What Modi's Bear Hug for Obama Proves

Harsh V. Pant is Professor of International Relations at King's College London. His most recent book is "India's Afghan Muddle" (HarperCollins).

Just a year ago, the world's two major democracies were on a collision course over the Khobragade affair. Today, thanks to deft diplomacy by Prime Minister Naraendra Modi and his team, Washington and Delhi are well on their way to charting a new course in their bilateral ties.

When Modi had visited the US in September, his critics wanted to discredit him by asking where the substance was. They argued that Modi's visit was about style, that the optics overpowered the real issues that were bedevilling the relationship. When Modi invited Obama as the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations, the critics came back arguing that what was the point of inviting Obama who had become a lame-duck President with the defeat of the Democrats in the November 2014 elections.

But what Modi and Obama have been able to accomplish now underscores once again how far ahead Modi is of his critics. It also shows the remarkable ability of Modi to understand how modern day politics and diplomacy work. It were the optics of his visit to the US last September that convinced Washington about Modi's ability to deliver. The Obama Administration recognised that after years of disappointment from Manmohan Singh, they were now getting an interlocutor in Modi who understood how important it was get the US-India equation right, and he was ready to deliver with his immense cache of political capital. So even though Obama's foreign policy agenda has been crowded, he managed to galvanise the American bureaucracy to give one more chance to India before the end of his term. And that bet seems to be paying off.

What is equally important is how the anti-Americanism of the Indian political class is also now a thing of the past. Even when the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee was trying to structure a partnership with the US, and the UPA under Manmohan Singh was trying to take that forward, the anti-western hypocrisy of the Indian establishment was jarringly evident. The BJP's old guard led the charge to make the passage of the civil nuclear deal difficult, and then worked to bring in a liability law that did so much damage to Indian interests. The Indian Left, Right and Center all colluded in this charade. Washington was needed when it came to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China, but swords would be out if any Indian leader dared to make a case that a strong partnership was in the interest of India. All in the name of good old-fashioned non-alignment!
 
Manmohan Singh's efforts to operationalise the nuclear deal were scuttled by his own party more than by the opposition.

Modi has put an end to that nonsense. His bear hug to Obama is a reflection of the reality that only a minority in India have been able to time and again articulate: there are no real substantive issues dividing the two countries. For sure, there are differences, but they are on tactics. And it is this realisation that made Modi and Obama take the plunge today and sort out issues ranging from the nuclear deal to defence cooperation. The nuclear deal had been held up for six years amid concerns over the liability for any nuclear accident.

With Obama using his executive powers to roll back the condition that US authorities be allowed to monitor use of nuclear material purchased by India, even from third countries, and the US agreeing to India's proposal to build a risk-management insurance pool of Rs 1,500 crore to provide cover to suppliers who shunned the civil nuclear agreement because it made them liable to pay compensation in the event of a nuclear accident, a great leap forward has been made.

Bilateral defence cooperation has also been energised with the two states agreeing to extend the Defence Cooperation Agreement and identifying four projects under the Defence Technology Trade Initiative (DTTI) for joint production and development and exploring cooperation for jet engines and aircraft carrier systems.

Where the two leaders are now looking at the US-India relationship through the prism of the strategic changes in the larger Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean region, what has been striking is how marginal Pakistan has become in the relationship. The "P-word" was not mentioned even once in the joint press conference of Modi and Obama. In their joint statement, the two leaders reiterated their call for Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai to justice, even as they reaffirmed the need for joint and concerted efforts to disrupt  groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Haqqani Network.

There is much to look forward to as the Indo-US relations move to another level now. A confident new India is shedding the diffidence of the past in its dealings with America. And that can only be a good thing for the two nations.

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