Washington Diary: ‘Doland’ unfriends Modi

In 248 years, no foreign leader has been invited for the inauguration of a newly elected president of the United States. Donald Trump decided to break with that tradition.

Overseas heads of government will be in attendance on 20 January to mark his return to the White House — but it will be a motley crew. No P5 (or permanent member of the United Nations Security Council) head of state other than President Xi Jinping of China was invited — and Xi declined. Only one G7 head of state — Italy’s Georgia Meloni — will be present... if she can adjust her schedule. From the G20, only President Javier Milei of Argentina will grace the occasion.

Trump appears to have favoured a rightwing crowd of foreign politicians. He zeroed in on Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, last reported as undecided; El Salvador’s little-known president Nayib Bukele and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has an arrest warrant against him issued by the ICC (International Criminal Court) for alleged war crimes.

Netanyahu’s appearance was thrown into doubt by Trump himself, when he shared a social media post by public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs, who called Netanyahu a ‘deep, dark son of a b*t*h’ for dragging the US into endless wars in the Middle East.

Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil who has since been convicted for abuse of power when in office, was also on the guest list, but needed permission from the Brazilian supreme court to travel abroad.

Since Trump surely doesn’t see Modi as anything but right-wing, the lack of an invite indicates that NaMo is neither important enough nor friend enough. Either way, it’s a setback for the propaganda machine that spends crores of Indian taxpayers’ money to portray him as both.

For weeks, the media circulated speculations on Narendra Modi’s yearning for an invitation. Inviting the government of India to send an official from India — not specifically Modi — is an unambiguous snub.

Trump signalled that while he doesn’t underestimate the US’ relationship with India, he is not going to welcome with open arms the erstwhile RSS pracharak who was denied a US visa for ‘severe violations of religious freedom’ and effectively banned from visiting the US for a decade. On a lighter note, given his recent comic appearance in a hoodie in Kashmir, it might save us the embarrassment of seeing our prime minister all bundled up for the freezing open-air ceremony on the steps of the Capitol.

External affairs minister S. Jaishankar will mark South Block’s presence at the Trump tamasha, not his boss. Protocol-wise he might get to meet Marco Rubio, the American secretary of state-designate, one on one, which Vinay Kwatra, the Indian ambassador to the US, is unlikely to.

Having abandoned India’s sensible 1991 policy of multi-alignment and put most of its eggs in the US basket, the Modi–Jaishankar duo’s step-change could spiral out of control with a temperamental Trump in command.

Their fallback options are limited. Compared to the days of the IndoSoviet Friendship Treaty, Russia’s approach to India today is transactional. Neither is it ‘Hindi–Chini bhai-bhai’ anymore, with China resurfacing as a threat along our borders.

As for Bangladesh, Jaishankar hasn’t found time over five-and-a-half months to visit Dhaka to douse anti-India sentiment and address the security challenge this poses. If he thinks there’s relief on the eastern front with the US transiting to a Trumpian mindset, he’s got another think coming. South Asia is not on this real-estate magnate’s radar.

President Joe Biden will adhere to the custom of an outgoing president attending his successor’s swearing-in. Readers will recall that Trump had not, preferring to sulk over losing the presidential election four years ago.

As we go to press, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been announced — a triumphant parting shot from Biden.

Flags will fly at half-mast at the inauguration event though, as it falls within the 30-day period of state mourning for former president Jimmy Carter. The superstitious may see this as a bad omen. For the rest, a loose cannon in the White House is either as bad or, at the very least, an unnerving unknown.

Corrupt America, uncensored world

The corruption of American politics is as brash as it is blatant. In the run-up to Trump and Vance’s inauguration as president and vice-president, donors who underwrite the cost of the jamboree — the better to lobby for their business interests — were informed that private dinners will cost USD 1 million, double the earlier charge.

The pricey tete-a-tetes, scheduled for 18 and 19 January, include two tickets to a dinner with Vance and six tickets to a candlelight dinner where Trump will be present. Trump’s inauguration committee expects to mop up over USD 200 million, which is considerably more than the cost of the receptions, lunches, dinners and balls.

Four years ago, Biden’s team raised a mere USD 62 million.

This is, of course, small change for American billionaires, many of whom are nervous about Trump’s vengeful outlook. This includes the tech sector, which could cave in to an epidemic of unrestrained disinformation.

An indication of that was reflected in Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg declaring that his company will “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship” and recommend more political content on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, among other platforms that are used by 3.3 billion people daily.

Britain’s Guardian quoted Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa as saying this would ‘allow lies, anger, fear and hate to infect every single person on the platforms’ and lead to a ‘world without facts’.

Pete Hegseth is bad news

As Trump prepares for his big day, it emerges that his nominee for defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, faced deep disquiet from US senators at his confirmation hearing.

A former Fox News presenter, Hegseth, 44, was described as inexperienced, with a record of drunkenness. He is also an opponent of women in combat roles in the armed forces. (18 per cent of service persons in the US are female.)

The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) had delved into the allegations, but Senator Jack Reed deemed the probe to be insufficient. The FBI has not commented. While Republican Senator Roger Wicker admitted that ‘the nominee is unconventional’, Reuters reported that Hegseth’s prospects of being ratified depends on Republican support.

The great escape

On 10 January, with just 10 days to go for his swearing-in, Trump was rapped on the knuckles by a New York court for felony in a ‘hush money’ case.

In the more serious matter of allegedly attempting to subvert the 2020 election, which as an incumbent he lost to Biden, Trump will definitely not be prosecuted while he is president — perhaps never.

Special counsel Jack Smith and his team believe they could have found Trump guilty of ‘criminal efforts to retain power’, as revealed in a 130-page report released in Washington on 14 January.

The report highlights Trump’s ‘pressure on state officials’ and ‘pressure on the Vice President (Mike Pence)’. Smith and his prosecutors ‘assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial’. They brought four charges against Trump.

The prosecution was thereafter impaired when the US Supreme Court granted presidents and former presidents ‘broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office’ in a July 2024 decision.

After American voters gave Trump an overwhelming mandate in November, Smith dropped the case. He did, however, stress—in a private letter to US attorney general Garland on 7 January 2025 — that Trump’s claim of complete exoneration was untrue and that he and his office ‘stands fully behind’ the merits of the criminal suit it filed.

Commenting on Trump’s argument that he was exercising his right to free speech, Smith wrote that his statements ‘were not protected by the First Amendment (in the US constitution)’.

Views are personal.

Ashis Ray can be found on X @ashiscray. More of his writing can be read here