As the leaders of sovereign and vibrant democracies that value freedom, the rule of law, human rights and pluralism, Modi and Trump re-affirm the Global Strategic Partnership, anchored in mutual trust, shared interests, goodwill and robust engagement of their citizens
The US President Donald John Trump called the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi on the eve of his diamond birth anniversary on 17th September, 2025 to convey his birthday greetings in a genuine effort to put Indo-US relations back on the rails after weeks of unexpected bilateral stresses and strains over trade tariffs. Trump, who was the very first global leader to felicitate Modi, subsequently tweeted, “Just had a wonderful phone call wth my friend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I wished him a very Happy Birthday! He is doing a tremendous job. Narendra: Thank you for your support on ending the War between Russia and Ukraine!” Modi readily tweeted in response, “Thank you, my friend, President Trump, for your phone call and warm greetings on my 75th birthday. Like you, I am also fully committed to taking the India-US Comprehensive and Global Partnership to new heights. We support your initiatives towards a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict.” The mention of the Ukraine conflict was with reference to Trump’s recent positive meetings with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, and the Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington paving the road to lasting peace on the Ukrainian front.
The genesis of India’s relationship with the United States took place soon after the founding of the country in 1794 when the first American President George Washington sent Benjamin Joy, his Consul-designate to Calcutta. But Washington’s move was ill timed as the then Governor General of India Lord Charles Cornwallis, smarting from the ignominy of having surrendered to Washington at the battle of Yorktown, simply refused to accept Joy’s credentials. Interestingly, The Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the United States, was written by a 35 year old American lawyer Francis Scott Key aboard an Indian teak built British warship, the HMS Minden, on 14th September, 1814!
Indo-American business relations began literally with ice! By the 1830s, ice had become a very profitable American export. The most famous ice maker was Frederic Tudor, who was known as Boston’s “Ice King”, and who was the founder of the Tudor Ice Company. The first consignment of ice arrived in Calcutta aboard the American ship SS Tuscany in 1833. J Stocqueler, a colourful journalist and editor of The Englishman, the forerunner of The Statesman, was rudely awakened by his Man Friday who could not wait to give him the news that “burruf” (ice) had arrived from America.
“There it lay” wrote Stocqueler later,”in a square mass of purest crystal, packed in felt and fragrant pine dust. A quantity of rosy American Baldwin apples reposed upon the surface of this glacier.” Back in his office, Stocqueler continued to write,” How many Calcutta tables glittered that morning with lumps of ice. The butter dishes were filled; the goblets of water were converted into miniature arctic seas with icebergs floating on the surface. All business was suspended till noon, so that people might rush about to pay each other congratulatory visits and devise means of perpetuating the supply. Everybody invited everybody to dinner to taste claret and beer cooled by the American importation.”
The American captain of the Tuscany was presented with a gold cup by the Governor General Lord William Bentinck and the romance of American ice was hailed as an achievement of his government. A subscription was raised for the erection of an Ice House. And anyone who could afford an icebox invested in one of those zinc lined wooden contraptions. Calcutta’s banqueting tables took on an arctic character with peaks of solid ice and delicately sculptured swans bearing mousses, galantines, caviarre and cold soufflés were washed down with gallons of “Lal Sharab” (red wines). When a letter with a 90 cent Lincoln stamp was mailed in 1873 by an ice exporter in Boston to his office in Calcutta, Mahatma Gandhi was a toddler of four, Swami Vivekananda was a stripling of ten, and Ulysses Grant, who also visited Calcutta, was the President of the United States.
Like the United States, India achieved freedom from British rule through a revolution though in India it was a peaceful, non violent revolution under the leadership of the great apostle of peace and non violence Mahatma Gandhi, who influenced many Americans like Martin Luther King and President Barrack Obama. The American people gave their active support in the struggle for our own freedom. In October, 1949, our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, made his maiden visit to the United States. In the course of that visit, which President Harry S Truman described as “the voyage of discovery of America”, Nehru, in an address to the East West Association and the Institute of Pacific Relations, New York, said, “May I also say that all of us in India know very well, although it might not be so known in public, what great interest President Roosevelt had in our country’s freedom and how he exercised his great influence to that end”. Nehru was an indefatigable admirer of President Abraham “Abe” Lincoln about whom Philip Henry Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian (one time British Ambassador to the United States), in a letter to Nehru written on New Year’s Eve, 1935, wrote, “I think that the greatest political figure that the democratic world has thrown up is Abraham Lincoln”.
In 1951, the well known American professor Arthur Ernest Morgan presented Nehru with a brass mould of Lincoln’s right hand that had been cast by the legendary American sculptor Leonard Volk in 1860. When Nehru visited the United States for the second time in December, 1956, he told the American people in a television and radio address, “It has been kept ever since on my study table and I look at it every day and it gives me great strength...after all, we believe in liberty, the dignity of the individual and the freedom of the human spirit. Because of this, we are firmly wedded to the democratic way of life and in our loyalty to this cause, we will not falter...Our two republics share a common faith in democratic institutions and the democratic way of life and are dedicated to the cause of peace and freedom”. In the Nehru museum in Delhi, one will still find the brass mould of Lincoln resting proudly on his study table and a framed lithograph of Lincoln on the wall of his study where he used to study late into the night.
During President John Fitzgerald “Jack” Kennedy’s tenure, Indo American relations reached their zenith. In an article published in the Foreign Affairs, New York, seven months before Kennedy’s brutal assassination, Nehru wrote, “Indo American relations have seldom been as close and cordial as they are now. The deep sympathy and practical support received from the United States in meeting the Chinese aggression has created a wealth of good feeling and apart from that there is much in common between us on essentials.
President Kennedy’s vision of a world of free and independent nations, freely co operating so as to bring about a world wide system of inter dependence, is entirely in accord with our own ideas.” Both Nehru and Kennedy idolised the prodigious American poet and the United States Congressional Gold Medal awardee
Robert Lee Frost. Frost, who had predicted on 26th March, 1959, that “The next president of the United States will be from Boston,” held a special place in Kennedy’s intellectual pantheon.
At Kennedy’s inauguration at the US Capitol on the blindingly sunny but bitterly cold day of 20th January,1961, Frost, assisted by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, recited from memory his 1942 published poem “The Gift Outright” creating a precedent in American history. The Washington Post cited Frost’s recital as one of the highlights of the ceremony, noting, “Robert Frost in his natural way stole the hearts of the inaugural crowd.”
Frost died on 29th January 1963 at the age of 88 and Kennedy led top Government and literary figures in paying tribute to the departed poet.
On 26th October,1963, Amherst College held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Robert Frost Memorial Library. Kennedy travelled to Massachusetts to attend this major event and deliver his speech. On 22nd November,1963, Kennedy died in Dallas, Texas, and The Atlantic, Boston, in its obituary published the very next day noted that he “identified himself, as no president before him has done so poignantly, with ‘books and men and learning.’?” Significantly, shortly before his death on 27th May, 1964, Nehru placed right beside his pillow a scrap of paper on which he had penned the immortal words of Frost :
“The woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to before I sleep.”
Another very important development took place during the Nehru-Kennedy era. The titanic Indian philosopher President Dr. Sarvepelli Radhakrishnan made his very first visit to the United States. On 3rd June,1963, when Radhakrishnan alighted from the plane, the weather was stormy with heavy rains in Washington. Thereafter, Kennedy received Radhakrishnan on the North Portico of the White House. Greeting Radhakrishnan with a warm handshake and a smile, Kennedy expressed disappointment at the rain that had spoilt the warm reception he had arranged for him. To this, Dr. Radhakrishnan smiled and remarked courteously “We cannot always control events, but we can always control our attitude towards events.” Dr.Radhakrishnan naturally had the Indo-China war and the Cuban Missile crisis in mind!
Indo-American relations hit an all-time low under the Nixon administration in the early 1970s. Before the Watergate Scandal broke out forcing Nixon to resign from office on 9th August, 1974, Nixon established a very close relationship with Pakistan, aiding it militarily and economically, that perforce constrained India to lean towards the Soviet Union. During the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, the US openly supported Pakistan and even deployed its aircraft carrier USS Enterprise towards the Bay of Bengal, which was seen as a show of force by the US in support of the beleaguered West Pakistani forces. The Nixon administration’s support for Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 adversely affected Indo-US relations.
The true ethos of the age old Indo-American relationship was re-captured by the prodigious lawyer, philosopher and linguist Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (I used to call him “Uncle PV” affectionately!), who was sworn in as India’s 9th Prime Minister on 21st June, 1991 and I was blissfully present at the swearing in ceremony with members of his family. Uncle PV took Indo-American relations to hitherto unattainable heights and walked the extra mile to give such relations a new and important depth, dimension and direction. He also emerged as the grand architect of economic liberalisation and globalisation in India. After his first six day Prime Ministerial visit to the United States in May, 1994, that saw him swing through New York and Houston, Boston and Washington, there was no looking back. His eventful five year tenure witnessed an upward march for Indo-US relations.
On 26th May, 2014, Narendra Damodardas Modi was sworn in as the 15th Prime Minister of India after a landslide victory at the polls. In September, 2014, Modi visited the United States for the first time as Prime Minister. In September,2015, Modi travelled to the US West Coast and thereafter travelled to New York for the 2015 UN General Assembly meeting In March-April, 2016, Modi visited the United States to attend the 4th Nuclear Security Summit.Two further visits by Modi in June,2016 and June,2017 respectively were exclusively bilateral in character. On 7th June, 2016, Modi addressed a Joint Session of the US Congress highlighting the common traits of both democracies and the long-term friendship between the two countries. On 26th June, 2017, Modi visited the United States and met the newly elected US President Donald Trump. In September 2019, Modi visited the United States for the sixth time. The enthusiasm, coverage and above all the hype that the trip generated was simply stupendous. The highpoint of Modi’s visit was his Bollywood style appearance at the famed Houston NRG stadium in Houston, Texas, on 22nd September, 2019 at a truly historic event described as “Howdy, Modi : Shared Dreams, Bright Futures”event.
Trump arrived in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on 24th February,2020 for his first official visit to the world’s largest democracy, kicking off a whirlwind 36-hour tour along with the First Lady Melania Trump. Modi invited Trump to the newly constructed Motera Cricket Stadium (officially known as the Sardar Patel Stadium) to address a large gathering of over 100,000 Indians and others. The spectacular event, showcased as “Namaste Trump”, was India’s hearty response to the “Howdy Modi” event held in Houston in 2019.
Modi visited the US for the 7th time on 13th February, 2025. Trump hosted Modi for an Official Working meeting in the White House. As the leaders of sovereign and vibrant democracies that value freedom, the rule of law, human rights and pluralism, Modi and Trump re-affirmed the Global Strategic Partnership, anchored in mutual trust, shared interests, goodwill and robust engagement of their citizens. They also launched a new initiative - the “U.S.-India COMPACT (Catalysing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) for the 21st Century” - to drive transformative change across key pillars of cooperation. Under this initiative, they committed to a results-driven agenda with initial outcomes this year to demonstrate the level of trust for a mutually beneficial partnership.
I am confident that the two great democracies will realise their ambitious vision for an enduring India-US partnership that advances the aspirations of our people for a bright and prosperous future serving the global good.
The writer is an internationally reputed senior lawyer practising in the Supreme Court of India