While the big announcements marking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States were still awaited, what’s significant now is the overall ‘feel-good’ factor that marked the three-day visit. India has come a long way from the skepticism that marked the American mindset in relation to the largest democracy’s engagements with the wider world. India is today a prominent partner with the United States in multiple fields after it bid goodbye to an era of Nehruvian Socialism that had its good sides but nevertheless throttled the nation’s economic advancement. The era of liberalization and globalization since the early 1990s created the right conditions for India to build bridges with the US. The disintegration of the USSR and end of the Cold War also helped. India could break away from the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) mould, where the pro-Russian, anti-US sentiments were all too palpable. The US chose to alternatively support Pakistan and kept India at a distance. Getting a US visa is still a difficult proposition for Indians other than in the IT Sector, while even the Chinese are more welcome there.
The iterations of visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Manmohan Singh in the past have also not majorly helped India to benefit much from the US – and this is evident even at global forums like the UN where Pakistan gets strong protection from China while India fails to get a matching endorsement from the US. Overall, in diplomacy, India has been in a sort of trapeze act, being close to all and true friend of none. Yet, beyond the Yoga show, the vegetarian treat at White House and other impressive events that marked PM Modi’s present US visit, what he brings back home is worth a close watch.
The US, despite the past alienation, wants India most importantly in having this nation’s support to counter China’s territorial ambitions as in the South China Sea, the Indo-Pacific etc. The Quad arrangement involving the US, India, Australia and Japan is a military prop against China but with a limited agenda. While China keeps browbeating India and annexing more of its land, we are on the defensive. China is somewhat tamed of late by the adverse impacts of the Covid19 pandemic, principally slowing its economic hyperactivity, but it has a tendency to bare its fangs at will. Antagonising China is not an option for India as several ifs and buts remain in its engagements with the West as also with Russia. The US is mindful of this. India’s present policy of emphasizing on its economic growth by balancing the geopolitical equations has its merits.