All it took for US President Donald Trump to peeve India’s right-wing ecosystem that all along backed him was to jump the gun and announce a ceasefire, openly bragging about how he saved nuclear-armed India and Pakistan from the brink of a full-scale war.

It is a fact that Washington, like the rest of the world, was concerned after India and Pakistan targeted each other with missiles, kamikaze drones, and artillery firing that killed several civilians. India launched the missile attack in the wee hours of May 7 to destroy terror infrastructure in Pakistan.

The attack followed the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, in India’s Kashmir, when four Jihadi terrorists handpicked 26 mostly Hindu men who were enjoying the picturesque tourist spot with their families. The four-day battle that threatened to spin out of control ceased on May 10 after US intervention.

But hearing the ceasefire first from Trump didn’t go down well with the Indians. From what it appears, it was perhaps an overstatement by Trump, although Washington did intervene by talking to New Delhi and Islamabad to de-escalate.

Trump-Modi friendship

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump call each other “friends.” The chemistry between the heads of governments of two of the world’s biggest democracies was always on open display. The Hindu nationalists and the Indian mainstream media lap up every interaction between the two leaders.

The Indian media and the right-wing ecosystem were soft on Trump even when he slapped higher tariffs on imports from India.

In fact, Modi had rushed to Washington to meet Trump and pipe down the buzz of an imminent trade war soon after the former assumed office for his second tenure at the White House. Trump instead offered the F-35 stealth fighter jets to a reluctant India that was busy shopping for more Rafale multirole fighters from France.

This flag of Trump-Modi friendship had not only fluttered during BJP’s election campaigns; a right-wing supporter beat even diehard American Trumpists by building a temple with Trump as the deity in the southern Indian state of Telangana.

For the record, it was neither the BJP nor Modi who tilted the balance of foreign relations towards Washington. The Congress government, helmed by Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, who held the office from 1991 to 1996, was the one who tweaked India’s Russia-leaning foreign policy to shed old suspicions and take it closer to Washington.

Rao was ably assisted by his foreign secretary, JN Dixit. Rao also played his part in establishing full diplomatic ties with Israel, until then shunned over its persecution of Palestinians.

But the Hindu right ecosystem credits Modi for taking India several notches higher in the relations with both Washington and Tel Aviv. This friendship had further enhanced the support of the Indian diaspora for Trump and Israel.

One of the deadliest terror attacks on Indian soil in recent memory, the terrorists picked only non-Muslim victims in Pahalgam, apparently to polarize Hindus and Muslims.

World leaders, including Trump, had condemned the attack, while outraged Indians called for armed retaliation against Pakistan for arming and funding Jihadi terror groups out to “free” Kashmir.

Indian retaliation

India retaliated with Operation Sindoor on May 7. Sindoor is the vermilion that married Hindu women wear on their hair parting. The word was used to symbolise the widowing of women whose husbands were shot and killed by the terrorists.

But much to the consternation of Indians, Trump beat India and Pakistan in going ahead and announcing the ceasefire on social media. He attributed the ceasefire to “a long night of talks mediated by the United States.”

Trump’s announcement came as a surprise, especially since it came a day after US Vice President JD Vance quipped Washington could not control the two South Asian neighbors as a war between them was “none of our business.”

India later confirmed that Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio were in touch with New Delhi during the crisis. But there is no clarity on the precise role Washington played to get India and Pakistan cease fire.

As if Trump jumping the gun was not enough, he continued making statements that apparently ruffled India’s feathers. He claimed to have clinched the ceasefire by dangling the carrot of trade with the warring neighbors.

“Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’re doing trade. If you don’t stop it, we are not going to do any trade,“ Trump said.

He further claimed stopping a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan. “I think it could’ve been a bad nuclear war. Millions of people would have been killed. So I am very proud of that.”

Trump said that India had agreed to zero tariffs on American goods, although New Delhi was mum.

While Pakistan acknowledged Washington’s role in the ceasefire, India insisted that it was its firepower that made Pakistan seek a ceasefire.

To make things worse, Trump on May 15 revealed instructing Apple CEO Tim Cook not to make its products in India.

“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday. I said to him, ‘My friend, I treated you very well. You’re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you’re building all over India.’ I don’t want you building in India,” Trump said, in what has once again raised a cloud over his friendship with the Indian Prime Minister, who has been taking credit for getting Apple to make its phones in India.

This came just weeks after Cook said that a majority of iPhones sold in the US would now be made in India. This was apparently in tandem with the company’s policy to move production bases from China to India. According to one estimate, nearly 20 per cent of all iPhones are now made in India.

Burning issue

Kashmir has been a burning issue between India and Pakistan. A province claimed by both in full, the majority of Kashmir is part of India, while a smaller area is administered by Pakistan. China controls an even smaller part of Kashmir.

India has long held that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence funds and even handles separatist militants in Kashmir who have been active for about 35 years. Pakistan was always in denial mode, although terror attacks in Kashmir and the rest of India over the decades carried Pakistani fingerprints.

Third-party involvement

Unlike Pakistan, India has all along rejected third-party involvement in Kashmir. By announcing the ceasefire, Trump virtually trampled on such a non-negotiable element of India’s Kashmir policy.

Such being the history, Trump overstepping the boundaries has certainly not gone down well with New Delhi, the intelligentsia, or the Hindu-right ecosystem.

Kashmir has been a sore thumb since Independence on August 1947. The hard-fought freedom from the British colonial power had ended in a cataclysm as India was partitioned, giving birth to a Muslim Pakistan.

The bloody and brutal partition had displaced up to 20 million and killed hundreds of thousands on both sides in one of the most catastrophic events after the World Wars.

The Muslim-majority Kashmir was ruled by Hindu king Maharaja Hari Singh, who chose to remain independent and neither join India nor the newly formed Pakistan. But a raid by tribesmen from Pakistan in October 1947 drove him to New Delhi seeking military assistance.

The newly formed Indian government then got him to sign the Instrument of Accession with a special status, including a separate constitution and flag.

The state then came to be known as Jammu and Kashmir. But in 2019 Modi’s government abrogated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave the special status to the state and converted it into a Union Territory directly governed from New Delhi, although it now has an elected state government.

Kashmir is the backbone of Pakistan’s foreign policy towards India. Former prime minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in his 1963 book The Myth of Independence, wrote that this country would “wage a relentless struggle against India, exploring every opportunity to weaken it.”

His army chief-turned-nemesis who orchestrated a military coup, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, banked on Bhutto’s vision in making “Bleed India by a thousand cuts” part of Pakistan’s military doctrine. It was Haq who translated Bhutto’s philosophy by intensifying covert and low-intensity warfare by training and funding Jihadi outfits to bleed India.

With so much animosity between the two neighbours, Trump’s repeated assertions are seen as brazen interference in India’s long-held and sacrosanct geopolitical positions, although his mediation to prevent a war is appreciated.