Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to the US, starting on 21 June, will take the India-US bilateral relationship into a higher orbit, claims a senior functionary in the central government.
Importantly, according to the official, an “upgrade in relationship with the USA” will not change India’s stand over the Russia-Ukraine war.
After the visit, the movers and shakers of world affairs will assess how India’s newly reiterated “middle of the road” position in world affairs will become stronger or weaker in the coming years.
Indian establishment is insisting Western critics shouldn’t view New Delhi from the prism of US President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, which resulted in heavy investments by US companies that changed the fortune of China and eventually the world.
Modi’s upcoming visit doesn’t even remotely look like it could be followed up with America’s business model for China or that it could give the sense of any European country’s partnership with the US.
India is looking forward to the companies of the future, such as Google, Microsoft, and CISCO, and it also wants to engage with companies doing research in Artificial Intelligence. It wants the American giants’ investments and technologies, but this visit won’t be the “turning point”, a kind of change that the Nixon-Kissinger duo envisaged in the 1970s for China.
It’s more about acquiring depth in current strategic positions and entering a new and higher orbit. It’s a non-China, non-West-like relationship where the geographical realities and economic transactional necessities meet.
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Setting India’s role in Pacific
One of the central questions is: how can America plan ambitiously in the Indo-Pacific region without India on its side? This visit is set to reset India’s long-term role in the Indo-Pacific region, too.
For Indian diplomacy, the Washington visit is a test case that will show how Modi balances India’s vital interests in trade, technology, space, and defence on the fast-transforming international stage.
This week’s highest-level India-US summit in Washington is the first after New Delhi’s February 2022 stand over the Russia-Ukraine war. PM Modi and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar pragmatically refused to condemn Russia for its aggressive invasion and abstained from voting at the UN over the Russia-Ukraine war.
Since the Russian invasion, India has steadfastly refused to join the West’s sanctions against Moscow. However, it has repeatedly demanded the ceasefire and agreed to support the remedial measures to end the war. India has also spoken emphatically about “unacceptability of nuclear threats”.
When Germany and neighbouring countries suffered disruptions in the supply of Russian oil due to their diplomatic stand, India increased its fuel purchase, that too at a discounted price. Modi’s official visit comes against this backdrop.
China will be watching the visit carefully. Beijing won’t be happy with the fast-moving developments between New Delhi and Washington. Even Europe will witness, with a bit of irritation, President Joe Biden receiving PM Modi, who has taken a “neutral stand” over the Russian-Ukraine war, which is detrimental to American interests.
Many observers have missed that Jaishankar has only responded to European critics when defending India’s purchase of Russian oil, arguing that Europe must grow out of the mindset that “its problems are the world’s problems”. Jaishankar hasn’t countered America directly even once. The US, too, has restrained from making public utterances. It wouldn’t have gone unnoticed in Europe. The endgame of the Ukraine war will show America that Europe cannot handle the fallout alone.
Also read: Ukraine has shown Indian diplomacy is like Indian driving—any lane, any time, US or Russia
India and US have assessed well
India has understood the difference in the American approach regarding the controversy over Russian oil supply to Europe and to India. America has been subtle while speaking about India’s oil deal with Russia because it is not a NATO country and knows the historical background of the India-Russia relationship well. The buying of Russian oil by India is helping monitor international price control mechanism.
American diplomacy can’t afford Europe not following sanctions against Russian oil. Americans have an all-time goal based on big-time vested interests to see a cut in Russian oil supply to Europe.
So far, there has been no harsh comment from the US State Department against India managing its oil crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
When Modi’s strident critic The Economist claims India as “America’s new best friend”, it’s not for nothing.
Both India and the US have assessed each other’s current position well. America has realised that PM Modi will be his own man who has well ensured “cheap oil” to save his country’s economy by circumventing the Western pressure to take the ideological “anti-war” stand.
The Indian government thinks it has seized the opportunity to establish solid credentials of its “neutral non-aligned stand” on the world stage when an opportunity arrived after the Russia-Ukraine war.
It has conveyed to the 21-century world, as Jaishankar put it in a recent interview, “You have an India which is looking at multiple opportunities across multiple geographies, often polities which have contradictory interests. And it is trying to advance on all fronts.”
However, if one wants to measure the extent of transformation that is underway in the India-US bilateral relationship, watch out for the arrival of PM Modi at the White House at 7.30 pm IST on 22 June. It is being claimed that there will be a grand reception of “the Indian family” at the White House. Around 7,000 Indian Americans are likely to be in attendance. Such diplomatic carnivals are a rarity at the White House.
In international affairs, once the judicious assessment of the usefulness of the relationship with the ruling leadership has been done on both sides, the personal chemistry of the prime players doesn’t take time to fix it.
It’s evident that Washington has assessed enough of the Modi phenomenon since 2002 onwards to end up rolling out a red carpet for the PM.
Sheela Bhatt is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @sheela2010. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)