Here's Why India Should Ignore Obama's Sermons

For a civilization whose fortunes have swung between extremes, Indians have not been blessed with adequate amounts of stoicism. Emotional outbursts at perceived slights to the national honour are a hallmark of the modern Indian psyche. A wonderful example of that would be how two recent speeches by the American president Barack Obama supposedly preaching the virtues of tolerance to India have ignited a firestorm of desi righteous indignation. I use the word ‘supposedly’ because like a Shakespearean soliloquy, different people have interpreted Obama’s speeches differently.

The more eager have called it Obama castigating Modi for not silencing fringe elements of the Hindu right. Others have responded that the Modi-baiters are intentionally going overboard trying to read between the lines of Obama’s speech. But the most common response has seen a piqued Indian public asking the US to be less lazy with their homework & instead turn the mirror on their own challenges before issuing more homilies.

Pointing out American hypocrisy is a time-tested retort by countries annoyed with an American talk-down. It is not surprising because American hypocrisy is as omnipresent as CocaCola and Hollywood. For example while moralizing on religious tolerance, Obama missed out mentioning America’s struggle to get a president who doesn’t have to profess loyalty to Jesus Christ every morning. A staggering 97% of the current members of the US Congress are of Judeo-Christian persuasion. That statistic doesn’t gel well with the melting pot of diversity picture America keeps harping about. It’s not doing too well in terms of race relations either with only one African-American in a 100 membered senate. For the sake of brevity, let’s not even get started on Ferguson.

If only Obama had stopped at some generic declarations for religious tolerance. He also ended up betraying his limited knowledge of India’s history. The icing on his pontification cake was obviously the reference to how Mahatma Gandhi would be shocked seeing modern India’s intolerance. Really Mr Obama? Gandhi, the person who walked the streets of Kolkata littered with dead bodies after Jinnah’s Direct Action Day, would be shocked at seeing Hindu Mahasabha threatening to marry off couples on Valentine’s day? The Gandhi who walked to Noakhali where hundreds of families were cut to pieces would be let down by Dinanath Batra filing legal petitions against publishers?

The only one who would be shocked is Mr Obama himself if he invested more time to know India’s bloody history and then realize how far we have come from the dark days of 1947. And I can only imagine the Mahatma loving president’s horror when if he finds out how Gandhi’s own views about how the purity of Hindu women would protect her during a riot against her assailants and that it was physically impossible to violate a woman against her will. Interestingly Obama spent most of his 2012 election campaign crucifying Republicans for making similar parochial statements about women.

Saner voices will argue that there is no need to jump into an avalanche of data to demonstrate how America needs to put its own house in order first. Maybe we could garnish our outrage with a tinge of realism and assess whether we need to get worked up in the first place. Does Obama really believe that the ‘religious intolerance’ in India would have shocked Gandhi? Is his concern real enough to impact India-US relations? Or were his speeches aimed at a different audience?  Unlike the Xi Jinpings and Vladimir Putins of this world, it is slightly easier to hazard a few guesses at Obama’s modus operandi.

One of the biggest motivators for president Obama is his legacy. Obama has spent every minute of the last six years in the White House with an awareness of the historical nature of his presidency. Not content with being the first African-American President, he wants to be remembered as one of the best modern presidents. Obama’s favourite strategy to cement his legacy is to distinguish himself in every manner possible from his predecessor George W Bush.

But this departure has been more in terms of optics and the choice of words but not so much in terms of policy. As a result of which Obama has been successful in getting away with a lot of things which a person like Bush would otherwise have been chastised for. The historical speech by Obama in Cairo very early in his term is a prime example of this strategy. The world heralded that speech as a sincere and heartfelt attempt by Obama to mend the wounds inflicted by the Bush regime on America’s ties with the Arab world. He came across as humble, sensitive to Arab aspirations and most importantly he dispensed with the America is always right tone. That speech had a greater impact than many people give Obama credit for.

However the impact was not exactly as per the liberal script. Instead of heralding a genuine change in US-Arab relations, it distracted the world from noticing that America’s global counter-insurgency program expanded significantly under Obama with very scant regard for international laws or geography. Deaths of thousands of innocents as collateral damage in an ever expanding unmanned drone campaign under a Bush regime would have been led to thundering editorials from furious liberals. Under a politically correct and visually sincere Obama, these developments have become a mere footnote.  That is Obama’s style.

He will do things which he thinks needs to be done and if it is something which is not in line with the liberal talking agenda, he will hedge his bets with some window-dressing usually in form of speeches or half-empty gestures. That is how he has managed to keep his liberal image alive and yet aggressively push American interests across the world.

His handling of the nascent relationship with Modi will need to be looked at in this light. The importance of India’s partnership is not lost on Obama and irrespective of any misgivings he may still have about Prime Minister Modi, he will ensure that India is engaged at all the necessary levels.  He will do that solely because he knows it is in America’s vital interest. As a fellow politician, Modi should recognize that Obama always has an eye on his image as a liberal lion and he needs to hedge his bet on Modi with speeches on religious tolerance and plurality.

Legacy building requires Obama to play these little games especially now when his term is slowly drawing to a close.  Most countries react with emotional outbursts against perceived slights. But being a superpower means diplomacy has to be rooted in pragmatism and not sentiment. America is well versed with that fact and if India is serious about its global ambitions it will need to overlook some aspects of this American relationship as if it doesn’t exist. As long as Obama delivers on his commitments, India can turn a blind eye to the tricks he employs to determine how his biography will be written.