Despite apparent bonhomie at Bali between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, official narratives about their meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit diverged significantly. A distancing between the two leaderships was further signalled by a public statement clubbing Prime Minister Modi with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Sultan (MBS) and other autocrats. It would seem the Biden administration is not willing to give the Modi government the long rope it enjoyed earlier.
On November 18, the US State Department's Principal Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel, was replying to a question on why the US had granted sovereign immunity from criminal prosecution to MBS, who is believed by the US intelligence agencies to be involved in the murder of a US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Patel, came well prepared to answer the question (in the State Department video of the event, he can be seen turning to the relevant page of the brief before him even before the question was over) and read out that this was "legal determination" as all heads of state are given such legal immunity without going into the merits of the case. The Saudi King had conveniently named MBS Prime Minister, a title that the King held up to now, only six weeks earlier.
Citing past instances of similar application of immunity Vedant Patel said, reading from a prepared text, "It is a longstanding and consistent line of effort. It has been applied to a number of heads of state previously. …. President (Jean Bertrand) Aristide in Haiti in 1993, President (Robert) Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2001, Prime Minister Modi in India in 2014, and President (Joseph) Kabila in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 2018. This is a consistent practice that we have afforded to heads of state, heads of government, and foreign ministers." India would not have liked the clubbing of Prime Minister Modi with the rogue's gallery of global tyrants and rights abusers. The US official was clearly flagging the nine-year visa ban on Prime Minister Modi from 2005 to 2014 because of his alleged role (never proven in court) in the 2002 Gujarat communal riots.
The divergent official accounts of what took place between the two leaders in Bali also suggest a re-alignment in the relationship. On November 15, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs reported the Biden-Modi meeting as having "reviewed the continuing deepening of the India - US strategic partnership including cooperation in future-oriented sectors like critical and emerging technologies, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, etc." The report from the White House was less exuberant. On November 21, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to a press question with, "You – you saw the president greet and meet very briefly with prime minister Modi just last week when he was in – in Bali. So clearly, it's an important relationship that – that we truly respect."
While President Trump and Prime Minister Modi shared conservative and regressive political constituencies, perhaps President Joe Biden understands his future lies with progressive forces in America, especially the youth and women. Defying conventional wisdom that the ruling dispensation always loses, the Democrats did not cede much ground to the Republicans in the November 8 mid-term Congressional polls.
This is said to reflect the US voters' rejection of right-wing extremism, attack on abortion rights, and support for the Biden Administration's efforts to cut costs for working people, including reducing the cost of prescription drugs for those on Medicare in the Inflation Reduction Act., the youth -- 18 to 29 years olds -- turned up in large numbers to vote for the Democrats because they supported the Inflation Reduction Act, student loan cancellation and legislation to control gun violence. Progressive voters in trade unions and grassroots organisations outside the Democratic party, canvassed among coloured voters to support the Democrats, especially in New York and Connecticut. This is the mass of liberal, forward-looking and progressive voters that the Democrats, especially President Biden, must cultivate if he is looking for re-election.
This constituency will not support rights abuses, curtailment of press freedom, religious intolerance or an authoritarian capture of democratic institutions. Despite the best efforts of Hindutva forces entering the US through immigration and other routes, a majority of the Indian-origin voters actively support the Democrats. The five Congressmen of Indian origin elected to the House of Representatives this November -- Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ro Khanna, Ami Bera, Sri Thanedar and Pramila Jayapal -- are all Democrats. The take-home is that the Democrats must maintain an air-gap vis-à-vis Hindutva, domestic and international. Just as Prime Minister Modi uses his image on the global stage for domestic electoral purposes, other world leaders may have similar compulsions.
No one recognises this better than External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who responded sharply to Secretary of State Antony Blinken's position on democracy as being driven by Democratic "vote banks". He retorted that "universal democratic values" ignored the cultural specificity with which "each country approaches the set of issues from their history, tradition, and societal context". Jaishankar's response came against a background of growing international criticism of India's downslide on various indices of democracy, freedom of expression and the rights of minorities.
There are also reports from Washington DC of the failure of Indian efforts to get Prime Minister Modi a state visit to the US this December. The available slot has gone to French President Emmanuel Macron. India cannot be happy with the US formulation that while India remains its global partner, Pakistan is a valuable regional ally. Nor will New Delhi welcome US $450 million aid to Pakistan for its F-16 fleet or the US ambassador to Islamabad recently referring to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir as "Azad Jammu and Kashmir" on a visit there.
However, there can be little doubt that the US values its strategic and diplomatic relations with India despite the inability of Delhi to fully toe its line, for example, on China, Russia and Ukraine. It just does not identify them with an individual leader. Unlike the Trump Administration, the Biden Administration does not feel compelled to stand with an Indian leadership that is intolerant of minorities and justifies the erosion of basic freedoms in the name of 'history, tradition and societal context'. Perhaps the last thing Biden needs is a replay of support from the Indian Prime Minister, with an "Ab ki bar, Biden Sarkar!".
(The author is a journalist based in Delhi)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.