America’s embrace of Modi comes with a price

In the weeks and days ahead of Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington this week, US officials have been outdoing each other with words of praise that have delighted the Indian leader’s supporters and troubled his critics.

“He’s the most popular world leader for a reason,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Said At an India House event in Washington in April, wearing a green and yellow sari and making a grand gesture. “He is incredible, a visionary, and his level of commitment to the people of India is indescribable.”

US Ambassador Eric Garcetti, who arrived in New Delhi last month, has called Modi India’s “guru-ji” and the prime minister’s staunch National Security Advisor Ajit Doval “not only a national treasure but an international treasure”.

Agency Asia News International reported that at the Quad summit in Australia last month, President Joe Biden told Modi that he was running out of tickets for next Thursday’s state banquet at the White House because the Indian leader is “too popular”.

In a world of post-pandemic supply chain changes, a globally disruptive war in Ukraine and growing concerns about China, the US is not alone in rolling out the red carpet for India. France’s Emmanuel Macron has invited Modi as the guest of honor at the Bastille Day parade next month.

But this charm campaign has been noted with dismay by India’s liberal elite. Analysts say Western democracies are setting aside human rights principles, including concerns about New Delhi’s treatment of minority Muslims and Christians, its crackdown on non-governmental organizations and journalism, and the weakening of democratic standards, because They need India against China.

“The West has chosen to look away from the decline in India’s democratic credentials, freedom of the press or its treatment of religious minorities because they feel they need to counter China,” says Sushant Singh, senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research. India is needed for “He believes that a strong India will provide a counter to the rise of China.”

India’s government rejects the notion that its democracy is anything other than robust, and its defenders can easily find examples of democratic backsliding in Western countries, not least in the US.

From an American perspective, India is hardly the only country where Washington pushes human rights and geopolitical considerations to the fore, as seen in its growing alignment on defense with Vietnam, a one-party non- Democracy. Among other democracies, Israel, with its tangled human rights record and crisis of democratic institutions under Benjamin Netanyahu, is a perennial US ally with bipartisan support.

“The question is, are we preaching an increasingly liberal democracy here?” asks Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, about the US-India relationship. “In my view, we are.”

He adds: “We have taken the view that geopolitics and countering China are more important to us right now than the values-based diplomacy the Biden administration came out saying they would prioritize.”

India’s scale is what sets it apart in terms of both what its Western diplomatic partners are willing to overlook, and how much they stand to gain from doing so.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the country is now the world’s largest buyer of arms. France, thanks to an order for 36 Rafale fighter jets, is now the third largest military supplier to the US after Russia.

Modi will address Congress on Thursday and preside over a series of deals involving American companies, a product of the growing US-India partnership in technology and defence.

More deals are expected, including an expected agreement with GE to manufacture jet engines in India, as the country pushes an “indigenization” plan to build up local defense production.

Despite these priorities, some criticism of India on human rights comes from parts of the US administration. The State Department’s most recent Religious Freedom Report listed India among 17 countries of particular concern, citing violence and hate speech against Muslims and Christians.

But nowadays it is usually accompanied by a whisper. When opposition lawmaker Rahul Gandhi was recently convicted of criminal defamation and stripped of his parliamentary seat, the US said it was “watching” the matter with caution, drawing flak from Washington and New Delhi. Emphasized “shared commitment to democratic values”.

Analysts following the upcoming visit say any American words on sensitive issues, including human rights and India’s ties with Russia, will be as fragile as the extent to which they are voiced.

In the weeks and days ahead of Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington this week, US officials have been outdoing each other with words of praise that have delighted the Indian leader’s supporters and troubled his critics.

“He’s the most popular world leader for a reason,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Said At an India House event in Washington in April, wearing a green and yellow sari and making a grand gesture. “He is incredible, a visionary, and his level of commitment to the people of India is indescribable.”

US Ambassador Eric Garcetti, who arrived in New Delhi last month, has called Modi India’s “guru-ji” and the prime minister’s staunch National Security Advisor Ajit Doval “not only a national treasure but an international treasure”.

Agency Asia News International reported that at the Quad summit in Australia last month, President Joe Biden told Modi that he was running out of tickets for next Thursday’s state banquet at the White House because the Indian leader is “too popular”.

In a world of post-pandemic supply chain changes, a globally disruptive war in Ukraine and growing concerns about China, the US is not alone in rolling out the red carpet for India. France’s Emmanuel Macron has invited Modi as the guest of honor at the Bastille Day parade next month.

But this charm campaign has been noted with dismay by India’s liberal elite. Analysts say Western democracies are setting aside human rights principles, including concerns about New Delhi’s treatment of minority Muslims and Christians, its crackdown on non-governmental organizations and journalism, and the weakening of democratic standards, because They need India against China.

“The West has chosen to look away from the decline in India’s democratic credentials, freedom of the press or its treatment of religious minorities because they feel they need to counter China,” says Sushant Singh, senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research. India is needed for “He believes that a strong India will provide a counter to the rise of China.”

India’s government rejects the notion that its democracy is anything other than robust, and its defenders can easily find examples of democratic backsliding in Western countries, not least in the US.

From an American perspective, India is hardly the only country where Washington pushes human rights and geopolitical considerations to the fore, as seen in its growing alignment on defense with Vietnam, a one-party non- Democracy. Among other democracies, Israel, with its tangled human rights record and crisis of democratic institutions under Benjamin Netanyahu, is a perennial US ally with bipartisan support.

“The question is, are we preaching an increasingly liberal democracy here?” asks Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, about the US-India relationship. “In my view, we are.”

He adds: “We have taken the view that geopolitics and countering China are more important to us right now than the values-based diplomacy the Biden administration came out saying they would prioritize.”

India’s scale is what sets it apart in terms of both what its Western diplomatic partners are willing to overlook, and how much they stand to gain from doing so.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the country is now the world’s largest buyer of arms. France, thanks to an order for 36 Rafale fighter jets, is now the third largest military supplier to the US after Russia.

Modi will address Congress on Thursday and preside over a series of deals involving American companies, a product of the growing US-India partnership in technology and defence.

More deals are expected, including an expected agreement with GE to manufacture jet engines in India, as the country pushes an “indigenization” plan to build up local defense production.

Despite these priorities, some criticism of India on human rights comes from parts of the US administration. The State Department’s most recent Religious Freedom Report listed India among 17 countries of particular concern, citing violence and hate speech against Muslims and Christians.

But nowadays it is usually accompanied by a whisper. When opposition lawmaker Rahul Gandhi was recently convicted of criminal defamation and stripped of his parliamentary seat, the US said it was “watching” the matter with caution, drawing flak from Washington and New Delhi. Emphasized “shared commitment to democratic values”.

Analysts following the upcoming visit say any American words on sensitive issues, including human rights and India’s ties with Russia, will be as fragile as the extent to which they are voiced.