How To Read The Clear Shift In Uncle Sam's Reappraisal Of India

The Indian media went bonkers in the kind of billing it gave to Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US, partly for good reasons.

While there is little doubt about the qualitative change in the way the Joe Biden administration now treats India, especially after making threatening noises last year over our purchases of Russian oil and refusal to condemn its invasion of Ukraine (read here, here), we need to be more realistic on what this really means for the relationship.

We may be flavour of the month in Washington DC right now, but things could get trickier if Americans start believing that they have a new ally, and expect India to say yes to more things American, and not just its technology.

We must also note the circumstances in which the Biden administration changed its stance on India after seeming to go ballistic against us last year.

There are two different reasons why America is now looking at India differently.

First, there is a growing realisation that in any future eyeball-to-eyeball with China, India will be an important balancing factor. The last thing Uncle Sam wants is an unresponsive India when it ratchets up its political and economic rhetoric against China.

The US does not want China to be the sole hegemon of Asia, and without India that is a pipe dream, especially after America botched up its relationship with Russia, the other military superpower on the continent.

Second, the US cannot any longer count on unstinting European support for the Ukraine war.

There is a growing murmur of dissent in both eastern and western Europe, thanks to the negative economic and social consequences of the war, which is sending millions of Ukrainian refugees to  Europe and inflation skywards.

Poland and Hungary have already raised the banner of protest, and in Germany the Far Right is gaining ground politically as immigrants surge in the country.

French President Emmanuel Macron has already said that Europe must not blindly follow America in all its misadventures. 

Soaring energy and food prices have led to high structural inflation, and the surge in Ukrainian refugees influx is putting pressure on economies that are already weakened by the burden of US sanctions.

This could worsen if centrist parties lose ground to anti-immigration forces. The Centre-Right has gained ground even in Scandinavia, including Sweden and Finland.

The Americans know they have precipitated a right royal global political and economic mess, and the last thing they need is a country of India’s size, and democratic to boot, to be sulking on the sidelines.

Especially when this is the only large country apart from America that is growing robustly despite the global inflationary meltdown.

This is why, despite soaring Indian purchases of Russian oil, and growing Indian efforts to reduce dependence on the US dollar (India has been one of the biggest investors in gold recently), Uncle Sam is changing his tune.

They may like someone else to the Prime Minister of India, they may hate the BJP’s alleged Hindu nationalism, they may claim to be concerned about India’s human rights record, but they need India. 

Plus, there is also the realisation that only India has the kind of scalable engineering talent that can help America retain and grow its tech lead over China.

The visible rise of Indian-origin CEOs in Fortune 500 companies is indicative of the power wielded by them at the top of multi-billion dollar businesses, including the World Bank. This is not evidence the US government can ignore.

So what is the real nuance required in how we assess the latest India-US love-fest?

We need to assess the underlying realities at three levels. The love-fest is layered, and not all parts of America love us equally. In fact, there is deep hatred or fear as well.

One, at the level of the government, where geopolitical realities guide decisions, India is very important to the US’s future power projection in the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

No other country can check China in these regions, including Japan. So this part of the US-India relationship  makeover is real, and possibly irreversible in the near future.

Two, at the level of people-to-people and business relationships, the love-fest in equally real, as Indian students head towards Ivy League universities, and businesses see America as the best possible market for tech services.

Most US tech and non-tech companies now have either a relationship with India’s software services companies, or building capability centres with Indian engineers. This is the strongest part of the India-US relationship.

But, number three, there is also underlying distrust and even hatred towards India, especially its Hindu majority.

The major sources of hostility is the US Deep State, which not only includes the intelligence and strategic affairs community, but also the church, the mainstream media and academic institutions.

As Rajiv Malhotra documents in his book Snakes in the Ganga, US academics are deeply hostile to Hindus and Hinduism, and very often they co-opt Indians themselves to fight their battles, using India’s domestic faultlines.

These tendencies are fed by an insidious and well-organised Islamist lobby, with whom the American Left has been in bed for years now.

India needs the US a bit more than the US needs us right now, not least because American technology and market for our services hold the key to making India a $10 trillion economy by the early 2030s.

But this path is going to be paved with thorns as Hinduphobic forces make every effort to derail the US-India bonhomie.

India has to take these forces head-on through an outreach to both politicians and the public. We must expose propaganda for what it is and bust fake narratives about our human rights record or alleged clampdown on religious freedom.

It is a wonder why we have not made any such effort when so much is at stake. Maybe, the Indian Deep State is Hinduphobic too. Or is deeply compromised by favours taken from the US Deep State. Modi must investigate and make amends.