In a strikingly cryptic but fraught remark Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he will have to pay a “personal price” for not yielding to America’s insistence on opening India’s agriculture, dairy and fishery sectors.

“I know I will have to pay a heavy price personally, but I am ready for that”, Modi said while addressing a gathering as part of the centenary celebrations of Dr. M S Swaminathan, regarded as the “Father of India’s Green Revolution”. This he said while asserting that the interests of India’s farming, fishing and dairy communities will be his government’s “top priority.”

The Green Revolution refers to the 1960s transformation of agricultural practices led by Dr. Swaminathan which engendered increased food production, especially rice and white, the staple for some 450 million Indians then.

Modi speaks of political price 

The celebrations offered Modi a perfect platform to launch his first direct response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s increasingly harsh characterizations of India behind the façade of tariffs.

The prime minister, looking visibly agitated, said in Hindi, “Main janta hoon vyaktigat roop se mujhe bahut badi kimat chukani padegi lekin main is ke liye taiyyar hoon.” Whether that was political grandstanding or flowed from some intimations of specific political troubles in days ahead for him is hard to say.

Either way, it is clear that Modi has drawn the line beyond which he is unwilling to yield to Trump, particularly when it comes to agriculture and related sectors saying that he considers the interests of that community paramount. Given Modi’s history of serious political problems with the farming community over the issue of three notorious farm laws, which he was forced to repeal in November 2021 in the face of protracted agitation by the country’s farmers, there is no way he can make any concession to Trump’s demands.

It is also clear that the prime minister is willing to let the diplomatic chips fall where they might in terms of India-US relations which are now suddenly looking to be at their bleakest since 1998 when then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government conducted a nuclear test much to Washington’s consternation and anger.

Motivations behind statement 

Quite obviously, Modi is mindful that it is his Bharatiya Janata Party which has to contest and win elections in India and not Trump who is driven by his own domestic political compulsions and personal whims.

Modi’s reference to “personal price” has not gone unnoticed by the political grapevine reading various motivations in it. One of them is the speculation that come September 17, when he turns 75, and he may have to step down in keeping with the convention within the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that all its functionaries retire at that age. Of course, there is no realistic expectation that he would step down given the multifarious domestic and international crises that India is facing. A new prime minister at this stage could find it impossible to hit the ground running.

In the light of his calculated avoidance of any media interaction in the last 11 years, it is unlikely that he would be asked what he meant by “personal price”. For a prime minister to say something that serious in such categorical terms requires attention. Conversely, it may just be in keeping with his penchant for political theater to keep his opponents and supporters guessing what he meant.

Worse may follow 

However, it is no longer a guessing game how much India-US relations have suffered over the tariffs issue and subsequent, sometimes daily, attacks from the U.S. president. In time, bilateral relations will recover but a measure of distrust reminiscent of the Cold War days has crept in for now.

The Trump term is not even a year old, making the next three years a significant challenge for the Modi government. Since so much of the much-celebrated bilateral dynamism in Trump’s first term and initial months of the second term was driven by the Indian prime minister’s personal equation with him, the fact that it has suddenly come under a severe strain is bound to affect all diplomatic engagements from now.

The U.S. president has been unrelenting and is now talking of “lot more secondary sanctions” against India which are as a rule aimed at non-U.S. individuals and entities. If the Trump administration targets business tycoons and entities close to the prime minister doing business with other sanctioned individuals or entities, then it could fracture relations even more.

(The writer is a Chicago-based journalist, author and commentator. Views are personal)