Rites Of Spring, Time To Cure

The battle for America’s soul has been won. Right through his campaign, Joe Biden had made it clear that the stakes were that high and elemental—now was the time for people to choose the kind of country they wanted for their children. But winning is just the first step. President-elect Biden now faces the daunting task of healing a divided country. In a stirring speech from his home in Delaware after he was declared the winner, he said: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season—a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow and a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.”

Using his 2016 election slogan, ‘make America great again’, to justify every divisive comment and act, Trump in four years let loose the nation’s worst instincts. The fact that America was split down the line is proven by the fact that though Biden won the popular vote, with over 74 million people voting for him, Trump was the choice for as many as 70 million Americans. If roughly 50 per cent of the electorate voted for the Biden/Harris ticket, 48 per cent did so for Trump/Pence. On November 7 in Delaware, Biden declared: “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify. Who doesn’t see red and blue states, but a United States.’’

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Biden rode to power on the back of African American voters. By choosing Kamala Harris—of Black and Indian heritage—as his running mate, he broke with convention too. Realising that women, especially African American women, were staunch Democratic supporters over decades, he knew he had to give them proper representation. By being part of the winning ticket, Kamala Harris has broken the most dur­able of glass ceilings—a fact being celebrated across the US and the world. “Make sure to wear shoes, ladies. There’s glass everywhere,’’ tweeted one supporter, adding, “Madam vice president is no longer a fictional character.” Heartbroken at Hillary Clinton’s shock defeat in 2016,  women across America rejoiced. Harris’s win is being seen as forcing open a door for others to follow. “While I may be the first woman in this office I will not be the last,” said Harris with a winsome smile. “Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.” Wearing all white as a tribute to the suffragette movement, Harris recalled her late mother Shyamala Gopalan, who mig­rated to the US from India and taught Kamala and her sister to dream big.

Earlier, Joe Biden closed out the race by wrapping up Pennsylvania, with 20 electoral college votes, that took him over the magic number of 270 votes.  Much of America erupted with joy, as Democratic supporters rushed out to the streets across cities to indulge in untrammeled rapture. Waving flags, honking, singing, and dancing, people let off steam in an America shattered by racial tension, the pandemic and the economic downturn triggered by COVID-19. For now, all that bitterness was suspended. As supporters gathered all around the White House to drive home the point, a petulant Donald Trump refused to concede defeat.

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But the lame duck president, reality TV star and business tycoon, is not fading into the sunset. Despite being an outsider in the Republican party, in his four years in the White House, Trump has wrested control of the GOP. This has to do with his unprecedented popularity among one half of American voters. His transactional way of doing business, the economic boom prior to the pandemic, but above all his ability to champion the cause—and tap into the bitterness—of the huge mass of non-college educated American Whites who believe they have suffered because of the liberal values of globalisation, climate change pacts and unchecked immigration. Republican lawmakers realise that Trump’s popularity can help them win elections. This makes Trump a formidable force, even out of the White House. There is already talk of him running again for the 2024 presidential race. Pundits agree that ‘Trumpism’ will now become a new, permanent element in American politics. Though Biden has won, it is in no way a ‘blue wave’. The hope of winning a Senate majority is also not on the cards. So, in real terms, the gridlock in US politics will continue.  

The task before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is daunting too—controlling the pandemic and restarting the economy will be a priority. But, as the world’s only superpower, America will also need to reclaim its leadership role in the world and cooperate in finding solutions to the major issues of our times, from climate change and the fight against the pandemic to tackling the economic recession.

In all of this, Biden, with his experience of governance as Barak Obama’s VP, will rely on multilateralism. Some of the issues he has already laid out are a return to the Paris Climate Accord, rew­orking the nuclear deal with Iran, rej­oining the WHO, and working with NATO allies in Europe—issues that were trampled upon mercilessly by Trump. European leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron are delighted at Biden’s victory. British PM Boris Johnson was one of the first to send in a congratulatory message. He is hoping for an all-encompassing trade deal with the US to offset the loss from Brexit trade.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his congratulations separately to Biden and Harris. The Indian establishment is familiar with Biden, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee played a significant role in pushing the 123 agreement, (part of the Indo-US nuclear deal) through the senate. Before the nuclear deal, in 2001, when India was under sanctions for its nuclear tests, Biden had urged president George W. Bush to lift them. He is also a known votary of close US-India strategic ties.

Modi developed an excellent equation with Washington outsider Donald Trump, and read him well. When Trump first burst on the scene in 2016, and his bluntness spread consternation, Modi was able to get his measure. So much so that, des­pite denials by the government, at the Howdy Modi Rally in Houston in 2019, remarkable for the bonhomie between the two, Modi indirectly endorsed Trump. At the Ahmedabad show that Modi put up for Trump this year, the US president was bed­azzled by the spectacle of enormous crowds. Luckily, Biden will not let it colour his views about Modi.

As every analyst has pointed out, there will be no major change in American policy towards India. “As far as India is concerned there will be continuity, as the mutual equities on both sides are sufficiently strong to withstand any change in tone and tenor,” says P.S. Raghavan, a former diplomat and currently chairman of the National Security Advisory Board. Defence cooperation and the Indo-Pacific outreach will remain in place, as will anti-terror cooperation.   

India will also keenly watch Biden’s approach to China. While there is a bipartisan consensus on the threat to US hegemony by China, the way of dealing with China will be different. By calling out China on unfair trade practices and manipulation of the world trade system, Trump had done few others had dared to do before him because of the economic cost involved. But now that the die is cast, there would be no turning back. Biden will fight just as hard for American business, but most tough negotiations will be behind the scenes.

India’s tech-companies, however, are a relieved lot. Trump had stopped the issue of H-1B visas by executive order, as he felt jobs were being taken away from Americans by importing cheap lab­our from abroad. Indian and American tech companies were hit hard by the order. As nearly 70 per cent of H1-B visas went to India, it was a blow to US business too. For all the friendship between Modi and Trump, the India-US economic partnership did not benefit from it because of Trump’s ins­istence that New Delhi’s high tariffs—and a trade deficit in India’s favour—­­were affecting US business. A new India-US trade deal will have to be worked out, but this may take time. Despite Biden’s support for free trade and globalisation, interests of American workers will be foremost on his mind.

“The economic challenges will remain but there will less of a transactional app­roach. While the areas of friction will not go away, it will be easier to discuss them. The US wants to boost bilateral economic trade with India, which currently stands at only $150 billion, ins­tead of what it can be—$500 billion. For that, a Biden administration, like the Obama administration, will push for more trade and lower tariffs. While the Biden administration will seek to rebuild the American economy there will be an equal focus on helping partners like Japan, Taiwan, Australia, India to decouple from China and boost their economic potential,” says Aparna Pandey of the Hudson institute.

Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of CII, thinks that the sectors that might see enhanced business cooperation between India and the US would be “energy and the green economy, defence and manufacturing, boosting small business cooperation, and pharmaceuticals and healthcare—all driven by India and the US’ new-age innovation.’’

Some in India are anxious that the Democratic administration, unlike Trump, will not turn a blind eye to human rights. Indeed, human rights and democratic values are central to the party’s credo. It would be extre­mely difficult for Biden to keep quiet when progressive Demo­crats would want to raise these issues. Early in his campaign, Biden had raised the Kashmir issue vis-a-vis the government’s crackdown in Kashmir after the revocation of Article 370. The Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens were also raised. But one heard no further about these, perhaps with an eye to the Indian American votes. Not that resolutions on Kashmir were not raised during the Trump administration—there were two in the US House of Representatives. The Christian Right, too, criticised India’s record on religious freedom.

Thus, human rights will be flagged by the Biden administration, but it will be done mostly behind closed doors. That is Biden’s style. Overall, America will not abandon its pro-India tilt as it faces the challenge of a rising China. A gentle nudge reminding India of its multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural tradition cannot harm either India or its ties with the US.