The title of this essay is borrowed from Eugene Burdick and William Lederer’s best-selling political novel The Ugly American which was published in 1958 against the background of the Vietnam War. The similarity, however, ends there.
The Ugly American was a critique of the way American diplomacy was being conducted in Southeast Asia since the end of the World War II. It argued that without sufficient knowledge of the region (particularly Vietnam) and without enough understanding of local languages the US policy choices were often misdirected. The book was well received including at the government levels, and the Peace Corps initiative that US president John F. Kennedy famously introduced in 1961 was one important consequence.
Why invoke The Ugly American?
Indian diplomats are neither ignorant about American culture nor of their language, which is English. It is of course another matter that Sir Henry Higgins, that snooty British professor of the science of phonetics in My Fair Lady, would not concede that English was an American language. Indian diplomats are also familiar with American popular culture. The theory that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ does not hold water either because America and India have had a reasonably smooth relationship all along.
India’s diplomacy problem in broad context is largely home spun, and it is a relatively new phenomenon. It emanates from the government’s total disdain for criticism of any kind, even if it is self-evidently constructive. The result is an unprecedented hubris displayed by the ruling elites led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Whosoever critiques any government policy move is summarily condemned as a ‘traitor’. If any Pakistan or Muslim connection is traced, howsoever flimsy it may be, the denunciation is: ‘Go to Pakistan’. The result is that even a magisterial goof-up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – “there is no Chinese ingress into Indian territory” – is condoned without any meaningful debate in parliament.
In the present context of the humiliating deportation of illegal Indian entrants to US, the hollowness of our diplomacy is laid bare. When the first US military plane arrived in India on February 5, 2025 with 104 Indian deportees, which included 19 women and 13 children, India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s statement in the parliament was painfully professional and devoid of any emotion. Virtually holding the brief for the American government, he brushed off the sad affair as a ‘standard operating procedure’ (SOP) of the United States. If anyone mistook him for a moment as the US Secretary of State s/he may be pardoned.
This author has no confirmed information about the exact nature of the so-called ‘standard operating procedure’ of the US government in such cases. But in the process, Jaishankar gave the US government a clean chit insofar as their treatment of these Indian deportees was concerned. In the two subsequent deportations, on February 15 and 16, which altogether brought hundreds of Indians, the same handcuffing and chaining did take place, casting doubts about Jaishankar’s promise in parliament that he would take the matter up with the US authorities.
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Ever since the American government effectively wound up the American Library in Delhi, particularly its reference service, it is difficult to cross check such intricate matters as the SOP now in question. The question entails not only its legal specificity but also the actual practice thereto. We all know that many rules are often flouted by states to suit specific diplomatic exigencies. Henry Kissinger not only violated many diplomatic norms in his negotiations with China but sometimes even ridiculed those career diplomats who tried to strictly follow them.
In his statement to parliament, Jaishankar had given information on the year-wise number of deportees from America: 2009 (734), 2010 (799), 2011 (597), 2012 (530), 2013 (515), 2014 (591), 2015 (708), 2016 (1303), 2017 (1024), 2018 (1180), 2019 (2042), 2020 (1889), 2021 (805), 2022 (862), 2023 (617), 2024 (1368), and 2025 (104+228 as of February, and likely to grow). That means from 2009 until February 2025, a total of 17,921 Indians have been deported by America.
Let us imagine that these people were sent in several batches each consisting of, say, 120 deportees. That should mean that at least 150 flights have arrived in India laden with these deportees. Were they Indian planes or American? If American, were they military or civilian? Would Jaishankar certify that all 17,921 illegal Indians in America were in handcuffs and chains as per the US SOP? If so, it tells us an even bluer story about the quality of our journalism and our own lackadaisical and unquestioning way of consuming daily news.
There is a political angle to the above statistics also.
Let us divide the above figures into two sets, the first consisting of the second term of Manmohan Singh (2009 to 2014), and the second consisting of the second term of Narendra Modi (2019 to 2024). The BJP ridiculed the first for its ‘policy paralysis’, while trumpeting the second as the harbinger of the nation’s Amritkaal (age of the divine elixir/nectar) thanks to the leadership of the Vishwaguru (torch bearer of the world), Narendra Modi. With such contrasting claims in mind, let us now consider what the deportation statistics indicate. Interestingly, the ‘policy paralysed’ Manmohan Singh’s 2009-2014 term recorded 3,175 deportations while the Vishwaguru Narendra Modi’s 2019-2024 term recorded more than double that number at 7,583 deportations. Amritkaal it was indeed.
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That being said, the numbers are large enough in either case to make us Indians hang our heads in shame. It is particularly humiliating when Trump mentions them with his loathsome body language. It pains us even more because we have been told day in and day out that we are a great nation and that by 2047 we will be Vikasit Bharat (developed India), at par with America, Germany and Japan. I have not included China in that list, for that may puncture our ego even further. Let us not forget that some 70 odd years ago we had started off largely similar. Today, China is way ahead of us in almost every field (except one: population!). The only parameter in which we beat them is our democracy, which too is backsliding every day.
During the recent visit of Modi to the US, one particular photo-op was especially humiliating for us, the world’s biggest democracy. In the Narendra Modi-Elon Musk meeting sitting on one side were several top notch functionaries of the Modi government including the external affairs minister Jaishankar and the national security adviser Ajit Doval. Facing them in the opposite row were Musk’s partner Shivon Zilis, his three children, and their nanny. As an Indian I felt insulted. I wish my skin was thicker.
To conclude, it is well-established international relations theory that foreign policy is an extension of domestic politics, but Modi has taken the logic too far to mean that foreign policy is domestic politics by extension. This is particularly evident in such countries where there is a sizeable Indian diaspora. But the problem is that America’s Indian diaspora is too big and well represented in both Democratic and Republican parties. Outside politics, the diaspora also has an influential presence in the country’s economic and intellectual life. As such, Modi’s personalised diplomacy, conducted at the cost of India’s well groomed institutionalised diplomacy, runs the risk of faltering in the face of Donald Trump, an even more grotesque version of Narendra Modi.
As the popular Hindi saying goes, “Tum ser ho to main sawa ser hun (if you are a kilo I am a kilo and a quarter).” In figurative terms: If Narendra Modi thinks he is one plus, then Donald Trump is one plus plus.
Partha S. Ghosh is a retired professor of South Asian studies, JNU.