Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s just-concluded state visit to the United States of America is not what it seems to be in populist impression. Without doubt, it advances some of India’s most important foreign policy priorities, but there are wheels within wheels underlying the bilateral summit in Washington.
Modi’s visit may help President Joe Biden to get re-elected in November 2024, if he is chosen by the Democratic party as its candidate at the party’s nominating convention, usually held in August in any election year. No, not because Indian Americans, by far the richest immigrant ethnic group in the US, will rush to flood Biden’s fundraisers with financial contributions for honouring Modi with a state visit. Not even because Indian Americans are a vote bank, which can tilt US election results: they constitute only 1% of American voters and more than two-thirds of them vote for Democrats anyway.
Biden’s campaign strategists will very effectively use a letter written by 57 members of the US House of Representatives and 18 Senators urging Biden to take up with Modi, India’s human rights record since he became prime minister. The letter reached the White House as the aircraft carrying Modi touched down in New York. Two members of the US Congress who did not sign the letter, both Muslims, boycotted Modi’s address to the joint session of Congress: this has never happened before when an Indian prime minister spoke on Capitol Hill. Biden’s re-election chances next year depend very much on weaning moderate Republicans, undecided voters and fence-sitters away from Donald Trump in the event that he is Biden’s opponent in a rematch of the 2020 presidential election. Extremist right-wing Republicans are solidly behind Trump and the indictments against the 45th president have only hardened the resolve among his following—estimated at 38% in opinion polls—to stand by him against what they see as a political witch-hunt of Trump by Democrats.
All the 75 signatories to the letter are “liberal” lawmakers. They are feared by Republicans—both by moderates and Trump supporters—as “radical leftists” who want to raise taxes on the middle class and the rich to fund what they consider wasteful government expenditure. Republicans accuse these liberals of pushing the US towards socialism, even communism. At the same time, Republicans are bipartisan supporters of greater engagement with India. By ignoring the left-wing attack on Modi, extending to him all the honours that are reserved for a distinguished state guest and significantly raising the levels of America’s engagement with India, Biden hopes to convince many Republicans that he is prepared to confront the liberal wing of his own Democratic party. Many moderate Republicans will switch sides and vote for Biden if he can prove to right-of-centre voters by more such actions that the Democratic party is not about to be captured by leftists and socialists, who wanted the White House to lecture Modi on human rights and minority protections. The lawmakers’ letter is one more arrow in the armoury of Biden’s political strategists to aim at the deeply-divided and unsure Republican party. As a continuous election winner for half a century this year, Biden knows how to use such tools: he would have been happy that every US mainstream newspaper wrote about the letter by 75 legislators. It is to the president’s political advantage.
Some of the decisions announced after the Modi-Biden summit are not new, although they are being projected as fresh initiatives. The decision that India will open a Consulate General in Seattle and Atlanta, for example, was taken in October 2008 at a meeting between President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The US dragged its feet and later reneged on this promise: in August 2010, the US State Department informed the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) that only one of the two Consulates would be permitted. After considering the State Department’s change of heart for six months, the MEA informed its counterpart in Washington that it would opt for Atlanta. But not before insisting on reciprocity and shooting down a US proposal to open a Consulate in Bengaluru and allowing a new diplomatic post only in Hyderabad, as agreed by Bush and Singh. Notwithstanding such contretemps, it is heartening that the dispute has finally been resolved: India will open its post in Seattle and the US in Hyderabad and in Ahmedabad. Upholding the principle of reciprocity, India will open two more Consulates in the US at locations to be announced soon.
Tucked among the plethora of decisions taken on Thursday is an “agreement to place three Indian liaison officers in US commands for the first time—deepening our partnership and critical information sharing.” A similar, but less elaborate decision was taken at a US-India summit in Washington in July 2005. But it could not be implemented because of complications at the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in Florida, which has a cosy relationship with Pakistan and has officers from Rawalpindi stationed at its headquarters in Florida. India’s military-to-military contacts continued to be consigned to the Pacific Command’s (PACOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR), an unnatural choice considering that all of India’s extended neighbourhood was being dealt with by the CENTCOM. As a sop to New Delhi, the Trump Administration renamed PACOM, headquartered in Hawaii, as Indo-Pacific Command in 2018. Taking a leaf out of Israel’s experience since January 2021 of working with 20 Muslim nations within CENTCOM, Thursday’s agreement should work well for more robust US-India defence cooperation.
What will endear America to Indians in the coming months is a State Department pilot project, under which Indian nationals will no longer be required to leave the US for renewal of their visas in eligible categories. The US will “implement this for an expanded pool of H1B and L visa holders in 2024, with the aim of broadening the programme to include other eligible categories.” Appropriately, Modi and Biden described the decision as “sharing prosperity and delivering for our peoples”. That, after all, is what such summits will be remembered for after the menu of the state banquet at the White House is forgotten and the echoes of “Modi, Modi”, chants all over Washington die down. Until Biden’s visit to India in September for the G20 summit.
K P Nayar
Strategic analyst