Trumpian jolt to India is debilitating, but not fatal

India’s destiny is not a function of the anger of one great power or the indulgence of another. It is rooted in our history and civilisation, in the values espoused by our founding fathers, in our championing of great causes

- Navtej Sarna

Any serious jolt in an individual's life should ideally lead to a period of reflection, a reassessment of one’s capabilities and limitations, a meditation on the way ahead. So it is for nations.

In recent years, a close India-US relationship had become the central tenet of India’s foreign policy. The jolt delivered to that perception by US President Donald Trump's irrational aggression is a serious one. It ranks right up with some memorable jolts of similar voltage: the Chinese betrayal and aggression in 1962, the US Seventh Fleet sailing into the Bay of Bengal in 1971, and the furious landslide of “a ton of bricks” in the shape of sanctions post the 1998 nuclear tests.

But those episodes, however unacceptable, could be explained: An overly idealistic reading of China’s intentions in 1962, America’s desperation to create an opening to China in 1971, and Clinton's anger at the body blow delivered by India in 1998 to the inherently discriminatory nuclear nonproliferation regime.

But Trump's despatch of the wrecking ball to the steadily rising edifice of India-US relations is woefully bereft of not only reason but even decency. More so since, unlike the other situations, the attack is on a relationship that was in a particularly good place, having been nurtured by leaders on both sides, including Trump, for the last quarter century.

A crisis shows up things in bold relief, like several of our assumptions that got the veneer of established fact. Space permits us to mention three.

The first was the belief that India had the measure of Donald Trump — that having dealt with him with reasonable success in his first term, we would continue to coast on his safe side during the second by a judicious mix of cajoling, flattery, blandishments, and perceived chemistry.