Jeff Bezos did something unprecedented in the history of the Washington Post by refusing to allow the newspaper to obey its editors and endorse Kamala Harris, making the newspaper neutral rather than partisan in a way it has not been for years. India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a frequent target of the newspaper’s editorial writers, with the consequence that a Prime Minister who from the start has spoken of a united India. In the process, he has unveiled numerous schemes that benefit all the people, whether they be in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh or in any other state of the country. He has significantly deepened ties with countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as he has the overall relationship with the United States. All this has taken place in the midst of substantial effort by lobbies hostile to the idea of India becoming a superpower to remove from office PM Modi, even if in the process, they may do substantial harm to every citizen of India. Such lobbies are funded and encouraged by countries which seek to prevent India from entering the ranks of the superpowers, now occupied only by China and the US. Once India makes the grade, others in line include Brazil, Indonesia and even Russia, were the country to overcome the headwinds created by the Atlantic Alliance continuing to regard that country as its primary enemy, in action if not always in words. Such a view has remained within the alliance despite the Soviet Union having disintegrated in 1991, and with that, signalled the close of Cold War 1.0.
Institutions such as NATO and unified structures in Europe which were created during the period when the Soviet Union was still existing have refused to re-adjust their sights to confront the existential threat of systems that it is facing from China, much to the convenience of that country. In a context where India has become key to the security of the sea lanes of the Indo-Pacific, the bigger geopolitical picture illustrating the need for the US and India to work together is being forgotten by the western newspapers who have for years been active in demonizing India. Despite such efforts, overall in sectors that count, such as in tech and defence, the relationship between India and the US in particular has developed substantially since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India in 2014. Even in Canada, a country where for unexplained reasons Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been on a crusade to separate India from the Atlantic Alliance, overall public opinion has yet to turn hostile to India. Nor will it, given geopolitical realities. Leaders of the countries within the Atlantic Alliance need to appreciate the need for them to work closely with the world’s largest democracy rather than with its biggest authoritarian power. They need to examine the lack of logic in assertions made in sections of western media that a uniform civil code (UCC) is against a particular religion. Every single western country has in effect a uniform civil code. As PM Modi pointed out, a UCC is secular, not communal. It would be welcomed by almost all citizens of India, irrespective of faith.