Dr. Manan Dwivedi outlines the possibilities and challenges from an Indian perspective in wake of the election results in United States where Democrats are all set to occupy the White House.
As the voting lead of 37,000 votes from the electoral hustings and buntings from Pennsylvania began filtering in, the American VP Elect, Kamla Harris gleefully posted on Facebook, “ Congratulations, Joe, we have done it, You are going to be the 46th President of United States.” The President elect, Joe Biden too has attempted to move away from the quintessential American Dream postulated by the American theorist John Truslow Adams as he emphasized in his acknowledgement speech in Delaware that the pained American soul would be reiterated in his tenure as he said that he takes over a fractured and violent United States of America.
Thee Democrat Presidential elect, Joe Biden promises good relations with New Delhi but Trump will remain a tour de force in the homeland. Experts from Centre for strategic and International Studies, Sweden, assure strengthening of partnership between the twin liberal Democracies but let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Talking about Kamla Harris as being symbolic of Indian women folk is rather too far fangled as she was in the forefront in the US Foreign relations Committee in the Senate espousing the cause of Kashmiri separatists and had repeated her left liberal stripes much to the consternation of the star and stories holders. It’s childish to project Kamla Devi Harris as an apostle of black rights and Indian womanhood. Experts should not stoop to such levels. Biden, but, might be a hope as he had mixed credentials for India in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and supported the India US nuclear agreement. Not research but common sense.
President Donald Trump too had tweeted on Saturday after the leads were far-fetched in the states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as Philadelphia was also up for the count but the State has been a traditional left liberal stronghold since decades. North Caroline too was a lost cause for the Republican electoral machine though the victory of Trump in Florida delivers a telling blow to the Democrat case but such good news too is creeping in too late and is too late. President Trump tweeted despondently, “I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!”
The Democrats have been raving about the rise of Biden as the 46th Presidential Elect of the grandiloquent United States of America which might not remain so grand and altruist going by the slump in the conservative fortunes in the larger homeland. One is not very clear about the President Elect Joe Biden vis a vis the American policy paradigm of sequestration of the People’s Republic of China and the clearly delineated stance of US in the context of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The gung-ho and bravado spirit of President Trump’s ubiquitous panache will be greatly missed who gave a relentless hand to New Delhi in the isolation and sequestration of the Asiatic hegemony of PRC. The assertive stance of the Indian defence forces at the Galwan and Ladakh twilight zones might be affected precariously as the American one- upmanship was beautifully utilised by Prime Minisiter in order to hem in the Han/ Chinese expansionism in the Western sector of the Indo China border.
The biggest question is that will Trump’s initiative of decoupling China from the Global supply and Global value chains be discontinued and will the trade speak of former President Obama replace Trump’s legacy of confronting china and extending a supportive hand to New Delhi. Another question and poser is that will the newly spawned Indo-US Defence partnership be relegated to the cold storage or the President Elect will positively persist with the finalisation of the Intelligence oriented Foundational agreements and the larger ambit of the Quad and the attendant joint military exercises? The geo-economics of the India- America partnership and the intertwined china factor in the Clientele of the Global economy might be up for change and the American Pivot in Indo Pacific might take a beating as the aggressive and nationalist essence of President Trump’s Foreign Policy will be keenly replaced by a globally inclusive and assuaging America for the rest of the International system. Still, President Trump rightly riled the President Elect Joe Biden, that the left liberal strain of policy making with a stress on Black rights ( not that its wrong!!!!), immigration, Hispanics and the reinitiating of the Clime talks with the IPCC and the Earth Summiteers will return to the American striped Politics and Climate change Diplomacy. But the fact that President Trump has already litigated in the realm of the State results and lost by very narrow margins, leaves much consternation to follow in a rattled Republican “Chintan and stocktaking meet”, in the near future. It’s the American soul now and not the Dream. Sulk!
(Dr Manan Dwivedi is a faculty at Indian Institute of Public Administration in Delhi. Views expressed are personal)
