India, US needing each other is good

The sky may not be the limit any more, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi put it in Washington, but it’s certainly not a free lunch either. Keeping in mind ‘shared interests’, both India and the US are being arch-utilitarian. As they should be. For the former, it’s using the tech laid on the table to stick firmly to the project of making India a ‘developed economy’ and an inclusively wealthy nation. For the US, India, a growing power by its own impetus, is the counterfoil to a challenging China. The arrangement works well for both. Being democracies – a point traditionally laid out both in the foreground and background, and was again peppered throughout Modi’s address to Congress – is the base; the cake itself is a work in progress.

As the Manmohan Singh regime understood, nuts and bolts are vital; the optics help. The agreements span the spectrum – defence, technology, trade, climate change and sustainability, energy, and geopolitics – making the partnership comprehensive, even a working model for the US with existing allies. The PM’s speech on Thursday was both a rundown of why the US needs to work closely on shared challenges with India, as well as a highlight that there is more in common between the two countries than there are differences. The Joe Biden administration understands that the asymmetry between New Delhi and Washington is less pronounced than ever before – India is on the rise, and America needs to be ‘great again’.

But this is not the utilitarianism of the crude ‘US-Pakistan putting a lid on the Soviets/Islamic terrorism’ kind. This is of the ‘longue duree’ kind, resistant to regime change in both Washington and New Delhi. The US needs India to punch at least its weight, if not above. And the moment for India using this window of opportunity is temperature-right. Diplomacy teaches us that the sands of geopolitics keep shifting. What Modi and Biden have started is to peg the tent down to a real-world partnership. It’ll not just be good for the two countries but the currently unsure world at large too.