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It's not just Trump: India has dealt with US bullying before
President Richard Nixon also tried to bully India into following the US' strategic interests, instead of its own. File image/Reuters
For a while now, the United States has been trying to strong-arm India into compliance with its strategic will. Despite his platitudes about deep friendship with India, President Donald Trump, once back into the White House, imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods after months of threats and extensions.
India's refusal to bow to US demands in trade talks, denials over Trump mediating the India-Pakistan ceasefire, and New Delhi's continuing purchase of Russian oil, all seem to be the cause of the provocation.
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The measure sent shockwaves through Indian markets. Steel and aluminium sectors reeled, exporters scrambled, and Fitch warned that the effective US tariff on Indian goods had jumped from 2.4 per cent to 20.7 per cent.
India responded with steely calm to Washington's economic arm-twisting, drawing red lines in the stalled trade talks and warning that national interest would not be sacrificed for expediency. Officials said that while they remained open to dialogue, they would not be rushed or coerced into a deal. 'The era of unilateral compliance is long past,' one senior official said.
US' bullying of India stretches back to 1971
But this was not the first time an American president tried to impose Washington's will on India. Over five decades earlier, President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger sought to do the same with aircraft carriers and nuclear posturing.
It was December 1971. India had just intervened in the Bangladesh Liberation War, responding to a humanitarian crisis and a flood of millions of refugees created by Pakistan's violent crackdown in East Pakistan. Washington, however, saw the region through the lens of geopolitics: Nixon was courting Pakistan's dictator Yahya Khan to open the door to China. And so, when Indian forces advanced, Nixon ordered Task Force 74, including the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise, into the Bay of Bengal.
The deployment of US Navy's Seventh Fleet in the Bay of Bengal was officially described as a non-combatant mission to protect American citizens. But it is well-known as a signal to India that any move on West Pakistan would cross a line. Moscow responded by dispatching nuclear submarines to shadow the US fleet. A Cold War face-off in the Indian Ocean ensued.
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India refused to retreat. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi pressed forward, confident in the USSR's backing and resolute in her government's aim to end the genocide in East Pakistan. The gambit paid off: Pakistan surrendered on December 16, 1971, and Bangladesh was born. But the memory of American threats, and Kissinger's contemptuous remarks about Indian leadership, left a scar.
The 1971 episode served as a reminder that American support for democracy was often transactional and that when push came to shove, Washington could side with dictators if it suited its interests.
Now, India once again appears to be in a defiant mood, standing against the bullying and for its national interest.
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