What Biden wishes from Modi’s visit

AT a media briefing on June 19, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the US “roughly six times” in the past, he will be on his first official state visit there on June 21-23 at the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. From the US, Modi will travel to Cairo, at the invitation of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on a state visit (June 24-25). There is no international diplomatic convention on visits of foreign leaders, but they are generally classified, in order of precedence, as state, official or working. Thus, the formulation ‘official state’, although used by the US in the past, is sui generis to that country. It has been adopted because US protocol norms provide that only Heads of State can be accorded full state visits.

India has been careful to avoid even the word ‘war’ in the context of the Ukraine situation. It has preferred the more neutral word ‘conflict’.

There is no doubt that the Biden administration wishes to give a splendid welcome to Modi, going far beyond its protocol norms for the visit of a Head of Government. In pursuit of their interests, all countries sometimes show special gestures to a foreign leader during his/her visit. In the case of the US, though, by using the term ‘official state’ for the Modi visit, it is, once again, displaying a preference to go in for ad hoc protocol measures instead of changing their basic protocol to extend state visits to Heads of Government as, for instance, Egypt is doing, and as India does, too.

This protocol matter, although minor in the larger scheme of things, is, nevertheless, illustrative of both the US reluctance of following the generally evolving international practice and of an unshakeable belief in its ‘exceptionalism’. It is deeply entrenched in its sense of identity. This has led to an attitude that while the rest of the world should follow rules which the US may have may helped craft, these need not apply to the US. Indian policymakers have to be aware of this embedded cavalier US instinct towards international commitments as India-US ties grow, as indeed they should.

India-US relations are on an upswing. This is because of an alignment of current economic and strategic interests. The Indian economy has problems, but it has weathered well the Covid pandemic and the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine war. The US and Europe continue to be attracted by the potential of India’s large and growing market. The socio-economic distortions that are emerging in India because of the growing disparities do not concern foreign multinationals as long as their products are sold. It is only if there is social and political turbulence that they begin to get concerned. That is nowhere on the horizon. Besides, Modi’s dominance over the Indian political scene gives them a sense of assurance.

The alignment of forces between the US and India in the strategic area is sure and will deepen as China continues its aggressive rise. This will lead to greater Indian participation in US-led multilateral arrangements both in the Indo-Pacific and West Asia. Another aspect of strategic alignment is being manifested in greater cooperation in the defence sector, with the US now more willing to share sensitive technologies (though not at the final cutting edge) for the manufacture of defence equipment in India. India has opened the defence production sector to private companies. That enables US companies to co-manufacture in India, something that they were unwilling to do with public sector Indian companies in the defence sector.

The Biden administration has been showering great praise on Modi for the past few months. While some official US reports have noted that the Modi government has slipped on the issue of minority rights, in reality it’s some sections of the US liberal opinion that have focused on this issue; the Biden administration may make some noises on human rights during the visit, but will do nothing to embarrass Modi.

There is no doubt that the US is handsomely courting Modi. The question is why it is doing so. It is essential to ask this question because international relations are governed by the cold calculation of national interest. Admiration for the personal qualities of leaders of states and the ‘chemistry’ between leaders play only a peripheral role, if at all, in inter-state relations.

Apart from pushing commercial interests of US companies, which, Biden hopes, will help him electorally, what he wishes to achieve from the Modi visit is to move India’s position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this context, diplomatic observers will look towards what Modi says in his address to the joint session of the US Congress. He is one of the handful of foreign leaders being given the honour of doing so twice. Modi’s comment to Putin during their meeting on the margins of the Samarkand Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit last September was hailed by the US and European countries. Modi had told Putin that this was not an era of war. It can be expected that the US Congress, where there is great anti-Putin sentiment on a bipartisan basis, will be dissatisfied if Modi merely repeats what he had told Putin and, in addition, confines himself to the generalities on the need to uphold the UN Charter and the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states. They would want direct and critical references to Putin’s actions.

India has been careful to avoid even the word ‘war’ in the context of the Ukraine situation. It has preferred the more neutral word ‘conflict’, in both bilateral and multilateral statements. It was only in the Quad leaders’ joint statement in Hiroshima last month that Modi joined other leaders of the group to “express deep concern over the war raging in Ukraine”. The question to ask is: Will the US, in the Modi-Biden joint statement, and the US Congress be satisfied with this formulation, or will they push for more and be disappointed if India does not go further?

For all its build-up, Modi’s official state visit to the US and its aftermath will test Indian diplomacy, especially in the coming months as India moves to host the G20 summit.