Tariffs, Trump, Tradition, and the Tyranny of Tantrums

Only someone in nationalist self-denial will think Donald Trump’s tariffs are taxes, not taunts.

- Ravi Shankar

India’s historical memory is best riposte to this Wild Bill Hickok’s shooting spree by never forgetting that India was once the workshop of the ancient world. For centuries, caravans along the Silk Route were laden with the produce of India such as spices of Malabar, muslins from Bengal, indigo of Gujarat and the shawls of Kashmir. We exported spices, textiles, precious stones, and ivory to Rome which sent back glassware, wine, perfumes, and silver. We were not then an “emerging market”; we were the world’s market, not because we consumed, but because we created.

The Europeans nearly bankrupted themselves importing Indian pepper; Romans bewailed that their women’s fondness for Indian cotton was draining their treasury, Arab merchants, borne by the monsoon winds across the Arabian Sea, returned home laden with cinnamon, and calicoes, so much so that Al-Beruni wrote that no corner of the known world was untouched by India’s produce. Chinese pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang marveled at the artistry of our looms and the abundance of our markets. India was not merely on the Silk Route; it embroidered it.