A sudden change of heart

K. P. Nayar

Strategic Analyst

Like the proverbial story of the blind men who described an elephant’s body parts that each of them touched, India has become different things to different people in the US. Last week, two prominent Republican members of the US House of Representatives said India had the most promising attributes as an ally in America’s competition against China. Three more Republican Congressmen and three Republican Senators, who were present, nodded in agreement. For the aspirational young generation in the US, the nomination of ‘made in India’ American — in Ajay Banga’s own words — as presumptive President of the World Bank, cements India’s place as a source of corporate leadership. For the vocal liberals, India has become a cause célèbre in the struggle to protect democracy, human rights and a free media.

The US would like India to reduce its engagement with Russia. But it realises that this is more of a broad policy objective. Such a change is a huge victory for Indian diplomacy.

In such a setting, President Biden, after initial hesitation, has decided that India will be one of his key tools to confront the ‘progressive’ wing of his Democratic Party, should he decide to contest for re-election in 2024. These progressives constitute one of the biggest challenges to Biden’s agenda in government and in the consolidation of political capital within his party. They want the White House to shun Modi’s India and make an example of the ruling BJP, whose beliefs and ideology are at odds with their own. However, Biden has snubbed them and held more than 20 interactions with PM Modi since he moved into the White House. These have been held in various formats: plurilateral summits like Quad, G20 summits, pull-aside meetings during multilateral gatherings and virtual meetings. Their most recent interaction was on February 14 in a telephone conversation, which was remarkable for its range of discussions — the mutually beneficial, employment-generating agreement between Air India and Boeing and an initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) to the neglected people-to-people ties and the bilateral Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership. Few other world leaders have had as many interactions with Modi in his second term as PM.

Biden has invited Modi to make a state visit to the US. Dates are being finalised for this visit. The invitation is a historic honour that Biden has chosen to bestow on Modi. Between 1947 and now, Indian PMs have visited America 31 times. There was one rare presidential visit. However, Modi will be only the third Indian leader to be accorded a state visit by the US. The other two were President S Radhakrishnan in 1963 and PM Manmohan Singh in 2009.

The invitation has come in the backdrop of a nuanced, unstated change in Washington’s attitude to New Delhi’s continuing cosiness with Moscow after a year of President Putin’s military operation against Kyiv. The Americans have learned to live with an unchanging pillar of Indian foreign policy: in his last in-person meeting in Samarkand, Modi told Putin that India’s friendship with Russia was ‘unbreakable’. From sending administration officials to New Delhi to threaten it with ‘consequences’ for not accepting US sanctions against Russia, the wheel has come full circle. US State Department spokesperson Ned Price recently said on record that ‘India has the ability we have seen from Prime Minister Modi to speak with tremendous moral clarity.’ Shortly earlier, the senior-most US diplomat at their embassy in New Delhi, Charge d’Affaires Elizabeth Jones, said continued purchases of Russian oil was the ‘sovereign decision’ of every country.

The US would still like India to reduce its engagement with Russia. But it realises now that this is more of a broad policy objective and not a focused policy target. Such a change is a huge victory for Indian diplomacy in Washington because the US continues to be one of India’s most important foreign policy priorities. The last time India scored a similar diplomatic success in Washington was when the George W Bush Administration was persuaded to accommodate everything that India asked for in their bilateral civilian nuclear deal.

Biden is not alone in the Democratic Party in this tactical political decision to use India as a proxy in the intra-party struggle to neutralise liberals and their anti-Modi positions. Last fortnight, the senior-most Democrat in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, the Majority Leader, led a Congressional delegation with eight of his colleagues, all Democrats. They met Modi. Schumer is from New York and has been unassailable in the seat he has now held for 24 years. Lately, a newbie rising-star Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also from New York, has been making a nuisance of herself for senior party leaders like Schumer. Popularly known by her initials, AOC, she is a ringleader of progressive Democrats and is in the vanguard of the anti-Modi group on Capitol Hill. Schumer’s lead in bringing the latest Congressional delegation to India is a message to AOC as well. It may not have been a coincidence that the House of Representatives Ethics Committee last week decided to expand its investigation into a $447-worth haircut that AOC got for a New York gala. The committee has already investigated thousands of dollars she impermissibly received in kind for an expensive rented gown, handbag and shoes plus a bow tie and footwear for her partner.

The liberals have considerable support in the party for causes they espouse, such as taxing the rich, affirmative actions — which are broadly similar to caste-based reservations in India — and reining in an out-of-control law enforcement. Biden can’t take them on for their progressive positions, although they slow him down as President. Inversely, Biden risks losing support from fence-sitting voters, centrists and moderate, anti-Trump Republicans if he supports the liberals. He may end up losing his re-election bid in that case. Instead of battling AOC and her gang on domestic policies, India is a convenient proxy to take them on. They can be defeated and deflated on foreign policy without any electoral consequences. Biden stands to gain some Republican support on this score because India is a bipartisan cause in the mainstream of both major parties in the US.

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