OP-ED

PM Modi’s brilliant handling of three successive American presidencies

Thursday, 03 Oct, 2024
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Joe Biden. (Photo courtesy: Narendra Modi/Facebook)

By Shubham Ghosh

If Kamala Harris wins, it will be the fourth different leader at the White House that the Modi government will handle over the next four years.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a state visit to the United States in June last year, American President Joe Biden had called his country’s ties with India among the “most consequential in the world”. This September, as the Indian leader revisited the US, Washington’s envoy to New Delhi, Eric Garcetti, hailed Modi as the most pro-America PM and Biden the most pro-India
president.

These mentions are significant as they show the flawless consistency that India has shown under PM Modi when it comes to the US. Modi’s India has dealt with three successive American presidencies while the fourth is due after this year’s election. If Kamala Harris wins, it will be the fourth different leader at the White House that the Modi government will handle over the next four years.

Modi’s US policy has delivered irrespective of the party in control at the Oval Office. Starting with Barack Obama (2009-17), the Bharatiya Janata Party leader has had a memorable rapport with Donald Trump (2017-2021) and Biden (2021-2025). While challenges were galore in dealing with short-term presidents (Obama was into his second and final term when Modi became the PM), there was also the mercurial Trump whose style marked a departure from his Democratic predecessor and successor.

The American foreign policy was different under Obama and Trump as the latter prioritized a transactional stance against the former’s ideational one. Under Biden, the US tried to undo Trump. India braved the fast-changing terrains of America’s policy with a pragmatic approach by Modi who
wisely used key factors of current-day diplomacy -- economic ties, strategic alignment, multilateralism, peace initiative, and competition with China. The fact that India and the US are two of the world’s frontline democratic powers with favorable economies also helped things.

But one cannot ignore Modi’s personality-driven skills in foreign policy matters. As a leader who was denied a visa by the US once in connection to the 2002 riots in Gujarat, the Indian PM scripted a comeback as Washington welcomed him after he became the PM in 2014. As a visionary leader, Modi never allowed that bitter experience to create an obstacle for India’s evolving ties with the US and cultivated warm relations with successive leaders.

India braved the fast-changing terrains of America’s policy with a pragmatic approach by PM Modi who wisely used key factors of current-day diplomacy -- economic ties, strategic alignment, multilateralism, peace initiative, and competition with China.

From inviting Obama to India’s Republic Day ceremony in 2015 and serving tea to the esteemed guest to sharing the stage with Trump and his wife in Ahmedabad in 2020 to accompanying Biden to Raj Ghat in New Delhi during the G20 summit in 2023 – the Indian PM never allowed different political colors and ideologies to surpass the pragmatism and mutual benefits that India-US ties offer.

A sequence of events has indeed facilitated ties between New Delhi and Washington DC over the past many decades, including the end of the Cold War; India’s economic liberalization; the 9/11 attacks in the US, and the rise of global terrorism; intensifying friction between the US and China, with which India too shares a frozen relationship, the rise of the ‘Pivot to Asia’ ploy and platforms such as QUAD and the strong emergence of the Indian diaspora, but that doesn’t make the Modi doctrine less significant.

It will not be an exaggeration to say that Modi’s consistency vis-à-vis the new administration in the White House next January onwards will remain in place since the template has been set. India exhibited diplomatic maturity during Modi’s latest visit to the US since he did not meet either of the two presidential hopefuls – Trump and Vice President Harris – which is a well-thought-out move
after the ‘Abki Baar, Trump Sarkar’ incident of 2019 which many thought was one of Modi’s rare foreign policy blunders.

If Trump returns to power, New Delhi will have more structural issues to iron out, while a Harris presidency will be more assuring. Whatever the outcome is, Modi’s brilliant personalized conduct of foreign policy will be a clear winner.
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(The writer is a senior journalist and political analyst based in Bengaluru, India.)