Trumpeting Away

Watching the news on the television or reading stories in newspapers and the online media over the last week has been a pretty ravaging experience, and yet an eye-opener. We are living a painful and pitiful paradox in the country today, where the powers that be are completely ignoring the real issues that confront the country today – the Coronavirus pandemic, the skirmishes in Ladakh, the Farmers' Bills and the Hathras incident. And while our stalwarts assume pin-drop silence on these, it is ironical that leaders from other nations have stepped up the plate and are waxing eloquent about happenings in India.

The monkey wrench in this scenario is that these few international leaders who have decided to beef up their personal national presence in their own countries by assuming the role of international visionaries were regarded as India's true global friends, even till very recently,. In their statements over just last week, they have been anything but friendly in their rhetoric, choosing to condemn India on various fronts, even threatening our national borders and boundaries. I speak here, of course, of the United States and China, whose leaders and spokespersons are clearly working on a well laid-out plan. And India, unfortunately, finds itself dead center, in the cross-hairs, of this deadly verbal shootout.

On Coronavirus numbers

In the first Presidential Election debate with other candidate and former US Vice-President Joe Biden on Wednesday of the week gone by, United States' President Donald Trump decided to target India for its declaration of (or the absence of truth) COVID-19 impact numbers and their sharing with the rest of the world. And for good measure, carrying forth in his brash and bumbling manner, Trump bundled India alongside Russia and China, two non-democracy states, as he ranted on about the issue.

As Biden started cornering Trump on the US Government's response towards the COVID-19 pandemic and the US emerging as the worst-affected country worldwide, Trump, in a clear and blasé attempt to shift the blame, cited the examples of India, China and Russia. "We don't know how many people died of COVID-19 in China, Russia, India... (That's) because

they do not give straight answers, they don't give real numbers," Trump declared pompously. Trump again blamed China for the pandemic itself, which has so far claimed over 10 lakh lives across the world, with the United States suffering the most number of deaths. Not one to take this lying down, Biden retorted by calling Trump "totally irresponsible" on managing the pandemic in the US and even said the President is "a fool on this" matter and that he is only worried about masks in the interest of protecting his own health and not others.

On pollution and its fallout

And in a second classic instance of diverting attention from the real issues facing the United States (somewhat similar to what we are witnessing in our own country), Trump fired another salvo at the dreaded trio of, yes you guessed it, India, China and Russia. These three countries, he bombastically announced, were causing the most air pollution in skies around the world. Clubbing India with the other two, Trump boomed: "China sends up real dirt into the air. Russia does, India does. They all do."

And this is not the first time the US President has blamed India for its contribution to global Climate Change. In an interview to UK-based television network ITV earlier this year, Trump said: "China, India, Russia… many other nations, they have not very good air, not very good water, and the sense of pollution (is bad). If you go to certain cities, you can't even breathe, and now that air is going up… They don't do (sic) the responsibility."

Trump also dropped a stunner of sorts by saying the garbage from India was finding its own way and floating into Los Angeles! In yet another ramble that he is now renowned across the world for, Trump rallied against many other countries, saying everyone had been taking advantage of the US before he came along and saved the country from rack and ruin because of exploitation by other nations. And for good measure, he reportedly told Biden that he (Trump) had done more for the United States in 47 months than anyone else had in 47 years. That's personal belief and esteem for you!

Ladakh crisis continues

So while we have the US President banging India on COVID-19 numbers and pollution, we have our other friend China baring its fangs now on Ladakh. In a recent Chinese Foreign Ministry statement, Beijing re-iterated its position on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border between the two nations. In the statement, China quoted the 1959 understanding, which has been consistently rejected by India. The disagreement on the LAC started with a letter written in 1959 to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru by Chinese leader Zhou Enlai. In it, the description of the LAC was given in general terms and was not defined to scale.

Today, China is trying to sneakily ensure that its own 1959 LAC definition be followed, even though India has dismissed this claim repeatedly. Till 2003, the two countries had also engaged in an exercise to clarify and confirm the LAC. In response to this latest Chinese claim, the Indian Foreign Ministry said the "process could not proceed further as the Chinese side did not show a willingness to pursue it". The different perceptions about the LAC were at the bottom of the repeated flare-ups at the border over "the Chinese and Indian perceptions of LAC overlap", Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh informed the Lok Sabha earlier this month.

So there you are – we have the US on one side and China on the other, squeezing India which lies in the middle.

Evaporated friendships?

Till as recently as late-February this year, Trump and India were friends, and that back-thumping relationship saw the Namaste Trump hullaballoo taking over Gujarat, even as the first cases of the dreaded Coronavirus were quietly sneaking into India. And we won't anytime

forget the vivid scenes of Chinese President Xi Jinping being served tea while he

smilingly rocked on a jhoola (swing) along the banks of the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad.

The heady images of these two recent visits by Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to India lead to a burning question – what the hell happened to the deep and mutually-devoted friendships, which saw numerous instances of sticky handshakes, back-thumping and hugging? How did

the marriage go so bad that it has ended without even a court appearance or a divorce decree? For clearly, true friends can't be repeatedly criticizing us in international public forums or grabbing our territory and killing soldiers along our borders with crudely improvised hidden weapons like nail-lined clubs and truncheons.

The situation has become so debauched that even former Union Minister P Chidambaram took to the social media and tweeted last week: "Donald Trump clubs India with China and Russia and accuses the three countries of hiding the number of Covid-19 deaths," Chidambaram tweeted in Hindi. "He also accused the three countries of causing the most air pollution. Will Modi hold another 'Namaste Trump!' rally to honor his dear friend?"

Refocusing our energies

What gets my goat is not the fact that the US and China have changed their colors, for it is a well-known fact that they do that all the time, again and again. What's really irking my insides is why we as a country decided that this new form of external affairs management and diplomacy would protect the country from political and economic snafus and prevent any cross-border clashes… especially when history has repeatedly taught us many lessons to the contrary.

The other reason for continued national disparagement is why the authorities and media are not focusing on the real issues that India is reeling under. We are still stuck on Sushant Singh Rajput, minor political clashes and other nationally unimportant events. What further worries me is whether this is all part of a larger ploy – highlight and blow up some inane issues to divert attention from things that are slowly killing my country, you and me.

The author is a communications consultant and clinical analyst. narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com