, surely, confident does not equal prickly.

From Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma putting it crudely in a tweet against “Hussain Obama”, to Baijayant Panda, BJP vice-president, endorsing his party colleague’s attack on “Barry”, to no less than the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman pointing to the bombing of Muslim-dominated nations during the Obama presidency — the BJP and its government appear too quick on the draw.

Incidentally, President Joe Biden, who accorded PM Modi a grand welcome in Washington last week, was part of the same Obama administration that Sitharaman referred so sharply to. More seriously, the wolf warrior diplomacy on display is ill-fitting. While the larger project this new diplomatic stance is part of has merits — the reclaiming of control over the India story, the signaling that it would now unfold on India’s own terms, could be said to have been overdue.

But assertive diplomacy must also be mature and tamping down the combative impulse can bring more benefits. A case in point is PM Modi’s successful visit to Egypt, after the spectacular US trip — it would not have been possible had Delhi reacted in short-term ways to Egypt’s decision to stay away from the G20 tourism meet in Srinagar in May.

The fact also is that Obama’s concern — about the need for India’s democracy to be more mindful of the protections it affords its largest minority, for the sake of both the minority and the majority — is not new. Others, many others, at home and abroad, have voiced similar concerns. As India readies to play host at the G20 summit in the year of its presidency, it will need to take those questions on board. Rounding on the questioner makes it look less self-assured, not more. Sharp retorts and pointed rebuffs, the kind that have become the trademark of Sitharaman’s colleague S Jaishankar, are effective and smart, but sometimes just listening — without rushing to grandstand — can be smarter.