President Biden has declared that “the battle between democracy and autocracy” is the defining struggle of his time. But when he rolls out the red carpet on the South Lawn of the White House for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India this Thursday morning, Mr. Biden will effectively call a temporary truce.
By granting Mr. Modi a coveted state visit, with a star-studded gala dinner, Mr. Biden will shine a spotlight on a leader presiding over democratic backsliding in the world’s most populous nation. Mr Modi’s government has cracked down on dissent and persecuted opponents in a way that has raised fears of an authoritarian turn not seen since India’s fall to dictatorship in the 1970s.
Yet Mr. Biden has concluded, as his predecessors did, that he needs India despite human rights concerns just as he believes he needs Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and other countries that are autocracies or do not fit into the ideal category. democracies At a time of confrontation with Russia and an uneasy confrontation with China, Mr. Biden is forced to accept the flaws of America’s friends.
Two and a half years into his administration, the democracy versus autocracy framework has thus become a kind of geopolitical straitjacket for Mr. Biden, allowing little of the subtleties that his foreign policy actually envisions. but that practically guarantees criticism every time. when he shakes hands with a counterpart who fails the George Washington test. Even some of its top advisers privately see construction as too black and white in a world of greys.
“Whenever a president dresses up his foreign policy in the language of values, any concession to geopolitical reality inevitably raises cries of hypocrisy,” said Hal Brands, professor of global affairs at the School of Advanced International Studies. from Johns Hopkins University. “The reality, of course, is that all American presidents, including those most devoted to democracy and human rights, realized that there were some relationships that were too strategically important to hold hostage to concerns about the democratic values”.
The dynamic, which has been played out repeatedly, has become a tiresome issue for some senior administration officials. The slogan of democracy, they said, never fully captured a more textured strategy that goes far beyond dividing the world into two simple, opposing camps. It was more about recognizing the growing global drift of freedom and the threats posed by more aggressive powers like Russia and China.
“From our perspective, it’s never been as simple as making T-shirts,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said in an interview with several reporters on Tuesday. “It’s always been about looking at those long-term trends and trying to point those trends in the right direction and then being prepared to have a more sophisticated approach to how we build relationships with a number of different countries.”
The White House sees Modi’s visit as a critical moment to cement a relationship with one of the main “swing states,” as officials have come to describe powers that have not taken a definitive side in Russia’s war against Ukraine. And US officials see India as one of the bulwarks against China’s advance.
“We expect this to be a historic visit,” said Sullivan, who predicted “a significant number of announcements” of deals on military sales, technology, supply chains, semiconductors and energy, among others. “This really, from my perspective, is going to be one of the defining partnerships of our time.”
Mr. Sullivan insisted that Mr. Biden was not betraying his commitment to democracy by hosting Mr. Modi so generously and said the President would raise concerns about democracy and human rights, even if diplomatically. Mr. Biden, said Mr. Sullivan, “will try to indicate where we stand without seeming like he’s somehow speaking or lecturing another country that has a proud history of sovereignty.”
The president will do so, obviously, without the traditional joint press conference he holds with many visiting leaders. While no official timetable has been released, Indian officials have resisted efforts by their American counterparts to seek such a session, as Mr. Modi does not hold press conferences even on his own soil and has no interest in submitting to questions from American journalists.
Mr. Modi will arrive at the White House on Wednesday evening for a private dinner with Mr. Biden, who has just returned from a three-day tour of California. The President will then formally welcome Mr. Modi on Thursday morning with a pomp-filled arrival ceremony on the South Lawn. After meetings during the day, the two will meet again for a state dinner in the evening, only the third Mr Biden has held during his presidency following events by the leaders of France and South Korea, two democracies strong
Mr Modi arrives as India has just overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation and feels it is establishing itself on the global stage. Now the fifth largest economy on the planet, India has a young workforce, a strong technology industry, a growing consumer market and barely any potential as a manufacturing hub.
India’s trade with the United States has reached about $190 billion a year, and Atul Keshap, a former US envoy in New Delhi who now serves as chairman of the US-India Business Council, has predicted that soon could be worth $500 billion. Only Canada, Mexico, the European Union and China are in this league.
Although many of the strategic goals of the United States and India have been achieved, Mr. Keshap said in an online discussion, something still “needs to give impetus to these business and trade ties, because that is the real muscle and sinew of a relationship. .”
That could be China, as US business and political leaders see India as a country capable of shouldering some of China’s immense weight in the world economy. With growth of 6% or better expected this year, and with much of the rest of the world economy hampered by the war in Ukraine and inflation, India is making itself felt by both buyers and sellers of everywhere.
“The US needs India as much as India needs the US,” said Happymon Jacob, who teaches Indian foreign policy at New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University. “The power play in the wake of the Ukraine war and India’s position drove home the point to DC and other world capitals that New Delhi cannot be pushed around and must be compromised. For the US, the ‘India has become an indispensable power.’
This has, to some extent, obscured the shrinking of Indian democracy under Mr. Modi over the past nine years. Some democracy watchdogs have downgraded India, using phrases like “electoral autocracy” and “flawed democracy”. India tops the global list of countries using internet shutdowns to quell unrest. Opposition leaders are frequently raided by investigative agencies and bogged down in court cases. Rahul Gandhi, a prominent opposition leader, has been expelled from Parliament and is fighting to avoid jail time after being accused of defaming Modi’s name.
Some experts have argued that the alarm over India’s democracy is overblown, arguing that despite the erosion of civil liberties and the rollback of minority protections, there has been a deepening of democratic norms in other areas, with more people, especially women, participating in the elections. .
But the subtle consolidation of the power of Mr. Modi is consolidating Hindu supremacy over India’s constitutionally secular democracy and creating impunity for right-wing justice supporters who attack mosques and churches, harass interfaith couples and even lynch men accused of transporting beef. The state is becoming increasingly partisan in the way it delivers justice.
None of which the prime minister is interested in discussing with Mr. Biden, regarding the issues as internal matters that are not Washington’s business. Just as Mr. Biden has abandoned his vow to make Saudi Arabia a “prison” and is instead courting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he plans to highlight points of common interest with Mr. Modi over the next few days instead of areas of disagreement. .
India is “sending a message to the US that it has to choose between preaching to India or engaging with India,” Mr. Jacob “I think the US has realized that it would be sacrificing the geopolitical utility of the Indo-US relationship if it decides to punish India.”
Alex Travelli and Karan Deep Singh contributed to this report.
