A crucial debate missing from the USAID debate is fundamental to India’s foreign policy, and that is that the USA has admitted that it has been interfering in India’s internal matters. Donald Trump’s statement that USAID funds have been used to improve the voter turnout during elections is an admission of guilt by the US administration.

Surprisingly, the Modi government has been keeping quiet, and the opposition has also glossed over the issue. Even foreign policy experts and former career diplomats are not speaking about it. Should it be then understood that the foreign policy consensus, built since the time of prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and which was the cardinal principle of global world order that no country, big or small, would interfere in the internal affairs of another country, is no longer valid?

Since the Second World War, the idea of sovereignty has been sacrosanct and has been the defining creed of a civilised world. So, can we say that since the entire global order has been in turmoil after Trump became the new boss of the USA, and the idea of sovereignty has been deeply brutalised and every country is free to interfere in every other country’s internal matters, depending upon its might and global bargaining power, India should be at the forefront to oppose these tendencies?

But why the Indian government is silent is a mystery for me. This is more suspicious, as the government has been bragging for the last ten years that India has emerged as a global power and Modi is regarded as a global leader. The BJP and the RSS never tire of calling India under Modi as Vishwaguru and Vishwamitra.

By now, Trump has repeated the same thing........

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