Defence deal, Dialogue set tone for Modi’s tour
The approval of the Government of India's defence deal with Boeing in New Delhi, and the commencement of the first India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, have set the tone for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's US tour. In the first case, the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared a Rs20,000 crore deal between the Ministry of Defence and the American aviation giant for the purchase of 22 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy lift helicopters. The deal had been finalised two years ago but was stuck in a bureaucratic morass. In the second case, the Dialogue served to deepen the India-US bilateral. While the two countries have had a strategic dialogue once before, this was the first time that the commercial component was added. Viewed together, these recent developments offer some important indications of how the India-US bilateral is shaping up, although a fuller picture will emerge upon conclusion of Mr Modi's tour.
When Mr Modi took office in 2014, the India-US relationship was listless; the momentum that had been generated in the first few years of the millennium, culminating in the historical 2005 nuclear deal, had mostly dissipated. The nuclear deal itself didn't quite take off, and cooperation in other areas, from trade to defence to cyber, had also petered out. Political observers complained that the bilateral was suffering from a lack of political support; that even though, on paper, both the Indian and American Government was committed to their partnership, there was little action on the ground. This is where the Modi Government promised to change things around. In less than 12 months, there were two summit-level visits: Mr Modi visited the US last year and US President Barack Obama came to India in January. In between, senior officials from both administrations did several trips back and forth, and it was clear that the wheels of the bilateral were turning again. Still, there was no guarantee that the structural roadblocks which had blocked progress in the past few years would be resolved. After all, high-profile meetings and long joint statements, important as they are in the larger picture, do not settle ground-level issues that involve complicated fineprint, bureaucratic delays and politicians from opposition parties. Follow-up is crucial, and this is the prism through which Tuesday's developments should be assessed.
The continued emphasis on India-US cooperation in climate change, clean energy and energy security is welcome. It’ll be interesting to see how the two work together at the climate conference in Paris in December. In terms of strategic cooperation, the US’s reiteration of India's membership requests to four major multilateral export control regimes, including the Nuclear Suppliers Group, as well as increased cooperation in counter-terror activities are key elements. The launch of three new Dialogues — an Ocean Dialogue to promote sustainable development of the blue economy, a Foreign Minister-level trilateral with Japan, and a Foreign Secretary-level bilateral on regional and global issues — also points to the expansion of the relationship. Under the commercial section, six work streams have been identified — business climate; innovation, entrepreneurship and skill development; infrastructure development; standards; technical textiles and guar gum; and services. These should help both countries reach their goal of increasing bilateral trade by trade five-fold.