Just coming back from India where I saw a widespread coverage and hype of Modi's trip to Washington DC for his first ever meeting with the mercurial Trump, equally palpable is the absence of any excitement in American mainstream media about the visit. The fact that Trump would receive Modi in White House lacks the fanfare of the Chinese leader Xi's visit in the exotic Florida resort of Mar-A-Lago speaks for itself and tells a thing or two about where America's priorities lie.
My take after more than two decades of following multiple visits of Indian leaders to US - End of the day, we acquiesce to most of the Americans demand, the later invariably ending up with a larger than required upper hand. It makes us wonder why we Indians, unlike our Middle Kingdom neighbor China are so vulnerable to Americans and easily buckle under their pressure!!! We readily crawl when we are only expected to bend before Uncle Sam (our belligerent western separated - at - birth brother Pakistan is known to drive a much harder bargain).
Some say, it's the remnants of colonial hangover. Though India was a English Colony, the demise of Britain as a world power and the rise of Pax Americana is responsible for this. But I see another angle to it. For those elite of India who matter - The politicians, businessmen, Babus, judges, Dalaals (they keep a low profile but powerful nevertheless) et all have their near and dear ones to live in US or study, have studied or plan to study in some American Universities.
Rahul Gandhi was a Havard drop out, the son of Diggy Singh, the Gandhi family's lapdog studied in Washington DC. Manmohan Singh has his daughter in US and many more examples, stating all of them is beyond the scope of this blog.
Even rabid US haters, especially a few Babus (bureaucrats) and Commies I have come across, are known to have their offsprings in America or have plans to send them to the land of racists, people with stress and to the same colleges they they perceive girls being molested and bullets fly in air with impunity.
No nation or person is above criticism, certainly not America. One is well within his or her rights to be a critic of US. Nothing wrong with such perceptions as every individual has rights to have so, but I find it utterly hypocritical to send their kids to such places they say sucks, but nothing more sucks is their hypocrisy.
I also know of rabid America hating babus giving parties after coming back from a sojourn to their proclaimed land of racists and Capitalist pigs. But it's another story.
Once I asked one such person if he would like to send his kid to US. He got flustered, his readymade forthcoming answer - "It would be my kid's decision". Fine, but I imagined the poor dad crying and pleading before his kid at the airport not to go the land of racists and rapists, lest he will forever disown his kid.
A la "Where Eagles Dare", in this context there should be a movie named "Where hypocrites galore". As the Lou Gehrig's disease is a rarerest form of disease, such blatant hypocrisy is that rare disease which has no cure. This inconsistency and duality about America is worse than Trump who tells Xi Xingping as a great President one day, while blasting the Chinese leadership the next. Don't be surprised if he embraces and praises Modi as a "Great Man" on Monday, only to take a U turn on Tuesday to blast India.
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