DC Edit | India’s Non-Alignment Redux

India’s response to the passage by the US House of Representatives of the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act that authorises President Donald Trump to impose up to 100 per cent tariffs on countries such as India and China for buying Russian oil was defiant, sharp and non-reconciliatory in its tone, reflecting a newly acquired confidence in its own strengths and the reliability of the network it has of late woven around its neighbours and long-time friends.

The Indian note contained references which do not conform to the usual pattern of its communication with the US. The government said it is “firmly committed to ensuring energy security for its 1.4 billion people through diversified sourcing”; US imposition of high tariffs could affect bilateral ties, and that the government will work closely with Indian trade and industry bodies to deal with the implications. It’s an assertion of its independence, a warning to an overbearing global partner and an announcement about its plans to deal with it once it comes to such a pass.

The Trump administration has discovered a powerful weapon in tariffs ever since it assumed office last year and has been using it with abandon. The US government offered no logic or reason why it hiked or lowered the tariffs, even on its friendly countries. There was no policy stability, which is a necessary ingredient for countries to plan their transnational trade and commerce. Most nations gave up fighting the bulldozer raj of Mr Trump and scrambled for ways to propitiate the US. India was also among those nations.

It was perhaps the success of the back-to-back summits of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS, in which some of the leading and emerging economies of the world, sans the US and Western Europe, were part of that emboldened the Indian stand. Non-alignment was a nuanced response of Indian foreign policy during the Cold War, and India is perhaps discovering a timely version of it in the changed global political theatre.