E-Paper
Why has the US decided to bet on PM Modi’s India?
The shared wariness of a belligerent China has brought both India, US together with American business for the first time following lead ofpolitical leadership.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Egypt today but the high achieved in Indo-US ties during his three-day visit this week continues to positively resonate both in Washington and on Raisina Hill with the Biden administration clearly betting on the powerful Indian leader to take the bilateral ties into a new trajectory.
Unlike his US visit in 2014, when PM Modi was an untested politician at a national level, the Indian leader is now seen by the Biden administration as a global leader who delivers on ground, has taken India on a high growth path even during torrid Covid times and continues to function at a high energy level without any signs of fatigue.
That US President Joseph Biden and his principals have put money on PM Modi is evident from the ceremonial reception he was given at the White House and was feted around by the Bidens as well as the US Congress with both Democrats and Republicans reaching out to the Indian leader after his second speech to the US Congress.
While some of the Leftist Democrats chose to stay away from his address and were not missed, Pramila Jayapal, Congresswoman and once bitter critic of PM, was also seen giving a standing ovation to Modi at the Congress. The US Congress feted PM Modi across party lines at the joint sitting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell making it evident that there was bipartisan consensus on PM Modi.
So, what has changed in the India-US relations in nine years under PM Modi and is now irreversible?
The fundamental reason why India and the US have become closest allies is the post 2014 aggressive rise of China and its impact on global supply chains. With both India and US sharing wariness towards China particularly after the PLA muscle flexing towards Taiwan and in East Ladakh, it is the first time that the US business has followed the lead of US political leadership and engaged India with the intentions of investing in the world’s largest democracy. It is for this reason that the US India Business Council summit prior to PM Modi’s visit was headed by US Secretary of State Tony Blinken, considered to be the closest to US President, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The US Commerce Secretary Raimondo has already gone on record stating that PM Modi was an “unbelievable visionary” and the most popular global leader with the desire and commitment to move India forward as a global power.
With the global geopolitics changing, the power politics today is centered around high technology with India and US joining hands to counter the challenge coming from China. It is not for any other reason that US semiconductors majors like Micron, AMP and LAM Research and Applied Materials have decided to bet on India in chip manufacturing and critical materials research.
“The biggest example that the US has trust in PM Modi is the General Electric F-414 jet engine with no country parts with aircraft engine technology to a country which is not even a NATO ally. It is considered a crown jewel,” said one of the principals who participated in the India-US deliberations in Washington. The US decision to allow assembly of its top-of-the-time hunter killer drone MQ 9B in India is also another manifestation of how ties have progressed between the two democracies. It was not so long ago that the US looked towards India through the prism of Pakistan and perhaps even that of China in the first decade of this millennium.
While the deliverables during PM Modi’s visit to Washington were coordinated by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his US counterpart Jake Sullivan, the entire State Department and Pentagon were supportive of the new overtures in the bilateral ties with President Biden taking the lead.
Fact is that PM Modi’s very successful visit to the US has not only cemented ties with Washington but also has made the Quad equally powerful with Indo-Pacific maritime domain awareness data sharing among the partners. The next step is Quad navies exercising off the coast of Sydney under the Malabar rubric with growing commonality of defence hardware. It seems that India has finally exorcised the ghost of USS Enterprise in the 1971 war.
