As United States (US) Secretary of State Antony J Blinken arrives in Delhi for his second visit to India, two years into President Joe Biden’s tenure, he will represent an administration that has already proven to be one of the most consistent when it comes to America’s relationship with India.
To be sure, Team Biden has only advanced the legacy initiated by Bill Clinton with his historic visit to India in 2000. It was elevated by George W. Bush, who showed a unique personal commitment to the nuclear deal.
This was confirmed by Barack Obama, who became the first US president to attend Republic Day as the chief guest. And it was driven forward by the mercurial Donald Trump, who has remained relatively predictable in India and whose strategic shift towards China has added importance to the relationship with Delhi.
When he took office two years ago after a turbulent transition process, there were concerns about what it would mean for the relationship with India because of its domestic trajectory and perceived role in American politics.
It was also unclear what position the US was taking towards China. There was suspicion due to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Bilateral relations have witnessed one of the toughest geopolitical tests the relationship has had to undergo in the last two decades – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Still, Biden and Blinken recognized India’s limitations, embraced its unique status, treated India’s concerns with respect, made Delhi a partner in global conversations, dealt with differences with maturity, and took steps to redefine the relationship. No president has done as much or paid as much attention to relations with India in the first two years of his term as Biden.
Political concerns
Concerns about what a Biden presidency would mean for India came from three key sources. One, key progressive Democrats criticized India’s domestic political trajectory under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In 2019, after the decisions on Kashmir and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, India became the subject of intense criticism on the Hill and among Democrats vying for the presidential nomination.
As Obama, a Democrat, dealt with the BJP-led government, as domestic polarization increased in India and fears of its perceived “democratic decline” deepened, there was uncertainty about how the new Democratic administration would engage with the “new India”.
But while U.S. officials may individually express displeasure with developments in India policy and segments within the U.S. administration — notably the State Department’s Office of Religious Freedom — and may be publicly critical on Capitol Hill, Biden and Blinken’s ideological orientations cloud their judgment of India.
Narendra Modi is systemically recognized as the legitimately elected Prime Minister of India with overwhelming popularity, lending the country a high degree of political stability in a turbulent neighborhood.
Transformational political changes are being felt in India, opening up opportunities for US national security and economic interests.
There is a belief that strategic relations with India, read shared concerns about China, are too important to be compromised.
Officials don’t know that neither the US nor India are perfect democracies, but they can only deal with Communist China if they work together.
But the victory of pragmatism stems from other sources as well. This is no longer a unipolar moment, and the US knows that it does not quite have the tools to follow through on critical public statements to effect real change, and if it engages in interventionist politics, it risks alienating public opinion in India.
His experience with the Saudi regime — Biden came to office expecting to teach the regime a lesson for its alleged role in the killing of writer, activist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi, only to visit Riyadh to get even — was an example of the limits. American power.
And the US itself, after the years of Donald Trump and January 6, has lost a huge moral authority to teach other countries about democracy.
Realism won. And while there are privately expressed concerns and Indian diplomacy has to spend an extraordinary amount of time exercising damage control due to political actions at home that can be interpreted as authoritarian and intolerant, the nature of the Indian political regime has not become an obstacle to the relationship.
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