Trump's tariffs spark a new ‘swadeshi' pledge with old fears unlocked
'Take a pledge on Raksha Bandhan to protect the country; that we will buy swadeshi,' said minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on August 9 as he celebrated the Hindu festival centered around brothers protecting sisters.
UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath's call, which came in the same week, gave his reasons: 'Profits earned by foreign companies are being used to fund terrorism, Naxalism, religious conversion, and love jihad." The theory of 'love jihad' claims a planned effort by Muslim men to marry and convert Hindu women.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his monthly radio programme to say that true service to the nation lay in promoting indigenous goods. 'We must awaken the spirit of swadeshi,' he said in his 'Mann ki Baat' address, invoking Mahatma Gandhi.
The PM cited 'global economic uncertainties'.
India faces up to 50 per cent tariffs, the highest imposed by the US, as Trump insists it's because India has been buying oil from Russia which is at war against Ukraine.
With talks for a trade deal now in uncertain territory, India has diplomatically hit back at the 'unfair and unjustified' reasoning for the tariffs, saying that many countries, including the US, and the West in general, have been trading with Russia too.
Opposition parties have made mirthful remarks about Modi's equation with Trump having changed drastically.
On the ground, from McDonald's and Coca-Cola to Amazon and Apple, the most obvious ones among US companies in India are facing boycott calls.
There were no immediate indications of sales being hit, Reuters reported.
But the chorus online, and some offline, to ditch American products has grown. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch — part of the same ideological conglomerate to which belongs India's ruling BJP — has taken out some rallies. It took out similar rallies against China and Turkey in the recent past.
US companies have deep roots in India, though. Domino's has more restaurants than any other brand in the country, and India is the biggest market by users for Meta's WhatsApp
It's on WhatsApp, in fact, that groups such as the Swadeshi Jagran Manch are circulating graphics that list Indian alternatives to foreign brands, from soaps to cold drinks to clothes.
Startup founders see this moment ripe for a pivot.
"India should have its own home-grown Twitter/Google/YouTube/WhatsApp/FB — like China has," said a post on LinkedIn by Rahm Shastry, CEO of DriveU, and Indian company that provides car drivers on call.
McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Amazon and Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters queries.
"We have proudly spent on brands that we don't own, while our own makers fight for attention in their own country," Manish Chowdhary, co-founder of Wow Skin Science, lamented on LinkedIn.
He annexed a video message, suggesting the Indians should learn from South Korea's ability to make its beauty products a global obsession.
Indian retail companies do give some foreign brands, like Starbucks, competition at home, but have struggled to go global, Reuters noted in its report. Indian IT services firms, however, have become deeply entrenched in the global economy, it added.
Amid this, Tesla, owned by Trump's ex-BFF Elon Musk, launched a second showroom in India, in New Delhi after Mumbai. Officials from India's commerce ministry and the US embassy were in attendance.
"People are now looking at Indian products. It will take some time to fructify," Ashwani Mahajan, co-convenor of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, said to Reuters, 'This is a call for nationalism, patriotism.'
At a McDonald's in Lucknow, meanwhile, Rajat Gupta, 37, told Reuters that the ₹49 coffee he got there was value for money. "Tariffs are a matter of diplomacy and my McPuff (and) coffee should not be dragged into it," he said.
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