Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. (File Photo)
The Trump visit is over. There were mutual gains. Homeland Security is an American expression. For us to own it shows our concerns on cross-border sponsored terrorism. The media did not discuss enough the GE nuclear turbines. Our nuclear VVER power plant technologies are state of the art and of Russian and French design. Good, but one more is better. We are well on the way to the fast breeder on the thorium route and these nuclear turbines are an essential step. We don’t have much uranium but unlimited thorium, so in the long run, apart from solar, this is the energy future. Obviously, the insurance obstacle, as to who will bear the cost of insurance against disaster damage, which the Americans were raising earlier, has been resolved. We have to build nuclear power to provide the initial feedstock for the thorium-based reactors.
We get along very well at the personal plane with Americans and this is generally true with President Trump, who knows the Indian economy first hand. It is one thing for a leader to speak from briefs; it’s another for him to be a Wharton graduate and a successful businessman. There are obviously differences between the two nations on the trade pact. There is “progress”, diplomatese to say we were not at blows, but otherwise we don’t know the way forward. Since the event was Ahmedabad-based, Amul is invading America and dairying is real politics. Incidentally, the original Motera was started by Sheth Jaykrishna Harivallabhdas, who was also chairman of Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers Company Ltd. In those days, the joint sector was a great innovation.
The US concern on Kashmir and minority rights is real. I had to respectfully remind old friends who on channels were taking the position that these are internal matters that we have always raised issues on prejudice on colour and minorities in the US and the rights of the diaspora with POTUS. If the largest foreign office establishment in the world is raising issues through their chief, let’s not bury our head in the sand. I wouldn’t be surprised if our defence minister expressing sadness at former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir being in detention was a gesture to the US President’s stand on pursuing solutions.
The Americans generally rally behind the President on foreign policy. We are more advanced now and have kicked the bipartisan approach to foreign affairs. When I was doing my doctorate and teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, leaders like Madhu Limaye, Balraj Madhok and others defended India abroad. Now courtesies are denied to Sonia Gandhi in a Foreign Office-planned banquet. Seven decades of a bipartisan policy are thrown away without a word in explanation.
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President Trump also went to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania when I was doing my doctorate there and later, teaching there and at Swarthmore College, a small well-known liberal arts college. My teacher Lawrence Klein, later to get the Economics Nobel, was annoyed at my constant cribbing on Paul Samuelson’s Economics being the required text on the ground that its chapters on developing countries were poor. Samuelson was his teacher. So Klein said: “Yoginder, you lecture to the entire class of Introductory Economics on what you think is appropriate.” So I did that in College Hall, lecturing to more than a thousand kids. Trump was required to be there. But knowing him it is also possible that he played hookey and went out on a date.
More seriously, shall we now turn our attention to the systematic attempts to hack the foundations of the Republic. Every right is tampered with. Your religion, your identity in a country that never questioned it, you name it, it’s in question. The Aadhaar card, passport, ration card, election card are not enough. One office doesn’t accept another’s card, even if they carry the same information. People like me are privileged. We breeze in and get the next card. Meanwhile, she who is in the queue from the morning and has missed her daily wage looks on sullenly. She doesn’t have the courage to say “check my Aadhaar, ration card or election card” for the fear that she may lose her most prized possession. A study funded by the Canadian IDRC showed the poor only keep under lock and key the ration and election cards. One saves them from starvation, the other gives them dignity. At least once every five years, the mightiest knock at their door. We must not destroy, we must build.
This article appeared in the print edition on March 6, 2020 under the title ‘After the Trump visit’. The writer, a former Union minister, is an economist.