Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda for the US trip was different. The goal was to rebuild confidence, renew dialogue and implement agreements already arrived at, says Prof Chintamani Mahapatra
Soon after the successful Indian space mission to Mars, widely known as Mangalyaan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in the United States to spend about 100 hours and hold about 50 scheduled meetings. The most important of those meetings, in terms of substance and seriousness, was undoubtedly a summit meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington, although several of his other meetings carried significant substance and high symbolic value as well.
First of all, his speech at the 68th UN General Assembly was both substantive and symbolic. He virtually outlined the role that an emerging India can play in global affairs. There is little doubt that Indian foreign policy, from the very beginning, has had a global agenda. During the initial years after Independence, India neither had the economic wherewithal nor military muscle, yet its influence in the developing world was unchallenged and its political and security initiatives for world peace and stability were commendable.
But the world has changed beyond recognition since then. India’s democratic credentials, economic strength and military capabilities have grown to an extent where both the industrialised world and the developing world expect India to play a role commensurate with its rising strength. And Prime Minister Modi spoke like a world statesman, not like the leader of a developing country or one great democratic country.
The most fascinating proposition he made was to work towards making a Group of All, rising above the current groupism among nations in varying sizes and capabilities, such as Group of 7 or Group of 20, and in fact there still exists a Group of 77. This was not an outlandish remark in view of the fact that time was never more ripe for unity in the United Nations than now in view of escalating threat to the very concept of nation-state (members of the UN) by ever proliferating numbers of non-state actors. No wonder he made a concrete suggestion for a Comprehensive Convention to Combat Terrorism.
This call for unity in the United Nations should also be seen in the backdrop of the urgent necessity to bring about reforms in the UN system that is not possible without unity in this world body. Prime Minister Modi rightly warned that without structural reform the widely venerated global organisation could lose its relevance in tackling the problems of today.
The overall message he delivered at the United Nations was, in fact, a prelude to his summit meeting with President Obama. He wanted to make this summit not just a bilateral one but something that would be between two world leaders!
Besides, he created history by addressing an audience of around 60,000 people at Central Park and 18,000 people at Madison Square. While many hailed it as a rockstar reception to the Indian Prime Minister, the substance should not be allowed to be overshadowed by the substance of his speech. In the first address, he spoke about global poverty eradication. Indian leaders, from Indira Gandhi onwards, have often spoken about “Garibi Hatao”, but all their words were meant for a domestic audience. Prime Minister Modi’s statement in New York about poverty eradication was about the globe and not just India.
Secondly, his address to thousands of Indian Americans was not taken with the good spirit by critics, some of whom considered it media hype or a stage-managed show. Far from it, the gathering of such a huge number of Indian Americans to greet the Indian Prime Minister was an unprecedented event. The eminently quotable announcement by Modi was about his Government’s decision to merge the Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) card with Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) card, and issuance of lifetime visa to such people.
In return, the Prime Minister urged the Indian Americans to invest their time, energy and capital for India’s growth and development. This was in a way a master stroke in public diplomacy. After all, the Indian American community in the US is large, prosperous and increasingly influential. The Obama administration has been trying to harness the capability of this community for the benefit of the US, as reflected in his appointments to higher posts in local governance as well as foreign missions. On the eve of Modi’s visit to the US, President Obama nominated an Indian American to be the next US Ambassador to India.
CREATING HISTORY
Before Modi would meet Obama for the summit, a few other histories were enacted. By taking a leaf out of Secretary John Kerry’s article in The Economic Times during his visit to India, Prime Minister Modi published an article in the Wall Street Journal. Many Americans, particularly the economic elite who would not be in a position to meet the Prime Minister and interact with him, could read his piece in the newspaper and look for the opportunity the new Indian Government would offer to the American business. But Modi went a step ahead of Kerry and authored a joint article in Washington Post with the American President. This was creation of another record for the history of US-Indian relations. Yet another record was the issuance of a joint Indo-US vision statement even before the actual summit took place.
In other words, Prime Minister Modi had done a lot of groundwork to project his Government as a no-nonsense entity, spelling out his plan to develop India’s infrastructure, make 100 smart cities, modernise the railways network and facilitate foreign investment. By explaining his 3 Ds — democracy, demography and demand — Modi sought to impress upon the American business community and inspire the Indian Americans about the huge potential for growth in India.
Before his first meeting with President Obama, Modi had successfully created a positive image of India in the US. However, credit must be given to the American assessment of Modi as the new leader of India, who holds promise of a fast rising India both in terms of robust economic growth and more muscular foreign policy.
The decision of the Obama administration to push US Ambassador to India, Nancy Pelosi, to meet Modi a few months before the May elections; a prompt telephonic call to Modi by Obama after the Indian elections, a series of high-level delegations to India, including the ones by the Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hegel and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, all indicated that White House was serious in re-engaging India after months of bad blood between the two countries.
DIPlOMATIC lOGJAM
In fact, Indo-US strategic partnership had run into a logjam before Modi’s rise to power in Indian politics. Starting with a long diplomatic spat over the arrest and strip-search of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York in September 2013, Indo-US relations worsened successively with both countries moving to the WTO with an array of trade disputes, escalating differences between Washington and New Delhi on IPR issues, downgrading of safety ranking of India’s airlines by the US, and conflict over the pharmaceutical sector differences. Critics in India and the US began to observe a plateau in this bilateral relationship.
The plateau meant no further chances of upward trajectory in Indo-US relations. But actually, it also symbolised non-delivery of big ticket items announced by the UPA Government and the Bush and Obama administrations. More particularly, the Indo-US agreement on civil nuclear cooperation had faced a wall in the wake of passage of a civil nuclear liability Act by the Indian Parliament. The American promise of support to India’s permanent membership in an expanded UN Security Council, and India’s membership in the international non-proliferation regimes, such as the NSG, MTCR, Wassenaar Arrangement and Australia Group remained only on paper.
Such a state of affairs in reality limited the level of expectations in India and the US about the outcome of a Modi-Obama summit. Some had doubted whether Prime Minister Modi would at all show interest in holding a summit with a country that had denied a visa to him for about nine years. Modi’s focus on the immediate neighbourhood, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s prompt move to woo Modi by sending his foreign minister to India, postponement of Modi’s visit to Japan, meeting of Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Jinping before shaking hands with Obama and refusal of Modi Government to endorse the Trade Facilitation Agreement at the WTO despite Kerry’s repeated plea had generated skepticism over the outcome of Modi-Obama summit.
Skepticism and low expectations turned out to be misplaced when Modi embarked on his mission to the UN and the US. He turned out to be a pragmatic statesman who would not allow sentiments to come in the way of the nation’s interest. From the very beginning, he has expressed his belief in “Sabka Saath and Sabka Vikas” and in the same spirit he articulated the need for a G-All in the UN. He landed in the US with the primary goal of making diplomatic efforts to promote Indian economic growth, development and modernisation.
THE SUMMIT
Modi-Obama summit was preceded by issuance of a joint vision statement whose title was carefully written in Hindi and English. When Obama first met Modi, he greeted him in Gujarati and the latter replied in English. Were these symbolisms void of meaning and messagesIJ No way. Words, symbols and body languages have a special role in the world of diplomacy.
The joint statement issued after the summit, to some critics, said nothing new. Several joint statements of this kind had been issued during earlier Indo-US summits and there was little in it for Modi to bring to India. Moreover, there was no fresh thinking or new proposal — old wine in new bottle, critics argue.
However, a careful content analysis of the joint statement would indicate something different. One can identify several items that were just not to be found in older joint statements. To cite a few examples, one can begin with the concept of “smart cities” where India invited the US industry “to be the lead partner” and the US welcomed it.
Secondly, the two leaders agreed to “ease travel between the two countries as India introduces visa-on-arrival for US citizens, and work towards meeting the requirements to make the US Global Entry Programme available to Indian citizens”. It was a commendable initiative by a leader, who was denied a visa, to facilitate travel visa for citizens of both countries!
Thirdly, some portions of the joint statement reflect a bold step by the Modi Government to call a spade a spade in the realm of diplomacy and send signals to China, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea and even terrorist organisations. For example, Modi and Obama, through the joint statement, have expressed concern “about rising tensions over maritime territorial disputes and affirmed the importance of safeguarding maritime security, ensuring freedom of navigation and over flight throughout the region, especially in South China Sea”. What else could be a clearer signal than this to ChinaIJ
In response to China’s use of history to promote connectivity in the forms of reviving the Silk Route and creating a new maritime Silk Route, the two leaders “emphasised the need to accelerate infrastructure connectivity and economic development corridors for regional economic integration linking south, southeast and central Asia”.
Contrary to the conviction of some critics, the joint statement has mentioned “ISIl, Al-Qaeda, lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, the D-Company and the Haqqanis” as a threat to international security and has “stressed the need for joint and concerted efforts, including the dismantling of safe havens for terrorist and criminal networks”. Here is a clear message to Pakistan.
There are several other points in the joint statement that signal a new assertiveness in Modi’s foreign policy approach and avoid ambiguity in Indian positions on critical political and security issues.
Significantly, no big ticket items were announced, simply because they were not meant to be. Indo-US strategic partnership has been a project in progress. It has met so many roadblocks in the last several years partly because of domestic compulsions in India and the US as well as more critical challenges in the world arena. The tit-for-tat policies adopted by the US and India since the Khobragade episode left little ground for the leadership in both countries to think about newer projects when the project at hand was yet to move forward.
Thus Prime Minister Modi’s agenda for the US trip was different. The goal was to rebuild confidence, renew dialogue and implement agreements already arrived at, such as the civil nuclear cooperation agreement.
Thus, one cannot but give high marks to Modi for his successful mission to Washington. It would be impractical and inappropriate to make an assessment of the trip right now. One has to wait and watch for the implementation of the promises Modi has made in America. Undoubtedly, there will be hurdles in the way — both at home and abroad. Negotiations are going to be tough, but at least clear goals have been set and the first difficult task has been accomplished.
The writer is Chairman, Centre for Canadian, US & latin American Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)