Democrats, Republicans and the cracks on India in the United States
The Democratic administration of United States (US) President Joe Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill, home to the US Congress, have rallied to India’s help as it battles its worst public health crisis in recent memory. But the Republicans have been conspicuous by their relative silence and absence.
They do not, of course, have the authority and resources of the White House to match the Biden administration’s assistance worth $100 million. But barring a few honourable exceptions, they have signalled a disturbing indifference by not even lending their voice to the outpouring of sympathy and support for India. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House foreign relations committee, commended the Biden administration for its assistance.
And Senators John Cornyn, a Republican who co-heads the India Caucus, and Rob Portman joined Mark Warner, a Democrat who co-chairs the India Caucus, to urge the Biden administration to do more for India.
The silence of the rest of the Republicans, especially former president Donald Trump, is notable. At Trump’s request, India withdrew an export ban on essential drugs to release a massive consignment of hydroxychloroquine, which was accorded magical powers by the former American president of curing Covid-19. The Biden administration has attributed its assistance to India to this gesture. “At the beginning of the pandemic, when our hospital beds were stretched, India sent assistance,” Vice-President Kamala Harris said on Friday, echoing the President and other senior members of the administration. “And today, we are determined to help India in its hour of need.”
Unlike other former presidents, Trump has not decided to retire into the shadows, which makes his silence even more conspicuous. He is firing off statements every day, bitter about his defeat and characteristically abusive of critics and effusive in his support of allies.
It also turns out that Trump had blocked the World Trade Organization (WTO) from accepting a joint proposal from India and South Africa — moved in October, when he was still in office — to grant temporary waiver of intellectual property rights to Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics so that they could be available to everyone. Trump led a group comprising the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Switzerland and others to oppose the move.
That same WTO proposal struck a chord, however, with the Democrats. Around 110 members of the House of Representatives and 10 members of the Senate — all Democrats, of course — pressed Biden publicly through letters and privately through meetings with his aides to get behind the India-South Africa proposal. And he did so eventually, though it’s not known yet if the President needed to be pushed at all. For the US, which is a strong advocate of protection of intellectual property rights, to actually agree to any change, albeit under the aegis of a WTO waiver, is a major departure.
And guess where the Republicans were on this issue? On the other side, a group of them, led by staunch Trump loyalists, including Congressman Jim Jordan, urged the Biden administration to continue to block the waiver proposal. So, has Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 that infected and killed millions of people, also claimed the bipartisan support India has enjoyed for years in the US?
Not really. While the relationship has the bipartisan backing of both the Democrats and Republicans, it has also got partisan pushback from the two parties on issues that matter to them. For instance, the Republicans don’t care much about the climate crisis. The Democrats, on the other hand, regard climate as one of their top issues. President Barack Obama had pushed India really hard, therefore, to get to the Paris Agreement. Or take another issue. While the Trump administration said the nullification of Kashmir’s special status is an “internal matter” of India, the Biden campaign made a disapproving note of it in its campaign vision. Many Indians feared that if elected, Biden would follow up on it. He hasn’t, not yet, at least.
But even as the relationship will go through its ebbs and flows, what is clear is that, this time around, it is the Democrats who have shown more sensitivity to India’s suffering.