India and US Must Transcend Traditional Alliance Barriers for a Transformative Partnership

The ongoing PM Modi’s visit to the US is truly epochal. Unlike his previous visits to the United States, the Biden administration has bestowed the honour of elevating it to a “State visit”, the privilege extended to two leaders till now, French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Yoon Sook Yeol both of whom are allies.

PM Modi is the third Indian leader after President Sarvepalli Radhakrishna, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make a State visit to the US and will be receipt of the most prestigious welcome with all the pomp and pageantry that Washington can accord. For a man who was denied a visa and prohibited from stepping on its territory, this is an incredible turnaround.

Along with the highest ceremonial honour, PM Modi has permanently etched his name on the global memory by leading representatives from more than 180 countries on International Yoga Day at the very place that has unanimously credited India for sharing this greatest wealth with the World. By joining the rare club of foreign leaders who have addressed the Joint Session of the US Congress more than once along with Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and others, Modi will go down in Indian history as a Statemen with a rare diplomatic acumen for steering the India-US Comprehensive Strategic Global Partnership to new heights.

Weathering the storm of hostility and suspicion of the cold war era and the punitive sanctions post India’s nuclear tests in 1998 the climactic volte-face in the bilateral ties paved by Clinton’s visit in 2000, the putative “Nixon moment” for India has altered the course of the bilateral partnership. PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s assertion of India and the US are “natural allies”, notwithstanding the US sanctions in 1998 and President Clinton’s pragmatic Parliamentary address of the “shared values” framework and 25 years of efforts, has now positioned the strategic partnership in a special place.

Irrespective of the political party at the helm, a quarter century of concerted endeavours of the leaderships of both countries have heralded the partnership which is now finding great strategic salience. Guided by the framework of the foundational agreements, building strategic convergences the partnership is now entering a new phase with countries intent on bolstering defence cooperation as a vital pillar of this partnership.

Embarking on the full diplomatic state visit, PM Modi in his interview with the WSJ said, “India deserves a much higher, deeper and wider profile and a role” and added, “ties between New Delhi and Washington are stronger and deeper than ever. There is an unprecedented trust...”¹. Unequivocally setting the agenda, amid the gushing enthusiasm pertaining to his visit and the flustering of China over losing out on the exalted position of the central focus of Asia for the US, Modi stated, “Let me be clear that we do not see India as supplanting any country. We see this process as India gaining its rightful position in the world… the world today is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. To create resilience, there should be more diversification in supply chains”.

Rattled by steady progress in India-US partnership, ahead of PM Modi’s visit, Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi, in a lengthy op-Ed titled “India’s economic ties with the US cannot replace its trade with China” warned, “geopolitical calculation of the US is doomed to fail because China’s position in the global supply chain cannot be replaced by India or other economies”. He further mentioned that “if the US and India want to further develop economic and trade cooperation, they should solve the problems between themselves, rather than targeting China… the US pays lip service to India but seldom delivers” and remarked, “India has the right to choose favourable economic and trade policies to accord its own interests, but it ought to abandon geopolitical calculation, such as considering joining the US’s reckless and selfish game to contain China”².

When the India-US ties took off under the Clinton administration, China was a non-issue and the relationship was independent of China. Modi’s assertion ostensibly demolishes a brewing set of perceptions which suggest that New Delhi’s tightened embrace of the US is in response to the 2020 Galwan incident. But on the contrary, the watershed moment of India-US relations has been the 123 Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement in 2005 and the inception of the Quad 1.0 in 2007 with Japan, Australia India and the US.

Built on the strength of shared values and mutual interests, both countries carefully nurtured the ties by widening the cooperation to a gamut of sectors. Over time, the mutual anxieties of countries over China’s unabated assertiveness and aggressiveness have fostered strategic convergence and operational coordination birthing Quad 2.0 and the advocacy of the “Indo-Pacific” construct.

Supply Chain disruptions and China’s relentless expansionist pursuits even at the height of the Covid have sharpened prevailing antagonism towards Beijing with the West eventually making India an important partner of their respective Indo-Pacific strategies. The mutual suspicion of China, diversification of supply chains, steady economic growth, and digitization has positioned India as a consequential partner for the US. India is now the fifth-largest global economy tipped to overtake Germany and Japan by 2030. Amid the anomalous economic recovery, covid restrictions and common prosperity of China, India has become a natural magnet for FDIs.

Despite apprehensions of the US repeating its history with China and sceptic admonitions of “America’s bad bet on India”³, India remains the lone balancer that doesn’t see the World in duality. Villanised for its oil imports from Russia, reports now hail India for saving the West by buying Russian Oil⁴. By routing its imports from Russia, India has freed up more oil for European countries to buy from the Middle East. Accused of “oil laundering” India’s gargantuan refining capacities and India’s petroleum products offset the global shortages.

Even as critics forebode the US of repeating its history with China, firming up the strategic partnership both countries announced, US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) in May 2022. This initiative came in the wake of Xi’s clarion call at the 20^th CCP Congress to make China a techno-superpower. Ever since Beijing started earmarking huge amounts of funds for Chinese companies, opportunities for multinational companies started dwindling.

The threat from a techno-authoritarian, China prompted the US to partner with India an innovation powerhouse with flourishing unicorns in deep tech, space sector, defence technologies, health and edtech for open societies. US policymakers enthusiastic about India’s successful testing of the Open-Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) as a pathway to 5G are expediting academic and industrial collaboration under the iCET framework.

An aspirational strategic partnership in emerging technologies besides taking the trajectory of the partnership to a new level can augur well with the demands of tech-driven economies. Aligning the US’s CHIPS Act and Science Act with India’s Semiconductor Mission, India and US have signed MoU on establishing a semiconductor supply chain and innovation partnership in March 2023⁵. Walking the talk, ahead of PM Modi’s visit India has approved the US Chipmaker Micron Technology to set up a semiconductor testing and packaging unit in Gujarat under the PLI (Production-Linked Incentives) Scheme.

Despite India’s $25 billion worth defence imports from the US, defence cooperation failed to reach its potential due to Washington’s reluctance to co-development and co-production coupled with denial of transfer of technology.  With explicit directions to remove these hurdles, Biden is reportedly making amends in the existing provisions to deepen defence cooperation with India. Hence, an agreement on the long pending key defence deals can well be the biggest milestone since the 2005 civil nuclear cooperation agreement.  

The outcomes of the purchase of armed Predator or MQ-9 Sea Guardian drones and the co-production of jet engines for Tejas Mark-2 fighter between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and General Electric (GE) during Modi’s visit can be transformational propelling progress in other areas as well. Other than the Quad, India is now part of Washington’s IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework), I2U2 (India Israel UAE US) and another minilateral on the anvil with UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Circumventing obstacles and legislative provisions while the Biden administration is pushing for a robust partnership with India, critics are nitpicking on things. Contradictory impulses and potential frictions continue to be a drag on the India-US relationship.  The alliance system has been at the heart of US foreign policy with expectations of unconditional friendship. Disinclined to be obligated to any power given its colonial fears India is averse to alliances.

India’s strong ties with Russia and its reliance on Moscow for defence supplies can be a major sticking point in the India-US partnership. India defies the alliance system and pursues an independent foreign policy. India espouses a commitment to a multipolar world. Expounding on India’s foreign policy EAM Jaishankar in his interview with the Economist, said, “You have an India which is looking at multiple opportunities across multiple geographies, often polities which have contradictory interests. And it is trying to advance on all fronts”⁶. 

Rejecting cooperation with India for its multiple alignments and misplaced attributions of illiberal democracy and contorted perceptions of the ruling party as a Hindu nationalist and Islamophobic can disorient the partnership. Intense scrutiny and relentless negative propaganda can breed mistrust and deplete the narrow convergence of shared interests. A genuine understanding of India’s domestic complexities and governance difficulties can jettison the ideological hesitations.

For a sustainable long-term partnership, both countries must be appreciative of non-negotiables. India’s strategic autonomy is non-negotiable. Any attempts to cannibalise India’s independent foreign policy can offset the balance.

The binaries of the Western order are no longer relevant. The modus operandi of the alliance system is outdated for the 21^st century where developing economies are seeking multiple partnerships to usher their countries into new realms of development and progress. India-US relationship mirrors a new geopolitical reality of countries not in complete agreement working together on shared interests. India is attempting to rescript a new template for the post-WWII world for relations beyond alliance constructs and a pragmatic American approach can transform India-US ties into a ‘consequential partnership’.

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