Modi’s ‘5T’ agenda

KP Nayar

Strategic analyst

If there is a single paramount element that came out from the 90-minute meeting between US President Joe Biden and PM Narendra Modi, it is the extensive damage which Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump did to Indo-US relations. It is clear from the joint statement issued after Modi’s first in-person meeting with Biden as President and from what the Indian delegation in Washington said in public — and more importantly, in private — after the summit that for four years, Indians hummed and hawed, doing their best to keep Trump in good humour, as if he was a petulant child.

They did not do anything substantive with the US during the four Trump years other than walk on pins in and around the White House, all the time trying to prevent intemperate outbursts by the 45th President lest it spoiled the atmospherics surrounding the bilateral ties. The effort was a remarkable success. Few other countries managed to do that, as repeated discomfiture of several US-allied leaders, who wilted in front of Trump’s diplomatic indiscretions demonstrated.

Now it is the turn of Modi aides —– External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and the ambassador in Washington, Taranjit Singh Sandhu — to pick up the ties from where they were left off by President Obama and make up for lost time.

Even before he arrived in Washington, Modi eschewed sweet talk with America and Americans, which has been a feature of bilateral relations with Washington since the time of Nehru. In Modi’s departure statement in New Delhi, for example, there was none of the usual paeans for the oldest democracy in the world or for shared values or about English language making it easier for the two countries to do business. These were all good sentiments when Indo-US relations were changing from the latent hostility of the Cold War era to becoming ‘natural allies,’ a phrase coined by Vajpayee when he was PM.

Modi decided that it was time to end such vacuous barrenness in public, and most definitely, in private. The PM, at least on his current trip to the US has, instead, opted for the transactional over the sentimental. The ‘5Ts,’ a description Modi coined, will guide relations in future. He conveyed this to Biden at their one-on-one meeting. These 5Ts are: technology, trade, talent, trusteeship and tradition.

The primacy of the 5Ts was evident in the choice of the five CEOs of American companies whom the PM met on his first day in Washington. They were not picked up at random or with a view on optics. The idea that Modi will have one-on-one interactions — in such a new format — with select CEOs whenever he next visited the US goes back a year ago. In October 2020, even as the US was in the throes of the pandemic and looking for a way forward, the Indian ambassador in Washington began a series of meetings with leading CEOs in his jurisdiction. He divided his attention equally between American CEOs of Indian origin and other corporate honchos for a balance in assessing the mood among captains of US business towards post-Covid-19 India. Among the heads of conglomerates that he met in October alone were: Milind Pant, CEO of Amway; Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan; Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM; and Alex Holmes, Chairman and CEO, MoneyGram. Last October was ideal from the point of view of a foreign diplomat for such an initiative because the US presidential election campaign was in full swing. As such, Sandhu was free of the intense political footwork that he is called upon to do on Capitol Hill or the White House in normal times. After the elections, the ambassador was able to continue this process because politicians were caught up until January in disputes over Biden’s victory as large sections of the Republican Party rallied round Trump.

Four of Modi’s 5Ts are reflected in the choice of the CEOs he met in Washington. The only exclusion that these five CEOs personify is tradition. But then, American business traditions and those of India are still incompatible and both sides still have a long way to go in harmonising them, if at all.

From ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange to hosting fancy lunches for a dozen or so American CEOs to addressing business organisations such as the US-India Business Council, successive Indian PMs and finance ministers have tried many ways over at least two decades to attract US investment into India. Foreign Direct Investment and other forms of investment have come to India, but it is questionable if gimmicks such as ringing the opening bell have played any role in such inflows.

So, the Modi aides now in charge of India’s outreach to the US decided that it was time to change the old approach. Instead, it was decided that the PM will hold separate meetings with the five CEOs he interacted with. It was also decided that a change of location was advisable: instead of the global business hub of New York, the venue for the CEO interaction was moved to Washington because it signified power and governance over money. This triumvirate understands such delicate nuances in the American social fabric: all three men have been ambassadors in Washington.

It is clear at the end of Modi’s visit that both sides attach top priority to reviving mechanisms for bringing back on track the intense and meaningful engagement with India, which characterised the Bill Clinton-George W Bush-Barack Obama tenures in the White House. Among the mechanisms to be woken up from the deep coma of the Trump years are a trade policy dialogue and joint mechanisms on counter-terrorism. A significant addition to these will be joint structures for pandemic preparedness.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.