Rolling out the red carpet to bolster Indo-US ties

KP Nayar

Strategic Analyst

There is a sense of déjà vu about the visit of US President Donald Trump to India. The people of Ahmedabad are attempting to match what the people of Kolkata (then Calcutta) did with another leader of another superpower almost 65 years ago.

An estimated 50 lakh people, more than half of them brought in from Bengal’s countryside by special trains and buses, lined the 12-km route from Dum Dum airport to the centre of Calcutta in 1955 to greet Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Conch shell-blowing, petal-showering women and Indian and Soviet flag-waving men swept Khrushchev, accompanied by the then Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin, literally off their feet, in a way Gujarat’s population hopes to sweep America’s first family.

The reception which Khrushchev and Bulganin received in Calcutta and elsewhere in 1955 was a turning point in Indo-Soviet ties which later made the two countries virtual allies for at least four decades.

Times have changed, however. Security has increased the distance between the visiting leaders and their adoring host population. So, the welcome that Khrushchev and Bulganin received in Calcutta will not be replicated in Ahmedabad in its entirety.

The two Soviet leaders had to abandon their open limousines along the route because the crowds became so thick and Kremlin security insisted that their roofless vehicle surrounded by teeming millions was a safety hazard. Khrushchev and Bulganin then completed the remainder of their journey along Calcutta’s streets clambering up a radio truck of the Calcutta Police, which was part of the cavalcade.

An advance party from Washington with a US Secret Service component, which visited Ahmedabad two weeks ago, has seen to it that nothing of that kind will happen to the leader of the only remaining superpower six-and-a-half decades later. At the same time, Indians, who are in charge of Trump’s itinerary, will see to it that the effusiveness of their welcome will not in any way be diminished or allowed to be less demonstrative because of the demands of terror-age security and bandobast.

For those Indians strategising the future course of relations with the US, the welcome for Trump and his family is at the core of what lies ahead in dealing with the White House if its current resident is re-elected for a second term in a little over eight months.

By nature, Trump cares less about strategy and relies more on his instincts. If the message gets across to him during this visit, both in Ahmedabad and in New Delhi, that the people of India love him, Indo-US relations are safe in a likely second Trump presidency from January next year. That appears to be the reason why Indian policymakers do not want demonstrative affection for the visiting President to be diluted by any half-baked trade agreement or some other deal which Trump may find not to his liking when he returns to Washington and sits down to apply his mind to the outcomes of his trip.

Richard M Rossow, a respected India expert in Washington, who is the Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has been closely following the preparations for the Trump visit. According to Rossow, ‘The way they are setting up Trump’s meetings in New Delhi, they are reducing as much as they can, the chance that there is going to be some kind of diplomatic incident.’

Rossow cautions, however, that ‘once the meetings are over and the President comes back, will he use that as an opportunity to talk about Kashmir again or something like that? It is always on the table. But they have got a pretty good track record in this kind of scenario, making sure that there hasn’t been any kind of incidents that have blown up so far.’

Rossow just spent four weeks visiting eight states in India. By and large, the people he spoke to felt that Trump would be re-elected. ‘My sense is nobody is treating this President as a lame duck, even as a partially endangered President. They feel that he has an excellent chance of being around for an additional four years.’

When the adoration and adulation in Ahmedabad, Agra and New Delhi are over, Trump and First Lady Melania are bound to reflect that there are not many other places in the world where America’s First Family can get such an effusive welcome. That is an investment that India is making in Trump, indeed, in America itself.

India’s foreign policymakers are hopeful that those opposed to Trump, the Democrats, other liberals and even American businesses, will see in the affection showered on their President the love of Indians for the US, not just adoration for an individual. To a very large extent, that is true, just as love for the Soviet Union was a fact of life across Indian society throughout the Cold War era.

Logically, the White House will also reflect on the reality that it has poured billions of dollars into Pakistan for decades for various reasons and for a variety of programmes. Yet, next to India, the country that Pakistanis love to hate is America. Here, the contrast with India will stand out, not just with Trump and his inner circle, but the entire US political class.

Information available with the White House at the time of writing indicates that the presidential trip to India is the first occasion where three members of any US President’s family, who have executive roles or positions in the government, are travelling abroad with the Head of State: Melania Trump, the First Lady, Ivanka Trump, the daughter who is Adviser to the President, and her husband Jared Kushner, who is Senior Adviser to the President.

All of which goes to show that Trump’s stay in India, although only for two days, is not just another VVIP visit to New Delhi.

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