By Harsh V. Pant
By inviting U.S. President Barack Obama to India’s Republic Day celebrations, Narendra Modi sends a powerful message.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has once again demonstrated why he remains one of the most interesting politicians in the country. By inviting the U.S. president, Barack Obama, to next year’s Republic Day celebrations, he has stumped his critics and surprised even his supporters. Last week, he informed the nation of his decision in a tweet, “This Republic Day, we hope to have a friend over… invited President Obama to be the 1st US president to grace the occasion as chief guest.” The White House was quick to accept the invite, underscoring the importance Washington attaches to restoring dynamism in U.S.-India relations and the confidence it has in the ability of Modi to deliver. “At the invitation of Prime Minister Modi, the President will travel to India in January 2015 to participate in the Indian Republic Day celebration in New Delhi as the Chief Guest,” a statement by the White House read minutes after the Modi tweet. With this visit, Obama will become the only U.S. president to visit India twice during his term in office.
Modi’s move is remarkable for many reasons. Most striking is the sheer audacity with which Modi seems to be challenging the foreign policy shibboleths of the past. On the surface, an invite for the U.S. President is not really significant. After all, the U.S. is now one of the closest partners of India. Be it the economy, defense, regional security, or geopolitics, there is today an extraordinary degree of convergence between the interests of the two states. Yet the diffidence of the Congress led-United Progressive Alliance government in acknowledging this openly was a reflection of the outmoded ideological trappings of the past. Even as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was gung-ho about a robust U.S.-India relationship, his party made sure that in the last four years, ties with the U.S. were not only put on the backburner but deliberate efforts were made to scuttle forward movement on issues which were clearly in India’s interest.
And now Prime Minister Modi in just a few months has brought about a paradigm shift in the relationship despite having being denied a visa by the U.S. in the past. In his very first month, his government scuttled the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) talks, leading to much talk of India’s impending global isolation. Yet New Delhi held onto its negotiating position and ultimately ended up signing a pact with the U.S. on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Nay Pyi Daw, which indefinitely extends the so-called “peace clause” in the TFA. India’s food procurement and subsidy program now cannot be challenged in any forum until a conclusive deal on the subject is concluded on the issue. Obama commended the “personal leadership” of Modi in finding a way forward to break the impasse. Here was a leader who was not merely obstructionist but was eager to find ways to move forward.
Read the full story at The Diplomat