I will take all these indexes with a large grain of salt. India has 20 political parties running various states and the central govt. How is that a lack of democracy?
India has 100 live news challenges and has the largest English Daily newspaper. Which other country can say that?
The citizenship act you mentioned is for persecuted minority religions from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma etc. All of the minorities are Hindus and skihs etc.
Please check the atrocities against Hindus and others in Pakistan etc.
The whole point is to support these non-muslim religions who live Muslim dominated or Buddhist dominated countries.
The western media and progressives lack any real understanding of India.
It is a signaling bill. It signals that Bharat is glorious Hindustan that shall forever live under Ram's grace!
Like go to Florida, the Republican government and legislature there passed a law with strict penalties for employing illegal immigrants....
But, a lot of the agriculture and construction trades depend on these people so now a lot of the officials who passed the bill are saying that they didn't really mean it and it is meant for signaling.
There are two ways you know that the citizenship bill this is a deeply unserious act, (though with serious consequences for millions.
First, Muslims are definitely a persecuted religion in Burma. The whole Rohingya genocide thing might ring a bell.
(That said, India and America are also alike in that Americans don't really know what goes on in Mexico, despite the long border, kind of ignoring it, while India does the same for Burma.) The founding father of Burma, Aung San, helped found the Burma Independence Army to free the country from the British during the Japanese invasion. What they actually did in 1942 was less British-fighting and more massive-pogrom-of-non-majority-people. Over a million "Kalars", an ethnic slur for South Asians in Burma, were forced to flee. Go to South Mizoram right now and you will find Rohingya refugees who aren't counted as refugees by India because they had the misfortune of being Muslim. This is a well documented case of religious/ethnic persecution, but it isn't included because the citizenship bill is about Hindu virtue signaling.
Second, the bill doesn't actually address the concerns of the Indians who dealt with the most illegal immigration.
For the citizenship bill in India, one of the loudest voices was from the Northeast where 30 years of illegal immigration from Bangladesh after 1971 has made it so every Assamese person knows how to speak Bengali... whether they like it or not.
When the citizenship bill passed, many in Assam were upset about the carveout for Hindus. They didn't want people from Bangladesh period... But the BJP in Delhi wanted to make this a religion thing, when for the NE, it was an anti immigration thing. There are 14 million Hindus in Bangladesh, a lot of people in the NE were upset that the BJP in Delhi opened the door for them. (Not that they'd come. India as a whole hasn't quite caught on to the fact that Bangladesh is a little richer now than India per capita and that mass immigration waves of the pre 2000's are over.)
I wasn't comparing the locations, rather the purpose of the legislation.
Sometimes laws are intended to solve a real issue.
Sometimes laws are there so that politicians can be seen voting for them.
So a law called, "The Railway Reform Act" might actually be about reforming railroads.
A law called, "Puppies are amazing and Nazis are bad and we love springtime Act" is not really about anything beyond being able to say "We voted for this."
The Citizenship Amendment is more the second thing. It doesn't solve the problem for the people who have the problem and its strictures are written to communicate Hindu friendship/Muslim antipathy. The actual operationalization of the act has been a nightmare with detention camps in the NE holding hundreds of thousands and members of the same family finding out that 2 out of 5 people are not listed as citizens. Again, messaging, rather than operational.
A messaging bill can have horrible operational effects, but the point is that the message was the important part for the people voting on it.
The people in detention camps are in NE India. This is a part of India that was only brought into India by British conquest in the 19th century. It had never been part of the Moguls or any of the historic "Indian" dynasties.
The people in NE India refer to the rest of India as "mainland India" while the rest of India calls the people from the NE "chinky" because they often look more East Asian.
Think about something like the Jones Act in the US which bars US territories from shipping domestically on non US ships. The message is "SUPPORT AMERICAN SHIPPING" and that's why it survives. Operationally, it has horrible detrimental effects for Puerto Rico... but Americans don't care about Puerto Rico.
There was a Hindu Kamarupa dynasty that ruled the NE region in the 7th and the 8th century. Having said that, I agree that the NE is not integral to Hindu culture in a way that Bengal, Bihar or Odisha are.
You seem to be well-informed for a non-India - so thank you for educating yourself and providing reasoned commentary.
The thing is, for many Indians, the loss of present day Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have been part of Indian empires from the ancient times, has been painful to reconcile. As if that is not bad enough, we saw naked aggression from these Islamic nations towards Hindus and other non-islamic minorities - Hindus were 10% of Pakistani population, and now they are just 1% or so. It is this oppression from Islamic intolerance that the CAA is meant to provide relief from. Why should India provide an accelerated path to muslim applicants for asylum from Pakistan or Bangladesh? It does not make sense. Note muslims from these countries can apply for asylum - it will be considered as per the current existing process.
What about muslim minorities from Myamnar or Sri Lanka, you might ask. The question arises: shouldn't Pakistan and Bangladesh be more natural destinations for such applicants of asylum, or even the larger muslim world? Again, why do they deserve an expedited process? Note that Muslims from those countries can still apply for an asylum, they just don't qualify for the expedited process.
Hindus, Sikhs and Jains are natural inhabitants of India, and that is why they deserve an expedited process - if not India, who else will accept them? But for Muslims, the whole muslim world exists, not just Pakistan and Bangladesh.
If there is any signaling involved, it is this: muslim majority countries tend to be intolerant to minorities. That is all.
The modern history of the Rohingya in Burma goes back to the early 40's. Before then, there were muslim speakers of bengali like languages and various small kingdoms that popped up between the Khonbaung dynasty in Burma and the Moghuls in what is now Bangladesh.
In the British Raj, the Brits didn't make much of a distinction between the people of East Bengal and the Arakan area. This became a more pressing issue after Burma was separated in 1937 from the rest of the Raj.
In 1942, the Japanese invaded Burma. The Bamar majority Burma Independence Army (BIA) helped the Japanese a bit, but spent most of their time massacring non Bamar people in Burma, especially south Asians who they saw, with some justification, as the middle managers of Empire.
In Arakan, there was a split along religious lines with muslim villages and Buddhist villages starting to engage in mutual ethnic cleansing. (These might be the massacres you are referring to, but the Rakhines were buddhists, not Hindus). For the British, they saw the Rakhines as being part and parcel with the largely Buddhist BIA and they sided with the Rohingyas, (only a few of which were using the name at this time.)
The British made the V-Force which was a guerilla organization using mostly border inhabitants and it recruited heavily from the Rohingyas. When the war was over, Burma had been reconquered and the British and Americans had funded and trained effective guerilla organizations consisting of Non Bamar peoples. (The Kachin (Jingpho) Detachment 101, the Chin - Naga -Lushai, Z force, the Karen guerillas next to Thailand). While the BIA had switched sides in 1944, the British didn't forget that they had fought on Japan's side and murdered tens of thousands of civilians. The leader of post independence Burma, Aung San, wanted the British to disarm the now well organized and armed minorities in Burma's border areas and tell them to follow the government in Yangon. The British laughed in in his face.
Aung San thus reluctantly signed the Panglong agreement which agreed to a Burmese Union with federal autonomy for minority areas. He was then assassinated that year and the subsequent Bamar leaders have faced a decades long running civil war. The popular sentiment in Burma has always looked at the Rohingyas as "dirty Bangladeshis brought in by the British." This sentiment has been what has justified the current genocide.
Thanks for the long lecture on history, but it has little to do with a mini genocide committed by Rohingyas against Hindus within the context of the larger ethnic cleansing by the Burmese.
The Hindus had no involvement in the whole thing apart from being Kafirs according to Islamic theology.
Foreign "progressives" are financing an anti-Modi campaign. A India cracking down on foreign backed partisans who are spreading propaganda to destabilize a democratically elected leader is not just a good think, but the right thing.
"The whole point is to support these non-muslim religions who live Muslim dominated or Buddhist dominated countries." - That wasn't the point. BJP says that's the point, but it wasn't. You seem to have completely taken in by the narrative. Too many whole in that narrative.
The point is to send a message - 'with us or against us' - thats how their puny brains work. They have a purely instrumental, not humanist - approach to the world.
Anyway, there are over 3 million refugees/immigrants in India and they are concentrated in a dozen or so districts, Assam itself has 2 million refugees left over in the aftermath of the 1971 war/genocide who can
easily can move 4-5 Lok Sabha seats - your assertion of '300,000 new votes' and 'spread over India' are both incorrect.
Whether it is intentional malicious propaganda or merely incompetence from an account which seems to be rather Hindutva sympathetic and aware of northeast demography, I will let others decide. I know where I stand
caa is limited to 3,00,000+ who have registered until 2014. that is how laws work. you cant have your own imagined interpretation of caa using figures like 3 million.
and there is nothing wrong in being sympathetic to religious minorities of places like bangladesh and pakistan.
if you were a humanist you would understand minorities in islamic societies which has faced decades of discrimination can be given speedy citizenship.
but i know you are not a humanist from your fake argument, manufactured victimhood and name calling. so doesnt matter.
19 lakhs is 1.9 million - that's the number of people who didn't get classified as citizens in the last round of NRC in Assam.
"if you were a humanist you would understand minorities in islamic societies which has faced decades of discrimination can be given speedy citizenship."
I am in no illusions about islam and its overtly fascist underpinnings, but I am in no illusion about little Goebbels' like you either.
"And in 2019, Modi’s government created a Citizenship Amendment Act that offered citizenship to refugees, but only for certain religions."
The CAA *didn't* do that. It provided an accelerated pathway to citizenship for certain persecuted groups in India's neighbourhood. Also singling out India is a bit rich given that American refugee policy has worked exactly that way (see: https://www.jta.org/archive/jewish-refugees-immigrants-benefit-from-clinton-budget-plan-2 ) and it currently has country of birth quotas that act as an exclusion act for Indian citizens from becoming permanent residents.
"Already some refugees are getting the boot."
You are confusing NRA stuff with the Rohingya situation. India is not a signatory to the UN HCR treaty and you are perhaps underestimating challenges in dealing with delicate balance of groups and ethnicities in India's northeast.
"Freedom House’s analysis is backed up by similar organizations like V-Dem, whose 2023 report called India “one of the worst autocratisers in the last 10 years”
Again, these rankings are heavily influenced with the very progressive ousted Indian elites and their methodologies have serious issues when it comes to India where they have been gamed. Prof. Babones of Uni. Syndey for instance has an excellent series of deep dives on these of See: https://newsletter.salvatorebabones.com/p/inside-the-v-dem-rankings
Absolutely well written, and this is probably the most nuanced and therefore also a realistic position on the situation. Another point to remember is that while Americans may not understand Indian politics very well, their source as you mentioned, the Indian progressives, are much worse and the major reason they despise Modi is because they no longer are in the ivory towers of Delhi, the downfall of NDTV is just one example. The point is that when people outside India question the health of democracy in India, I don't think they truly grasp the enormity of the task in a country with a population of 1.4 Billion where the cultural DNA changes every 100 of kilometres. The fact that not only have we survived but also thrived in certain areas is one of promise, and a strong US-India relationship is indeed crucial for the peace of the world.
Very helpful summary of the current relationship. It would be great to open up more opportunities for Indians to come to America. Two points about that:
1) There was an eye opening for me article in The Dispatch about the ineffectiveness of our legal immigration system. Here's an excerpt relevant to India:
"Indian applicants filing this year (those with a master’s or bachelor’s degree) face a wait of about 90 years.… As Table 1 shows, about 215,000 petitions will expire as a result of the death of the immigrant before the immigrant receives a green card, and more than 99 percent of these deaths will be Indians… Another roughly 90,000 children of employment‐based immigrants will “age out” of eligibility when they turn 21 — because only children under the age of 21 may qualify based on their parents’ application — largely children of Indian applicants"
From "America Has a Legal Immigration Problem
And it helps fuel illegal immigration:.
By Scott Lincicome
2) How eager is India for America to open its doors to Indians with specialized skills? It would be great for America, but I wonder if there would be any pushback.
India won’t abandon Russia despite the wishes of some American officials. Despite these new US-India defense deals, the vast majority of India’s equipment is of Russian origin, and you can’t replace the basic weaponry easily. Geopolitically, it also makes no sense for India to totally go against Russia because it will just give China another free ally against India. Better to keep the Russia relationship and have more leverage over China.
The Ukraine war has changed everything. For one, it is clear Russian military gear is not anywhere as good as the western one. Furthermore, Russia has become a vassal of China. India's main concern/enemy is China; in the event of a war, China could prevail upon Russia to stop sending arms and supplies to India. That is the reason Modi and the Indian establishment are pivoting to the west. The pivot will take time, but I expect India's dependence on Russia to drop substantially over the next decade, after which India can afford to take a stand against Russia over issues such as the Ukraine war. Until then, they will continue to stand behind Russia.
Russia almost never makes friends with its neighbors. I'm trying to think of a time they ever did. That's why I tend not to worry about nations getting too close to Russia. India is too big and too separated from India to be like Belarus or Moldava, so it's only going to ever get so close and so friendly. It's like Russia and Iran. They might cozy up a little now and then, but their mutual border makes them unlikely to ever be serious allies.
Besides, it's useful to have friends who deal with one's enemies. I remember all the fuss about French foreign policy in the 1960s. Those crazy French and so on. In practice, having a loose member of the bloc like that was advantageous in terms of flexibility and deniability as needed.
While I always appreciate the evidence you cite, I don't trust the supposedly neutral rankings and indices of hard-to-quantify things like "press freedom" anymore. Do those numbers truly strive for objectivity or have they been subjected to the same progressive bias and ideological capture many other comparable organizations have fallen prey to? Informally, I think they're not totally off-the-mark in this case and there has been a bit of erosion, but I also think it's overblown.
I think your stance is good: be concerned, not hysterical.
Will this bonhomie last the test of time or at least the 2024 US presidential election? Trump being Trump will probably become pro-China if he comes to power simply because he admires authoritarian leaders.
One can never be sure about how elections will change longer-term projects, but the India relationship did seem solid under Trump's first term. So did the Trump/Modi "bromance", although those personal relationships are less important than big-picture stuff around trade, security, etc.
I wouldn't say that; the relationship continued to deteriorate under Biden with events like the semiconductor sanctions, Pelosi's Taiwan visit and the balloon incident. In fact I would say we've just been in the nadir since the balloon, with Blinken's recent visit possibly indicating a thaw. But you're right that Trump wasn't friendly toward China, apart from his first year in office when there was a bit of flirting with Xi.
"That dark and terrible history lingers on the minds of many Indians (Americans, by and large, don’t even know it happened)."
I find this summarizes much of world history. The Hungarians are still insulted over the WWI Trianon Treaty as if it was last month. The Japanese still complain about N. Korean abductions that happened in the early 80's. The Ukraine Russia conflict has roots stretching to the tsars.
We Americans see those things as "holding grudges", but most of the world sees them as "knowing history so you can avoid making the same mistakes twice."
The Afghanis and the Iraqis and the Yemenis aren't going to forgive us for 100 years at least. And based on history (even recent) India wanting to make Muslims feel uncomfortable does not seem particularly unreasonable. Again, compared to China... nothing to see here at all.
"If the U.S. is going to help India get back to full liberalism, we’re not going to do it by publicly denouncing or shaming the country."
Wait, you mean sanctions don't work? Who knew? :-)
More seriously, India likely sees the US as a cautionary tale of where liberalism ends. Why? Because of stuff like this (https://youtu.be/wdrvpSfJM1w) -- trying to convince devout Muslims in Afghanistan that urinals are art. Or this (https://youtu.be/BWtGzJxiONU) -- SCOTUS nominees who don't know what a woman is. Or peasants whose pre-teen daughters become convinced they are boys from watching Tumblr. Or our incarceration rate -- India has 4 times our population and 2/3rds of our prisoners.
From outside the WEIRDs, liberalism doesn't look all that great anymore. Heck, even inside the WEIRDs it's starting to fray. It turns out that "liberating" your citizens from all the religious bonds and cultural constraints and moral norms of your a society doesn't appear to end well. We may yet pull out of our dive, but much of the developing world has dropped out of formation for good reason.
Do you have a recommendation for a good introductory book to the history of India? Reading the news for the past few months has made me realize that I know embarrassingly little about the country (among other things, I had no idea that the US supported Pakistan during the massacre in Bangladesh, or that India stopped it).
Get Salvatore Babones to talk about Indian democracy if you want someone who can actual talk stats instead of pro or anti BJP propaganda.
He's American to boot.
Although you took a balanced approach overall - even you missed out that the US has passed acts similar to the CAA in the recent past : look up the Lautenberg Amendment.
You can start with Life over two beer by Sanjeev Sanyal (It fictional short stories that cover everyday Indian things) If you are into more heavy stuff read Indian Philosophy Volume 1&2 by S. Radhakrishnan
India - A History by John Keay is the book to go to for a summary of the period from ancient India till British rule, very unbiased general introduction well written too. For post independence many people have already suggested good books.
It’s the right choice to turn to India to counter China, just would have been nice if we’d done it in the 90s before we got so enmeshed with China to begin with and when the economic boost it would have given the country would have helped the Congress Party electorally and prevented/slowed/reduced the rise of Hindu Nationalism and Modi
One other very interesting thing with India has been its growing confidence, you even see this in cricket, back in the 80s & early 90s they had great players from Kapil Dev to Tendulkar (with Lara the greatest batsman of his generation and one of the best of all time) but they used to come to Australia and get bullied and be very meek while doing so, but as Indias economy grew and the country became more confident you saw the same with its cricket teams and players, starting with the Ganguly team that was very in your face and now with the current Kohli team they’re much like the very aggressive early aughts Australian teams, it’s quite cool to see in some ways
Less cool and maybe more instructive to how a Superpower India might act on the world stage is as India became the economic powerhouse of cricket with the IPL you saw them start to throw their weight around in the international administration of the game and not in a collaborative way and despite them now being the kings of that particular jungle, when challenged they bring up ‘western arrogance’ and ‘western colonial attitudes’ to try and guilt westerners and shut down debate of genuine troubling issues, I can see them doing the same in future in much more important things than Cricket administration
your idea that congress would have tied up with usa in 1990s is pure day dreaming. congress is the motherload of indian socialism. bjp has always been the small bussiness and urban party, even to this day.
this is a clip of congress pm candidate rahul gandhi and his idea of china which is built on 'harmony' in 2023 at stanford. he's a marxist panda hugger
globalisation is one of fundemental reason for rise of hindu nationalism. and hindu nationalism is hindu modernity. it has issues. but calling it fascist is idoitic. western nations can't understand hindu nationalism because its the most non-western ideology that they have come across till now.
Isn't one of the big reasons why China became the world's factory its unusually favourable demographics circa 2000, with lots of hardworking young adults (products of Mao's pro-natalist policy) but few dependent children (because of the post-Mao One Child policy)?
West Germany benefited similarly 40 years earlier, because the Nazis encouraged Germans to have lots of children, but few children would have been born immediately after WWII in ruined and occupied Germany.
A collaboration between the two in the 90s would probably have been perceived as colonialism by Indians. Now, it would definitely be more of an alliance due to India’s rise. In terms of trade and military alliances, we need to keep the human rights issues out of the discussion. That’s what the UN is for. Modi is a capitalist, albeit a nationalist one, with shared strategic interests as the US. We need to seize the opportunity. This should be bigger news.
“we need to keep the human rights issues out of the discussion”
Absolutely not
If human rights don’t matter then there is no need to choose democracy’s over autocracy’s
Joe Biden is right to define that as the challenge of our time from Russia to China, if India wants the benefits of closer relationship with the west then it can be held accountable on human rights, I’m not prepared to throw millions of ppls human rights under the bus just because a country is ‘capitalist’ and anyone who is should volunteer to have their rights infringed, should give up all the benefits and rights that come with living in a free country seeing as anyone who says that clearly thinks they’re not important for others so surely think they’re not important for themselves
On top of the US pressuring India, the EU should be holding Orban and L&J to account and threatening them with expulsion, enough of these autocrats taking the immense benefits of being integrated into the amazing economic system that freedom has built without taking on any of the responsibilities
agreed. osama bin laden hero of islam and pakistan should be celebrated just like in pakistan. there are many mosques named in his honour in pakista hope usa and india soon follow. hail osama crush obama.
India-America relations will grow leaps and bounds and their partnership will be one of the defining moment of 21st century but India will "NEVER BE an ALLY" of America. It is interesting to see that many of the Americans see foreign relations in binaries i.e. enemy or an ally. This is partly shaped by their experiences so far since their independence whereas India's experience is different from that of America. Coming out from under the colonial rule, India has always been on the path of strategic autonomy.
I think following discussion is one of the best analysis of India's current political environment and her foreign policy by Ashley J Tellis (he was part of the American delegation which helped in drafting of US-India civil nuclear deal)
There is convergence in terms of multipolar Asia among both US and India but the difference lies in the fact that India also advocates for multipolar world. This explains the relations of India and Russia, where India sees Russia as one of the pole of the multipolar world. Given the fact that India already has disturbed relations with 2 of the Asian countries, India doesn't want Russia to be isolated and become a vassal state of China (although Russia is increasingly becoming so), but India is not yet ready to sign off on Russia yet and thus wants to keep her options open.
Also another point of divergence is Iran, where India sees Iran as source of energy and pathway to Central Asia (since it cannot use the traditional route through Pakistan) and also to balance Pakistan, whereas USA has been on warpath with Iran since 1978.
There are also some other divergences such as Bangladesh and Myanmar which are again neighbours of India and India would naturally like to have a good relations with her neighbours, irrespective of who is in the power(although India would have preferred democratic govt. in Myanmar but you play with the cards you have been dealt).
Also USA has a myopic view in her assessment of Bangladesh. It is true that current dispensation under Sheikh Hasina has arrested opposition members but USA fails to realise that her opposition party openly advocates enmity against India, supports radical islam and advocates strong military (origin of BNP party lies in Bangladeshi military which has through coups in the past toppled democratically elected leaders). She has done tremendous job in dismantling terrorist organisations operating on Bangladeshi soil and thus has helped in curbing insurgency in North East region of India.
And I genuinely think that if another opposition party rises which is based on democratic values she will accommodate that party. It should be noted that her entire family was killed by military coup in 1975 which also included her father who is considered Bangladesh's father of the nation i.e. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and she is alive because at that time she wasn't in Bangladesh. She spent her exile in India and was inspired by Indian democracy.
So from all this one can summarise that India lives with disturbed periphery and would like to keep her options open and thus would never constraint her movement space by allying with USA.
It would be interesting to see how USA deals with rising India since USA has no experience so far in dealing with equal powers who haven't been on warpath against US (Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Union and now Communist China). How will USA accommodate an equal power which she doesn't have hostile relations with?
Thank you for a more even-handed view of India than I have read anywhere else. It is also helpful to remind people of America's transgressions against democracy. Many people think America has no warts of its own and they are always willing to throw stones at others.
First off, appreciate your calling out the US mistake / double-standard / hypocrisy in 1971 for what it was. Yes, most Indians have not forgotten that. Nor have they forgotten the Soviet help in that period. This goes a long way in explaining why India finds it hard to consider Russia an enemy or 'evil' even 50 years later.
The progressive viewpoint does dominate how India is looked at by the West. This is a big failure of the Indian right-wing to get its point of view across beyond our shores. Just as US politics is widely polarised between the two parties on almost all issues, Indian polity is split vertically in the middle as well. I don't think this means any one side has a morally superior position over the other. But the dominance of the progressive view does mean that Modi is looked upon as a 'bad guy' who must be schooled by the Americans.
Noah, thanks for the balanced approach.
I will take all these indexes with a large grain of salt. India has 20 political parties running various states and the central govt. How is that a lack of democracy?
India has 100 live news challenges and has the largest English Daily newspaper. Which other country can say that?
The citizenship act you mentioned is for persecuted minority religions from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma etc. All of the minorities are Hindus and skihs etc.
Please check the atrocities against Hindus and others in Pakistan etc.
The whole point is to support these non-muslim religions who live Muslim dominated or Buddhist dominated countries.
The western media and progressives lack any real understanding of India.
The distinction really ought to be about liberalism/illiberalism than about democracy when discussing recent developments in India.
Fair enough Runal and even that is not true for India. May be some places and parts of India have some issues. It is not generalizable.
It is a signaling bill. It signals that Bharat is glorious Hindustan that shall forever live under Ram's grace!
Like go to Florida, the Republican government and legislature there passed a law with strict penalties for employing illegal immigrants....
But, a lot of the agriculture and construction trades depend on these people so now a lot of the officials who passed the bill are saying that they didn't really mean it and it is meant for signaling.
See here for a nice article. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/07/1180646146/florida-immigration-law-sb-1718-republican-lawmakers
There are two ways you know that the citizenship bill this is a deeply unserious act, (though with serious consequences for millions.
First, Muslims are definitely a persecuted religion in Burma. The whole Rohingya genocide thing might ring a bell.
(That said, India and America are also alike in that Americans don't really know what goes on in Mexico, despite the long border, kind of ignoring it, while India does the same for Burma.) The founding father of Burma, Aung San, helped found the Burma Independence Army to free the country from the British during the Japanese invasion. What they actually did in 1942 was less British-fighting and more massive-pogrom-of-non-majority-people. Over a million "Kalars", an ethnic slur for South Asians in Burma, were forced to flee. Go to South Mizoram right now and you will find Rohingya refugees who aren't counted as refugees by India because they had the misfortune of being Muslim. This is a well documented case of religious/ethnic persecution, but it isn't included because the citizenship bill is about Hindu virtue signaling.
Second, the bill doesn't actually address the concerns of the Indians who dealt with the most illegal immigration.
For the citizenship bill in India, one of the loudest voices was from the Northeast where 30 years of illegal immigration from Bangladesh after 1971 has made it so every Assamese person knows how to speak Bengali... whether they like it or not.
When the citizenship bill passed, many in Assam were upset about the carveout for Hindus. They didn't want people from Bangladesh period... But the BJP in Delhi wanted to make this a religion thing, when for the NE, it was an anti immigration thing. There are 14 million Hindus in Bangladesh, a lot of people in the NE were upset that the BJP in Delhi opened the door for them. (Not that they'd come. India as a whole hasn't quite caught on to the fact that Bangladesh is a little richer now than India per capita and that mass immigration waves of the pre 2000's are over.)
Let's not compare Florida to India. That's conflating very different things.
Agree on Rohingyas and there should probably be an option there.
However, being the birthplace of Hinduism and Sikhism etc where would prosecuted Hindus and Skihs go?
On the North East, I think you are right. For them it is anti-immigration and for good reason. The porous borders have been badly managed.
Overall, there was an opportunity to amend and make it better rather than boycotting it and making it about anti-muslim which is not that goal.
I wasn't comparing the locations, rather the purpose of the legislation.
Sometimes laws are intended to solve a real issue.
Sometimes laws are there so that politicians can be seen voting for them.
So a law called, "The Railway Reform Act" might actually be about reforming railroads.
A law called, "Puppies are amazing and Nazis are bad and we love springtime Act" is not really about anything beyond being able to say "We voted for this."
The Citizenship Amendment is more the second thing. It doesn't solve the problem for the people who have the problem and its strictures are written to communicate Hindu friendship/Muslim antipathy. The actual operationalization of the act has been a nightmare with detention camps in the NE holding hundreds of thousands and members of the same family finding out that 2 out of 5 people are not listed as citizens. Again, messaging, rather than operational.
A messaging bill can have horrible operational effects, but the point is that the message was the important part for the people voting on it.
The people in detention camps are in NE India. This is a part of India that was only brought into India by British conquest in the 19th century. It had never been part of the Moguls or any of the historic "Indian" dynasties.
The people in NE India refer to the rest of India as "mainland India" while the rest of India calls the people from the NE "chinky" because they often look more East Asian.
Think about something like the Jones Act in the US which bars US territories from shipping domestically on non US ships. The message is "SUPPORT AMERICAN SHIPPING" and that's why it survives. Operationally, it has horrible detrimental effects for Puerto Rico... but Americans don't care about Puerto Rico.
what is your source for north east india is not part of any indian dynasties?
what are ahoms who ruled over most of north east then?
and no discussion on north should be complete without mentioning american missionary spreading anti-indian seperatism in north east.
https://youtu.be/wr-bMZwtfzo
also everyone in india understands how north east militants get their hands on m4 rifles.
neither china nor isi make m4 rifles.
There was a Hindu Kamarupa dynasty that ruled the NE region in the 7th and the 8th century. Having said that, I agree that the NE is not integral to Hindu culture in a way that Bengal, Bihar or Odisha are.
looks like bjp it cell and its members have penetrated even here as well
No cell. People who have views.
You seem to be well-informed for a non-India - so thank you for educating yourself and providing reasoned commentary.
The thing is, for many Indians, the loss of present day Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have been part of Indian empires from the ancient times, has been painful to reconcile. As if that is not bad enough, we saw naked aggression from these Islamic nations towards Hindus and other non-islamic minorities - Hindus were 10% of Pakistani population, and now they are just 1% or so. It is this oppression from Islamic intolerance that the CAA is meant to provide relief from. Why should India provide an accelerated path to muslim applicants for asylum from Pakistan or Bangladesh? It does not make sense. Note muslims from these countries can apply for asylum - it will be considered as per the current existing process.
What about muslim minorities from Myamnar or Sri Lanka, you might ask. The question arises: shouldn't Pakistan and Bangladesh be more natural destinations for such applicants of asylum, or even the larger muslim world? Again, why do they deserve an expedited process? Note that Muslims from those countries can still apply for an asylum, they just don't qualify for the expedited process.
Hindus, Sikhs and Jains are natural inhabitants of India, and that is why they deserve an expedited process - if not India, who else will accept them? But for Muslims, the whole muslim world exists, not just Pakistan and Bangladesh.
If there is any signaling involved, it is this: muslim majority countries tend to be intolerant to minorities. That is all.
Rohingyas have carried out Hindu genocides in Burma - no chance of them being let into the country after that.
Which Hindus in Burma?
The modern history of the Rohingya in Burma goes back to the early 40's. Before then, there were muslim speakers of bengali like languages and various small kingdoms that popped up between the Khonbaung dynasty in Burma and the Moghuls in what is now Bangladesh.
In the British Raj, the Brits didn't make much of a distinction between the people of East Bengal and the Arakan area. This became a more pressing issue after Burma was separated in 1937 from the rest of the Raj.
In 1942, the Japanese invaded Burma. The Bamar majority Burma Independence Army (BIA) helped the Japanese a bit, but spent most of their time massacring non Bamar people in Burma, especially south Asians who they saw, with some justification, as the middle managers of Empire.
In Arakan, there was a split along religious lines with muslim villages and Buddhist villages starting to engage in mutual ethnic cleansing. (These might be the massacres you are referring to, but the Rakhines were buddhists, not Hindus). For the British, they saw the Rakhines as being part and parcel with the largely Buddhist BIA and they sided with the Rohingyas, (only a few of which were using the name at this time.)
The British made the V-Force which was a guerilla organization using mostly border inhabitants and it recruited heavily from the Rohingyas. When the war was over, Burma had been reconquered and the British and Americans had funded and trained effective guerilla organizations consisting of Non Bamar peoples. (The Kachin (Jingpho) Detachment 101, the Chin - Naga -Lushai, Z force, the Karen guerillas next to Thailand). While the BIA had switched sides in 1944, the British didn't forget that they had fought on Japan's side and murdered tens of thousands of civilians. The leader of post independence Burma, Aung San, wanted the British to disarm the now well organized and armed minorities in Burma's border areas and tell them to follow the government in Yangon. The British laughed in in his face.
Aung San thus reluctantly signed the Panglong agreement which agreed to a Burmese Union with federal autonomy for minority areas. He was then assassinated that year and the subsequent Bamar leaders have faced a decades long running civil war. The popular sentiment in Burma has always looked at the Rohingyas as "dirty Bangladeshis brought in by the British." This sentiment has been what has justified the current genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kha_Maung_Seik_massacre
Thanks for the long lecture on history, but it has little to do with a mini genocide committed by Rohingyas against Hindus within the context of the larger ethnic cleansing by the Burmese.
The Hindus had no involvement in the whole thing apart from being Kafirs according to Islamic theology.
Foreign "progressives" are financing an anti-Modi campaign. A India cracking down on foreign backed partisans who are spreading propaganda to destabilize a democratically elected leader is not just a good think, but the right thing.
"The whole point is to support these non-muslim religions who live Muslim dominated or Buddhist dominated countries." - That wasn't the point. BJP says that's the point, but it wasn't. You seem to have completely taken in by the narrative. Too many whole in that narrative.
The reality is to support those groups from neighbouring countries that will vote for BJP once they are given Indian citizenship.
CAA doesn't give citizenship to Hindu refugees from Sri Lanka because they vote for dravidian parties.
some 300,000 new votes spread over india can help win election in a 1.3 billion democracy how?
keep making up these logicless argument.
The point is to send a message - 'with us or against us' - thats how their puny brains work. They have a purely instrumental, not humanist - approach to the world.
Anyway, there are over 3 million refugees/immigrants in India and they are concentrated in a dozen or so districts, Assam itself has 2 million refugees left over in the aftermath of the 1971 war/genocide who can
easily can move 4-5 Lok Sabha seats - your assertion of '300,000 new votes' and 'spread over India' are both incorrect.
Whether it is intentional malicious propaganda or merely incompetence from an account which seems to be rather Hindutva sympathetic and aware of northeast demography, I will let others decide. I know where I stand
caa is limited to 3,00,000+ who have registered until 2014. that is how laws work. you cant have your own imagined interpretation of caa using figures like 3 million.
and there is nothing wrong in being sympathetic to religious minorities of places like bangladesh and pakistan.
if you were a humanist you would understand minorities in islamic societies which has faced decades of discrimination can be given speedy citizenship.
but i know you are not a humanist from your fake argument, manufactured victimhood and name calling. so doesnt matter.
19 lakhs is 1.9 million - that's the number of people who didn't get classified as citizens in the last round of NRC in Assam.
"if you were a humanist you would understand minorities in islamic societies which has faced decades of discrimination can be given speedy citizenship."
I am in no illusions about islam and its overtly fascist underpinnings, but I am in no illusion about little Goebbels' like you either.
"And in 2019, Modi’s government created a Citizenship Amendment Act that offered citizenship to refugees, but only for certain religions."
The CAA *didn't* do that. It provided an accelerated pathway to citizenship for certain persecuted groups in India's neighbourhood. Also singling out India is a bit rich given that American refugee policy has worked exactly that way (see: https://www.jta.org/archive/jewish-refugees-immigrants-benefit-from-clinton-budget-plan-2 ) and it currently has country of birth quotas that act as an exclusion act for Indian citizens from becoming permanent residents.
"Already some refugees are getting the boot."
You are confusing NRA stuff with the Rohingya situation. India is not a signatory to the UN HCR treaty and you are perhaps underestimating challenges in dealing with delicate balance of groups and ethnicities in India's northeast.
"Freedom House’s analysis is backed up by similar organizations like V-Dem, whose 2023 report called India “one of the worst autocratisers in the last 10 years”
Again, these rankings are heavily influenced with the very progressive ousted Indian elites and their methodologies have serious issues when it comes to India where they have been gamed. Prof. Babones of Uni. Syndey for instance has an excellent series of deep dives on these of See: https://newsletter.salvatorebabones.com/p/inside-the-v-dem-rankings
Indiamerica sounds like a cult classic movie and I’m all here for it
Absolutely well written, and this is probably the most nuanced and therefore also a realistic position on the situation. Another point to remember is that while Americans may not understand Indian politics very well, their source as you mentioned, the Indian progressives, are much worse and the major reason they despise Modi is because they no longer are in the ivory towers of Delhi, the downfall of NDTV is just one example. The point is that when people outside India question the health of democracy in India, I don't think they truly grasp the enormity of the task in a country with a population of 1.4 Billion where the cultural DNA changes every 100 of kilometres. The fact that not only have we survived but also thrived in certain areas is one of promise, and a strong US-India relationship is indeed crucial for the peace of the world.
Very helpful summary of the current relationship. It would be great to open up more opportunities for Indians to come to America. Two points about that:
1) There was an eye opening for me article in The Dispatch about the ineffectiveness of our legal immigration system. Here's an excerpt relevant to India:
"Indian applicants filing this year (those with a master’s or bachelor’s degree) face a wait of about 90 years.… As Table 1 shows, about 215,000 petitions will expire as a result of the death of the immigrant before the immigrant receives a green card, and more than 99 percent of these deaths will be Indians… Another roughly 90,000 children of employment‐based immigrants will “age out” of eligibility when they turn 21 — because only children under the age of 21 may qualify based on their parents’ application — largely children of Indian applicants"
From "America Has a Legal Immigration Problem
And it helps fuel illegal immigration:.
By Scott Lincicome
2) How eager is India for America to open its doors to Indians with specialized skills? It would be great for America, but I wonder if there would be any pushback.
Russia still remains relevant and useful to India, and there have been no other signals about that from
India. How does getting in bed with US, with so much pomp, affect India-Russia relations?
India won’t abandon Russia despite the wishes of some American officials. Despite these new US-India defense deals, the vast majority of India’s equipment is of Russian origin, and you can’t replace the basic weaponry easily. Geopolitically, it also makes no sense for India to totally go against Russia because it will just give China another free ally against India. Better to keep the Russia relationship and have more leverage over China.
The Ukraine war has changed everything. For one, it is clear Russian military gear is not anywhere as good as the western one. Furthermore, Russia has become a vassal of China. India's main concern/enemy is China; in the event of a war, China could prevail upon Russia to stop sending arms and supplies to India. That is the reason Modi and the Indian establishment are pivoting to the west. The pivot will take time, but I expect India's dependence on Russia to drop substantially over the next decade, after which India can afford to take a stand against Russia over issues such as the Ukraine war. Until then, they will continue to stand behind Russia.
Russia almost never makes friends with its neighbors. I'm trying to think of a time they ever did. That's why I tend not to worry about nations getting too close to Russia. India is too big and too separated from India to be like Belarus or Moldava, so it's only going to ever get so close and so friendly. It's like Russia and Iran. They might cozy up a little now and then, but their mutual border makes them unlikely to ever be serious allies.
Besides, it's useful to have friends who deal with one's enemies. I remember all the fuss about French foreign policy in the 1960s. Those crazy French and so on. In practice, having a loose member of the bloc like that was advantageous in terms of flexibility and deniability as needed.
While I always appreciate the evidence you cite, I don't trust the supposedly neutral rankings and indices of hard-to-quantify things like "press freedom" anymore. Do those numbers truly strive for objectivity or have they been subjected to the same progressive bias and ideological capture many other comparable organizations have fallen prey to? Informally, I think they're not totally off-the-mark in this case and there has been a bit of erosion, but I also think it's overblown.
I think your stance is good: be concerned, not hysterical.
Will this bonhomie last the test of time or at least the 2024 US presidential election? Trump being Trump will probably become pro-China if he comes to power simply because he admires authoritarian leaders.
One can never be sure about how elections will change longer-term projects, but the India relationship did seem solid under Trump's first term. So did the Trump/Modi "bromance", although those personal relationships are less important than big-picture stuff around trade, security, etc.
I wouldn't say that; the relationship continued to deteriorate under Biden with events like the semiconductor sanctions, Pelosi's Taiwan visit and the balloon incident. In fact I would say we've just been in the nadir since the balloon, with Blinken's recent visit possibly indicating a thaw. But you're right that Trump wasn't friendly toward China, apart from his first year in office when there was a bit of flirting with Xi.
They may improve if he comes back into power simply to spite Democrats and because he wants to be seen as someone who gets deals done
Good article, Noah, and very fair to both sides.
"That dark and terrible history lingers on the minds of many Indians (Americans, by and large, don’t even know it happened)."
I find this summarizes much of world history. The Hungarians are still insulted over the WWI Trianon Treaty as if it was last month. The Japanese still complain about N. Korean abductions that happened in the early 80's. The Ukraine Russia conflict has roots stretching to the tsars.
We Americans see those things as "holding grudges", but most of the world sees them as "knowing history so you can avoid making the same mistakes twice."
The Afghanis and the Iraqis and the Yemenis aren't going to forgive us for 100 years at least. And based on history (even recent) India wanting to make Muslims feel uncomfortable does not seem particularly unreasonable. Again, compared to China... nothing to see here at all.
"If the U.S. is going to help India get back to full liberalism, we’re not going to do it by publicly denouncing or shaming the country."
Wait, you mean sanctions don't work? Who knew? :-)
More seriously, India likely sees the US as a cautionary tale of where liberalism ends. Why? Because of stuff like this (https://youtu.be/wdrvpSfJM1w) -- trying to convince devout Muslims in Afghanistan that urinals are art. Or this (https://youtu.be/BWtGzJxiONU) -- SCOTUS nominees who don't know what a woman is. Or peasants whose pre-teen daughters become convinced they are boys from watching Tumblr. Or our incarceration rate -- India has 4 times our population and 2/3rds of our prisoners.
From outside the WEIRDs, liberalism doesn't look all that great anymore. Heck, even inside the WEIRDs it's starting to fray. It turns out that "liberating" your citizens from all the religious bonds and cultural constraints and moral norms of your a society doesn't appear to end well. We may yet pull out of our dive, but much of the developing world has dropped out of formation for good reason.
Do you have a recommendation for a good introductory book to the history of India? Reading the news for the past few months has made me realize that I know embarrassingly little about the country (among other things, I had no idea that the US supported Pakistan during the massacre in Bangladesh, or that India stopped it).
India After Gandhi is good. For a book about Modi, "2019: How Modi Won India", by Rajeep Sardesai, is informative.
Get Salvatore Babones to talk about Indian democracy if you want someone who can actual talk stats instead of pro or anti BJP propaganda.
He's American to boot.
Although you took a balanced approach overall - even you missed out that the US has passed acts similar to the CAA in the recent past : look up the Lautenberg Amendment.
for post 1947 history: ramachandra guha- india after gandhi.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/356824
for liberal overview of whole of indian history till 1947: jn nehru - discovery of india(aka bible of indian liberals)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/154126.The_Discovery_of_India?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_18
both are huge books since india is a very diverse country.
if you want to understand contemporary india watch daily cut the clutter show by shekhar gupta on the print(youtube).
this is what ir students on india usually do.
https://youtu.be/DNRTqnUEMbw
You can start with Life over two beer by Sanjeev Sanyal (It fictional short stories that cover everyday Indian things) If you are into more heavy stuff read Indian Philosophy Volume 1&2 by S. Radhakrishnan
India - A History by John Keay is the book to go to for a summary of the period from ancient India till British rule, very unbiased general introduction well written too. For post independence many people have already suggested good books.
Farheed Zakaria recently recommended: The Idea of India: Khilnani, Sunil. I just completed reading it - a great book.
Of course V.S Naipaul has written several books on India - I liked "India: A Wounded Civilization" the best.
It’s the right choice to turn to India to counter China, just would have been nice if we’d done it in the 90s before we got so enmeshed with China to begin with and when the economic boost it would have given the country would have helped the Congress Party electorally and prevented/slowed/reduced the rise of Hindu Nationalism and Modi
One other very interesting thing with India has been its growing confidence, you even see this in cricket, back in the 80s & early 90s they had great players from Kapil Dev to Tendulkar (with Lara the greatest batsman of his generation and one of the best of all time) but they used to come to Australia and get bullied and be very meek while doing so, but as Indias economy grew and the country became more confident you saw the same with its cricket teams and players, starting with the Ganguly team that was very in your face and now with the current Kohli team they’re much like the very aggressive early aughts Australian teams, it’s quite cool to see in some ways
Less cool and maybe more instructive to how a Superpower India might act on the world stage is as India became the economic powerhouse of cricket with the IPL you saw them start to throw their weight around in the international administration of the game and not in a collaborative way and despite them now being the kings of that particular jungle, when challenged they bring up ‘western arrogance’ and ‘western colonial attitudes’ to try and guilt westerners and shut down debate of genuine troubling issues, I can see them doing the same in future in much more important things than Cricket administration
your idea that congress would have tied up with usa in 1990s is pure day dreaming. congress is the motherload of indian socialism. bjp has always been the small bussiness and urban party, even to this day.
this is a clip of congress pm candidate rahul gandhi and his idea of china which is built on 'harmony' in 2023 at stanford. he's a marxist panda hugger
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Js_5vSmM2Q
globalisation is one of fundemental reason for rise of hindu nationalism. and hindu nationalism is hindu modernity. it has issues. but calling it fascist is idoitic. western nations can't understand hindu nationalism because its the most non-western ideology that they have come across till now.
Isn't one of the big reasons why China became the world's factory its unusually favourable demographics circa 2000, with lots of hardworking young adults (products of Mao's pro-natalist policy) but few dependent children (because of the post-Mao One Child policy)?
West Germany benefited similarly 40 years earlier, because the Nazis encouraged Germans to have lots of children, but few children would have been born immediately after WWII in ruined and occupied Germany.
I’ve never heard that theory before but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong
I first encountered it at Shatterpoints Geopolitics:
https://www.shatterpointsgeopolitics.com/p/chinas-greying-future
Very interesting
Thanks
A collaboration between the two in the 90s would probably have been perceived as colonialism by Indians. Now, it would definitely be more of an alliance due to India’s rise. In terms of trade and military alliances, we need to keep the human rights issues out of the discussion. That’s what the UN is for. Modi is a capitalist, albeit a nationalist one, with shared strategic interests as the US. We need to seize the opportunity. This should be bigger news.
“we need to keep the human rights issues out of the discussion”
Absolutely not
If human rights don’t matter then there is no need to choose democracy’s over autocracy’s
Joe Biden is right to define that as the challenge of our time from Russia to China, if India wants the benefits of closer relationship with the west then it can be held accountable on human rights, I’m not prepared to throw millions of ppls human rights under the bus just because a country is ‘capitalist’ and anyone who is should volunteer to have their rights infringed, should give up all the benefits and rights that come with living in a free country seeing as anyone who says that clearly thinks they’re not important for others so surely think they’re not important for themselves
On top of the US pressuring India, the EU should be holding Orban and L&J to account and threatening them with expulsion, enough of these autocrats taking the immense benefits of being integrated into the amazing economic system that freedom has built without taking on any of the responsibilities
agreed. osama bin laden hero of islam and pakistan should be celebrated just like in pakistan. there are many mosques named in his honour in pakista hope usa and india soon follow. hail osama crush obama.
India-America relations will grow leaps and bounds and their partnership will be one of the defining moment of 21st century but India will "NEVER BE an ALLY" of America. It is interesting to see that many of the Americans see foreign relations in binaries i.e. enemy or an ally. This is partly shaped by their experiences so far since their independence whereas India's experience is different from that of America. Coming out from under the colonial rule, India has always been on the path of strategic autonomy.
https://time.com/6288459/india-ally-us-modi-biden-visit/
I think following discussion is one of the best analysis of India's current political environment and her foreign policy by Ashley J Tellis (he was part of the American delegation which helped in drafting of US-India civil nuclear deal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zix4tBdizF4&ab_channel=PacificCouncil
There is convergence in terms of multipolar Asia among both US and India but the difference lies in the fact that India also advocates for multipolar world. This explains the relations of India and Russia, where India sees Russia as one of the pole of the multipolar world. Given the fact that India already has disturbed relations with 2 of the Asian countries, India doesn't want Russia to be isolated and become a vassal state of China (although Russia is increasingly becoming so), but India is not yet ready to sign off on Russia yet and thus wants to keep her options open.
Also another point of divergence is Iran, where India sees Iran as source of energy and pathway to Central Asia (since it cannot use the traditional route through Pakistan) and also to balance Pakistan, whereas USA has been on warpath with Iran since 1978.
There are also some other divergences such as Bangladesh and Myanmar which are again neighbours of India and India would naturally like to have a good relations with her neighbours, irrespective of who is in the power(although India would have preferred democratic govt. in Myanmar but you play with the cards you have been dealt).
Also USA has a myopic view in her assessment of Bangladesh. It is true that current dispensation under Sheikh Hasina has arrested opposition members but USA fails to realise that her opposition party openly advocates enmity against India, supports radical islam and advocates strong military (origin of BNP party lies in Bangladeshi military which has through coups in the past toppled democratically elected leaders). She has done tremendous job in dismantling terrorist organisations operating on Bangladeshi soil and thus has helped in curbing insurgency in North East region of India.
And I genuinely think that if another opposition party rises which is based on democratic values she will accommodate that party. It should be noted that her entire family was killed by military coup in 1975 which also included her father who is considered Bangladesh's father of the nation i.e. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and she is alive because at that time she wasn't in Bangladesh. She spent her exile in India and was inspired by Indian democracy.
So from all this one can summarise that India lives with disturbed periphery and would like to keep her options open and thus would never constraint her movement space by allying with USA.
It would be interesting to see how USA deals with rising India since USA has no experience so far in dealing with equal powers who haven't been on warpath against US (Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Soviet Union and now Communist China). How will USA accommodate an equal power which she doesn't have hostile relations with?
https://twitter.com/scienceisstrat1/status/1669464294793048065
Thank you for a more even-handed view of India than I have read anywhere else. It is also helpful to remind people of America's transgressions against democracy. Many people think America has no warts of its own and they are always willing to throw stones at others.
Do we think the quad can stay aligned
Well done! Thanks for your work examining the big picture and presenting it so intelligently!
Thanks for the article, balanced as always!
First off, appreciate your calling out the US mistake / double-standard / hypocrisy in 1971 for what it was. Yes, most Indians have not forgotten that. Nor have they forgotten the Soviet help in that period. This goes a long way in explaining why India finds it hard to consider Russia an enemy or 'evil' even 50 years later.
The progressive viewpoint does dominate how India is looked at by the West. This is a big failure of the Indian right-wing to get its point of view across beyond our shores. Just as US politics is widely polarised between the two parties on almost all issues, Indian polity is split vertically in the middle as well. I don't think this means any one side has a morally superior position over the other. But the dominance of the progressive view does mean that Modi is looked upon as a 'bad guy' who must be schooled by the Americans.