By Harsh V. Pant
Recent bilateral diplomacy between the United States and India is indicative of a long-term convergence.
Just a year back, the world’s largest and oldest democracies seemed on a collision course over the Khobragade affair. Today, thanks to deft diplomacy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team, Washington and Delhi stand on the cusp of a potentially transformative moment in their bilateral ties. When Modi visited the U.S. in September, his domestic critics wanted to discredit him by asking where the substance was. They argued that Modi’s visit was about style; that the optics overpowered the real issues that were bedeviling the relationship. When Modi invited Obama as the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations in Delhi, the critics came back arguing that there was little point to inviting Obama, who had become a lame-duck president with the defeat of the Democrats in November 2014 elections.
But what Modi and Obama have been able to accomplish in the last two days underscores once again how far ahead Modi is of his critics. It also shows the remarkable ability of Modi to understand how modern day politics and diplomacy work. The optics of his visit to the U.S. last September was precisely what convinced Washington about Modi’s ability to deliver. The Obama administration recognized that after years of disappointment from Manmohan Singh, they were now getting an interlocutor in Modi who understood how important it was get the U.S.-India equation right — and he was ready to deliver with his immense cache of political capital. So even though Obama’s foreign policy agenda has been crowded, he has managed to galvanize the American bureaucracy to give one more chance to India before the end of his term. And that bet seems to be paying off.
Read the full story at The Diplomat