Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in the US on a state visit. This is his third invitation to Washington DC since he became India’s head of government–the first in 2014 to meet former President Barack Obama, the second in June 2017 to meet former President Donald Trump, and now to meet President Joe Biden. The visit is set against the backdrop of a rapidly transforming world order, where India needs to keep both its strategic independence and geopolitical balance.
The US wooing of India over just the last three weeks has been startling. Biden sent his trusted hands—National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin—to India to thrash out the details of Modi’s trip. A $500-million military equipment and technology package that includes jet engines, critical minerals technology and tech transfers are serious enticements for a developing country that is upgrading its defences. Throw in the private family dinner at Biden’s home along with the state dinner at the White House, and the lure is complete. Clearly, the US is working overtime to draw India away from Russia and make it a strong partner against China.
However, PM Modi will surely notice that the US India is holding hands with is a very different US from the one he began his engagement with, in 2014. A decade ago, the Washington Consensus successfully rode the global rodeo. Obama was feted around the world and was signing bills to close Guantanamo Bay, restrict Iran’s nuclear weapons and ease sanctions and promote healthcare for all. Osama Bin Laden was killed, Gaddafi toppled and Obama supported Syrian rebels. His successor Donald Trump called for a rare view of NATO’s report card and put trade and tech restrictions on Beijing. The job losses in the US from shifting manufacturing to China had begun to show on the US body politic and the COVID-19 pandemic made it worse.
By the time Biden arrived in the White House in 2020, the world was in a dramatic churn. US actions accelerated it. The sudden, botched withdrawal from Afghanistan put on display the US’s waning capacity. Brexit had reordered Europe, and Washington’s active direction of the Ukraine-Russia crisis began reshaping it further, with no end in sight.
China has meanwhile been gaining in strength — technologically, in defence and geopolitically. It is Russia’s ally, European business is only “derisking” but not separating from it, and Beijing has taken on the new role of peacemaker in the Middle East —a region the US regarded as its sphere of influence. The 2019 attack by Iran on the Saudi oilfield showed Riyad that Washington’s defence deterrence wasn’t good enough. By 2021, the US stopped importing Saudi crude and became an energy exporter itself. The groundwork for China’s successful peacemaking with Tehran and Riyadh was laid.
In 2014, economic sanctions were a reasonably effective tool used by the US against countries it didn’t like. In 2023, it lost its sting. Sanctioning Russia and those countries that bought energy and food grains from it has only reduced US influence in the one global grouping that it now seeks to sway— the Global South.
The global roiling has coincided with convulsions at home. The ideological divide has become a deep domestic rift, and a large number of Americans are cut off from the mainstream. The US is undergoing homelessness crisis, a healthcare crisis, an opioid overdose epidemic and random gun violence.
India has mostly been a taker of US largesse, but it must offer the US something outside of geopolitical balance. New Delhi will be under pressure on Ukraine. But there are four immediate areas where India can extend its hand: Healthcare, digitalisation, multilateral engagement and collaboration in the Global South. All will require some self-realisation by the US—that developing country experience can be useful for it as income inequality at home grows. In healthcare, Indian technology companies are embedded in the US hospital and health insurance systems. They know where the fat is located, and can help trim costs and minimise inefficiencies if Washington is willing to take on the powerful medical insurance lobby that has made healthcare prohibitive for ordinary Americans.
Ditto with digitalisation, especially the open network architecture of India Stack, called digital public infrastructure. This Indian innovation is the centerpiece of financial inclusion and India’s Offering for its ongoing G20 presidency. It lowers transaction costs substantially and can wean the US government off an unhealthy dependency on its private technology companies. Prime Minister Modi must persuade Biden not to resist its widespread use.
The two themes of healthcare and digitalisation can be woven into the new unique global groupings where both the US and India are present— U2U2, and the Quad. India and the UAE are considering joint health projects in Kenya and Uganda, which Israel and the US can join. It will create a successful record for India-US collaboration in the Global South, whose countries are no longer voiceless. As seen from the recent visit of African leaders to Kyiv and Moscow, they seek to be peacemakers so they can focus on their development.
Lastly, the Indian diaspora has grown in importance over 10 years and is now represented at the top levels in corporate and academic America. They are entering government departments, are in state houses and in Congress. They are not yet in the same league as the Committee of 100—an organisation of Chinese Americans in business, academia and government which sought to advance Chinese engagement with America—but they can coalesce similarly. An overseas visit by PM Modi is a reminder to his host country that Indians are a large electoral base with strong ties to their homeland. Biden will doubtlessly be counting on their votes.
Manjeet Kripalani is Executive Director, Gateway House.
This article was first published in The Indian Express.
References
[1] Gramlich, John. “What the Data Says about Gun Deaths in the U.S.” Pew Research Center, April 26, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
[2] Embassy of India, Washington D C, USA. https://www.indianembassyusa.gov.in/informations?id=311
[3] Embassy of India, Washington D C, USA. https://www.indianembassyusa.gov.in/pages/MzM
[4] Sonne, Linna. “An Indian Solution for U.S. Healthcare.” Gateway House, August 10, 2017. https://www.gatewayhouse.in/indian-solution-us-healthcare/
[5] “2nd G20 Sherpa Meeting Side Event on Digital Public Infrastruture in Kumarakom, Kerala.” Press Information Bureau, 2023. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1912287
[6] “Mission & History: Committee 100.” Mission & History | Committee 100. Accessed June 20, 2023. https://www.committee100.org/mission-history/