• Adv. Rajiv Sharma

Since the beginning of his second inning as US President, Donald Trump has acted like an unpredictable maverick. He has been trying to browbeat all other countries to act as per his whims and fancies. Fortunately, a major part of the world has understood his game plan and called his bluff, which has nearly landed him in a soup. On the 9th of April, Trump had to eat a humble pie when he was forced to suspend his own orders on tariff. But not all countries have shown such courage and fortitude. The news that PM Modi maintained complete silence even when President Trump was hurling false accusations on India and was trying to arm-twist our great country has caused pain and agony to many people here. Being an elected representative of 140 crore Indians, PM Modi ought to have stood his ground, confronted the unwarranted onslaught on his country, and set the matter straight there and then, but that was not to be.

It has been widely reported in the media that PM Modi claims himself to be a personal friend of President Trump. Therefore, he was keen to attend Trump’s oath taking ceremony on 20 January 2025. But the invite never reached the PM. After assuming the office, President Trump began criticizing India’s tariff regime publicly. Trump’s tirade grew even shriller when PM Modi called on him in his office in the White House. Throwing all diplomatic norms to the winds, Trump made some unilateral announcements on the potential sale of military hardware and oil and natural gas to India. This clearly meant that the USA was trying to arm-twist his Indian counterpart to toe his line. Trump later accused India of adopting unfair trade practices and arrogantly claimed that he had exposed India and forced it to reduce tariffs on American goods.

Under these circumstances, what a prudent man will infer when the US President puts undue pressure on India to reduce tariffs on US goods and India immediately responds by reducing tariff on many agricultural products like almonds, walnuts, lentils, and cranberries. The tariff on American whiskeys bourbon was also significantly decreased. If this is not termed as a surrender by an elected government, what else would be?

This is not the first time that the Modi government meekly surrendered before a powerful adversary. In 2020, China intruded into Indian territory in Ladakh and illegally captured thousands of kilometres of Indian land there. But PM Modi did not utter a word of protest against them. The first of a series of intrusions in 2020 took place in Galwan Valley, where there were casualties on both sides. The Chinese came in and captured Indian territory. The readers would recall that no fire arms or explosives were used either by the Chinese or by the Indian troops during their bloody skirmishes. This was because, in 1988, the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi broke ice with China and his government executed many mutually beneficial agreements with them, which subsequently paved way for signing “no use of fire arms or explosives around LOC” agreement in 1993. In 2020 clashes, the Indian troops were fully capable of pushing back the Chinese troops in a similar hand-to-hand combat sometime later. This had been a norm there. But on July 19, 2020, Prime Minister Modi suddenly appeared on television to state that “no one has intruded in Indian territory.” This amounted to giving legitimacy to the illegal occupation of Chinese forces as status quo got frozen. As a result, Indian troops were not able to patrol and stay put in many areas, which were under India’s control just a few days ago. This impression that the Modi government possesses a cowardly mindset was further reinforced by a statement made nearly 2.5 years later by India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. In a media interview, he said that how could India take on China when it was a big economic power. The statement exposed the timid approach of the BJP governments, which does now allow them to confront their formidable adversaries even on issues of vital interest. Prior to that, the people of this country still recall with horror the way the then Vajpayee government had surrendered before the terrorists during the Kandhar hijack episode of 1999.

Contrast this with the courage and sagacity of Indira Gandhi-led Congress government in 1967, when Indian troops fought a fierce battle to reclaim Nathu La and Cho La areas on Sikkim border from Chinese occupation and later annexed the state of Sikkim with India in 1975. The whole world knows how India showed ‘Lal Aankh’ to US President Nixon in 1971 and divided Pakistan into two separate countries despite the direct threat of nuclear attack by the USA. It is still fresh in the minds of most Indians that Dr. Manmohan Singh tackled his formidable adversaries and inked civil nuclear agreements with the USA and many other countries in 2009 despite the vociferous opposition of countries like China, who tried to stall the deal but could not do so.

Further, India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru was a world leader of highest stature. He changed the world order and stood tall and upright before two powerful blocks of the countries led by the USA and Soviet Union to lay the foundation of a Non-Aligned world. Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri resisted American Pressure and provided leadership to Indian Armed forces to defeat Pakistan in 1965 war. There are hundreds of such stories of valour and fearlessness of the Congress leaders right from the beginning of the struggle for freedom until 2014, which will continue to inspire future generations.

But the whole approach of the government underwent a change as PM Modi took over in 2014. In the last ten years or so, India’s response to ‘uncalled for’ belligerence of many of our neighboring countries like China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and even Maldives has not been appropriate, to say the least. As stated above, China illegally occupied Indian land in 2020, and PM Modi did not even protest. Now, in 2025, the US President has crossed all limits of diplomatic decency, and the PM is yet to respond on this occasion also.

Last month, President Trump went a step further. In a video communique, he made an explosive revelation that his friend PM Narendra Modi had received millions of US dollars through a US organization USAID in the past. The PM has kept silent on this allegation also, as has the mainstream media. In addition to this, last year, a US Court indicted an Indian businessman and PM Modi’s close friend Gautam Adani on the serious charges of fraud and cheating. Summons from a US Court are being served on him in India through the government channels. When a media personnel in the US somehow managed to ask a question from PM Modi on Adani episode, his dramatic reply left everyone perplexed and confused.

In short, the US is trying to tighten its grip by resorting to all means at its command. It is now getting ready to negotiate a trade deal with India. If the USA has its way, the trade deal will not only pave the way for tariff reduction but also allow US interference in government procurements, agricultural subsidies, patent laws, and unrestricted data flow.

The matter does not end here. The US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has put a spanner in the talks. He has been pressing India to open up India’s agriculture sector to the US market and wants the free flow of US agricultural products into India as a pre-condition to the trade negotiations. If the government of India allows the import of US agricultural products into the country, it will have catastrophic consequences for Indian agriculture, which will further have ominous repercussions for all sectors of the economy. The food security of 140 crore people, their livelihoods, and the interests of the farmers will be completely jeopardized.

India has consistently been opposing all these proposals for many years but may not be able to do so for long if the Modi government continues to bend under the US pressure. Here, one must recall what Congress leader Shri Rahul Gandhi has been saying for quite some time now. He is convinced that India will be able to stand tall in the world and withstand pressure from countries like the USA only if it strengthens its manufacturing sector and builds a ‘strong industrial system’. He wants that India must develop a “strong production base” in order to build a ‘real industrial prowess’ and generate employment for the youth. But unfortunately, Modi Government has ignored the manufacturing sector completely in the last ten years. Not only their much publicized ‘Make in India’ Program has flopped, but they have not been paying any attention to the latest technologies like artificial intelligence and Drones. Their lopsided style of working has ensured that the imports from China keep on increasing every year, which have now reached a staggering level of nearly 110 billion US $. This is killing our domestic industry. If all this continues, our country could soon become vulnerable to exploitation by the countries, who control manufacturing and production based on modern technology.

The author is Chief Spokesperson Chandigarh Pradesh Congress