INDIA AND US RELATION GETTING STRONGER VISIT TO VISIT
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited US President Barack Obama to attend his country’s Republic Day ceremonies earlier this year, it signaled an important change in relations between the world’s two biggest democracies. Ever since the 1990s, three American administrations have tried to improve bilateral relations, with mixed results. While annual trade between the countries has soared during this period, from $20 billion to more than $100 billion, annual US-China trade is worth six times more, and the political relationship has had ups and downs.
The two countries have a long history of confusing each other. By definition, any alliance with a superpower is unequal; so efforts to establish close ties with the United States have long run up against India’s tradition of strategic autonomy. But Americans do not view democratic India as a threat. On the contrary, India’s success is an important US interest, and several factors promise a brighter future for the bilateral relationship.
The most important factor is the acceleration in India’s economic growth, which the International Monetary Fund projects will exceed 7.5% through 2020. For decades, India suffered from what some called the “Hindu rate of economic growth”: a little more than 1% per year. It might more properly have been called a 1930s British socialist rate of growth. After independence in 1947, India adopted an inward-looking planning system that focused on heavy industry.
Market-oriented reforms in the early 1990s changed that pattern, and annual growth accelerated to 7% under the Congress party, before slumping to 5%. Since the 2014 general election brought Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to power, the government has reversed the slowdown.
And prospects for continued growth are strong. India has an emerging middle class of several hundred million, and English is an official language spoken by some 50 to 100 million. Building on that base, Indian information industries are able to play a major global role.
Moreover, with a population of 1.2 billion people, India is four times larger than the US, and likely to surpass China by 2025. Its sheer scale will be increasingly important not only to the global economy, but also to balancing China’s influence in Asia and managing global issues such as climate change, public health, and cyber security.
India also has significant military power, with an estimated 90-100 nuclear weapons, intermediate-range missiles, 1.3 million military personnel, and annual military expenditure of nearly $50 billion (3% of the world total). And, in terms of soft power, India has an established democracy, an influential diaspora, and a vibrant popular culture with transnational influence. Bollywood produces more films every year than any other country, out-competing Hollywood in parts of Asia and the Middle East.
But one should not underestimate India’s problems. Population alone is not a source of power unless those human resources are developed, and India has lagged well behind China in terms of literacy and economic growth. Despite its progress, around a third of India’s population lives in conditions of acute poverty, making the country home to a third of the world’s poor. India’s $2 trillion GDP is only a fifth of China’s $10 trillion, and a ninth of America’s $17.5 trillion (measured at market exchange rates).
Likewise, India’s annual per capita income of $1,760 is just one-fifth that of China. Even more striking, while 95% of the Chinese population is literate, the proportion for India is only 74% – and only 65% for women. A symptom of this problem is India’s poor performance in international comparisons of universities, with none ranked among the world’s top 100. India’s high-tech exports are only 5% of its total exports compared to 30% for China.
India is unlikely to develop the power to become a global challenger to the US in the first half of this century. Indeed, even in terms of soft power, a recent study by the Portland Consultancy in London placed India outside the top 30 countries. China ranked 30th, and the US came in third, behind the United Kingdom and Germany.
Nonetheless, India has considerable assets that already affect the balance of power in Asia. While India and China signed agreements in 1993 and 1996 that promised a peaceful settlement of the border dispute that led them to war in l962, the issue has heated up again, following Chinese actions in recent years.
India and China are fellow members of the BRICS (along with Brazil, Russia, and South Africa). But cooperation within that caucus is limited. While Indian officials are often discreet in public about relations with China, and wisely want bilateral trade and investment to grow, their security concerns remain acute. As part of the group of Asian countries that will tend to balance China, India has already begun to strengthen its diplomatic relations with Japan.
It would be a mistake to cast the prospects for an improved US-India relationship solely in terms of China’s rising power. Indian economic success is an American interest on its own. So is the open approach taken by India and Brazil on issues such as governance of the Internet, at a time when Russia and China are seeking more authoritarian control.
No one should expect an Indian-American alliance any time soon, given historical Indian public opinion. But one can predict a relationship in the coming years that will be both sui generis and stronger.
The History of Relationship goes back to 1949
1) Jawaharlal Nehru
First Visit October-November, 1949
In 1949, Nehru spent three weeks travelling across the US, addressing several meetings at which he explained India’s foreign policy tenets. It was a public relations success but the official part of his American visit, particularly his meetings with then US President Harry S Truman, were a flop. Truman refused to help with economic or food aid.
Second Visit
Prime Minister Nehru speaks on his arrival at the White House, watched by President John F Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
Eisenhower administration doubled economic aid to India to $822 million and approved the PL 480 food programme. In 1959, Eisenhower paid a hugely successful visit to India.
Third Visit September 26, 1960 to attend UNGA
Fourth Visit
December 16-20, 1956
Nehru’s last visit to the US (1961) proved disappointing, despite then US President John F Kennedy holding him in high esteem. As a senator, Kennedy had been a supporter of more aid to India. The 1961 Nehru-Kennedy summit meetings were tepid. The 71-year-old Indian leader came across as too tired, with Kennedy forced to keep up the conversation. “It was like trying to grab something in your hand, only to have it turn out to be fog,” Kennedy said of his discussions with Nehru. Kennedy rated it his “worst state visit ever”. But the Kennedy administration approved increased aid.
2. Indira Gandhi November 1971
Indira Gandhi visited the US in 1966, within two months of taking over as India’s PM. Then US President Lyndon B Johnson was much impressed by her. The visit helped India secure more food and development aid from the US. But soon, ties went downhill because of Johnson’s tight-fisted attitude to PL 480, and New Delhi’s refusal to support America on Vietnam.
I
Second Visit in 1971
In 1971, a month before the India-Pakistan war, Gandhi visited the US to convince Washington of the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), citing the excesses of the Pakistani army. Her equation with then US President Richard Nixon had never been healthy. At that time, Nixon needed Islamabad for rapprochement with China
3) Morarji Desai
US President Jimmy Carter and India’s then PM Morarji Desai during the arrival ceremony for a state visit. Photograph: Photograph: US Embassy New Delhi/Flickr
Desai visited the US within months of then US President Jimmy Carter’s visit to India in January that year. Desai’s visit went off well, despite the fact that Americans weren’t keen to ship enriched uranium for the Tarapur nuclear plant.
Rajiv charmed Washington during his June 1985 visit. To the Americans, he came across as less preachy than his grandfather, as well as his mother. He spoke softly, listened carefully and spoke with hum our. He addressed the Congress, an honor earlier accorded to Nehru, not to Indira. Rajiv also opened the Festival of India and initiated negotiations on purchasing the Cray supercomputer for weather research. Rajiv’s 1987 visit was a tamer affair.
5) PV Narasimha Rao
First Visit January 31, 1992 to attend UNGA
Rao’s visit marked a revival in ties. The Indian PM spoke of the need to “free India-US relations from the distortions induced by the Cold War”. He addressed a joint meeting of Congress, indicated India would go slow on its missile programme and promised further economic reforms. The telecom sector was opened to American companies. The US recognized India as one of the 10 major markets for American trade and investment and became the largest investor in India’s infrastructure sector. Rao’s visit laid the foundations of closer India-US ties during the years of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Manmohan Singh governments.
Third Visit May 17-20, 1994
Rao visited Washington in 1994, in the backdrop of the economic reforms his government had unleashed, and at a time when India-US ties were at a historical low. The US had repeatedly questioned India’s human rights record in Kashmir and Punjab and its nuclear weapons policy. It had pressured Russia to not sell cryogenic technology to India and disapproved of New Delhi's missile programme.
6) IK GujralSeptember 22, 1997 to attend UNGA.
7) Atal Bihari VajpayeeSeptember 13-17, 2000
November 7-9, 2001
September 12 2002
September 24 2003 to UNGA
Vajpayee’s September 2000 visit was at a time when then US President Bill Clinton held Pakistan responsible for the violence in Kashmir. Washington also refused to meddle in Kashmir’s affairs at Islamabad’s beckoning. Economic ties were strengthened. Vajpayee termed India and the US “natural allies”. He addressed a joint session of Congress. His 2001 visit, months after the 9/11 terror attacks, paved the way for deeper intelligence sharing between the two countries, with New Delhi providing much strategic assistance pertaining to the Indian Ocean and South Asian regions to the George W Bush administration.
8) Manmohan Singh
Fist Visit September 21 2004 to attend UNGA
Second VisitOfficial visit July 17-20, 2005
Third Visit Working visit September 23-25, 2008
Fourth Visit To attend G20 Summits November 2008
Fifth Visit To attend G20 Summits September 2009,
Sixth Visit Official state visit November 23-25, 2009,
Seventh Visit To attend Nuclear Security Summit April 11-13, 2010
Eight Visit Working visit September 27 2013
NARENDRA MODI
First Visit in 1983 as an Ordinary Man
Second Visit as Prime Minister in June 2016
Third Visit as Prime Minister in June 2017
Hugging outside the White House Monday, President Donald Trump and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi heralded an increasingly close strategic partnership as the U.S. branded a top militant from neighboring Pakistan as a "global terrorist."
Trump declared he was "true friend" of India and said relations between the two largest democracies have never been better. But there were some tensions in the inaugural meeting between the two populist leaders. On trade, Trump demanded fewer barriers for American companies exporting to India
Speaking in the Rose Garden after their talks, Trump said: "Both our nations have been struck by the evils of terrorism, and we are both determined to destroy terrorist organizations and the radical ideology that drives them. We will destroy radical Islamic terrorism."
Modi, a Hindu nationalist but also leader of a nation with nearly 175 million Muslims, did not use the same, charged terminology. He stressed the importance of "doing away" with terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens, apparently reflecting Indian concerns about militants based in Pakistan, India's historical archrival. He said the U.S. and India will enhance intelligence-sharing.
Hours before Modi's arrival, the State Department imposed sanctions on Syed Salahuddin, the Pakistan-based leader of Hizbul Mujahideen, the main rebel group that fights against Indian control in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir. India's foreign ministry hailed the move.
Trump has so far focused on outreach to China, India's other strategic rival, as he looks to Beijing to rein in nuclear-armed North Korea. But Washington and New Delhi share concerns about China's rise as a military power that have underpinned increasingly close relations in the past decade.
The Trump administration says it want to provide India with improved defense technology. The State Department on Monday approved the $365 million sale of a C-17 military transport aircraft to India. The administration is also set to offer a $2 billion sale of U.S.-made unarmed drones to help in surveillance of the Indian Ocean.
Although Modi's two-day Washington visit, which began Sunday, is lower-key than his previous three trips to the U.S. since he took office in 2014, it has included plenty of face-time with Trump. Modi later joined the president and first lady for dinner — the first dinner Trump has hosted for a foreign dignitary at the White House, although he has hosted the leaders of Japan and China at his resort in Florida.
Trump and Modi share a populist streak and a knack for social media, but their economic nationalist agendas could clash. While Trump champions the idea of "America First" and wants to stop the migration of jobs overseas, Modi has his own drive to boost manufacturing at home, dubbed "Make in India."
India is among the nations singled out by the Trump administration for their trade surpluses with the U.S., and it is also reviewing a visa program used heavily by skilled Indian workers. The U.S. deficit in goods and services with India last year was about $30 billion.
"It is important that barriers be removed to the export of U.S. goods into your markets, and that we reduce our trade deficit with your country," Trump said.
But Trump also lauded Modi's economic stewardship, and the praise was mutual. Modi, who invited the president and his family to visit India, extolled Trump's leadership qualities. He said the president's "vast and successful experience in the business world will lend an aggressive and forward-looking agenda to our relations."
The personal chemistry between the two leaders could prove as important as policy in setting the tone for the future. They appeared keen to show they got along — hugging twice during their joint appearance. They did not take questions.
When it comes to terrorism, Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Wilson Center, said the two leaders have a similar worldview — that "it needs to be destroyed wherever it rears its murderous head."
He said the designation of Salahuddin shows that Washington is willing to work closely with New Delhi on terrorism-related matters, although it remains to be seen if that signals a tougher policy toward Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan-based militants of launching attacks on its soil.
The two leaders voiced a joint interest in bringing stability to Afghanistan, where India has committed $3 billion in aid since 2001. However, in their public remarks, they skirted the contentious issue of climate change. New Delhi has been irked by Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris accord.
No Discussion between India and USA can complete without discussing Economic Co-operation and the Export Import Statistics , growing from strength to strength is as follows
The Total Exports to India by USA has grown to USD 42 Billion and Imports to 72.8 Billion in 2016 from 4.6 and 6.6 in 1995.
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