Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a highly-publicized state visit to the United States last week. Modi’s visit to the US prompted a mixed reaction from South Asian Americans and human rights groups, some of whom protested the prime minister’s visit due to his human rights record in India. During the visit, which was only the third state visit of President Joe Biden’s term to date, Biden and Modi discussed shared efforts to mitigate the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine and security in the Indio-Pacific region.

We asked SIS professor Amitav Acharya a few questions about what Modi’s visit to the US could mean for US relations with the world’s most populous nation. He also analyzed how Modi’s visit could impact his re-election campaign heading into 2024.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was once barred from visiting the US over allegations related to religious mob violence, made his first state visit to the US to meet with President Joe Biden this week. What does this trip represent for US-India relations, while both nations continue to navigate a complicated relationship with China?

In a perfect world, India and the US should be natural partners and friends. Both are large democracies, the US being the oldest and India being the largest. There was a time when the two countries treated each other with mutual respect and admiration.

While President Biden giving Indian Modi a state dinner—only his third such dinner—became big news, think of the time in 1949 when President Harry Truman sent his personal plane, the Independence, to bring then-Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru from London to the National Airport and received him personally there. But during the Cold War, the US allied with Pakistan, India’s rival in South Asia, believing that Pakistan would provide more help against communism, while India preferred to be non-aligned (with a tilt towards the USSR to get its help against Pakistan in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, during which the US sided with Pakistan). Now, their ties are becoming what they should have been decades ago.

The Modi visit is important, but the shift in US-India relations started earlier, going back to the George W. Bush administration, which accepted India’s status as a nuclear power. The US’s motivation in warming up to India is mainly strategic: to seek India’s support in countering the rise of China at a time Pakistan has become a close ally of China. But there are also economic motives: India, the world’s most populous nation—now eclipsing China—is a huge market for US high-tech and military exports. There is also a domestic calculation: people of Indian origin, the wealthiest group of immigrants in the US, are highly skilled and a growing political force in US elections.

For its part, India sees the US as a major counter to the threat it sees from China, with which it fought a humiliating war in 1962 and is now embroiled in frequent border conflicts. India also wants to cut its dependence on Russia for weapons, viewing the US weapon systems as superior in quality and having been granted increasing access to the US military systems. In short, the Modi visit to US was meant to cement what has been a growing strategic partnership that serves the strategic interest of both countries.

On the other hand, one should not overlook the limits of the US-India relationship. There was a lot of hype, both in US and India, about the historic nature of the Modi visit to the US and how it is a win-win situation for India and the US. But, for its part, the US will always prioritize its traditional allies like Australia, Japan, and South Korea over India. I doubt the US will consult India if it decides to bury the hatchet with China. India might gain access to high-end technology and weapons, but these could have been secured without a pomp-filled state visit. The US will still withhold the most advanced technology and weapon systems from India. Finally, when it comes to a strategic relationship, India cannot have its cake and eat it, too, beyond a point—meaning getting cheap Russian oil and a tight US strategic embrace at the same time. Sooner or later, these two will come into conflict.

The focus this week is on India’s relationship with the US, but India’s ties to both China and Russia shadow that focus. What does the importance of India—and India’s ties to China and Russia—say about global politics and the idea of a US-run world order?

The world order we have today was substantially the handiwork of the US after World War II. India does not like some aspects of that order, which has denied it a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. As a rising power, India wants more voice in shaping world order. It is noteworthy that in his speech to the joint session of the US Congress, Prime Minister Modi reminded everyone that India has moved from being the 10^th largest economy when he took office in 2014 to being the fifth largest today—and would become the third largest within the coming decade. But India does not feel the US is out to suppress its rise in the way Chinese leaders feel about the US.

There is no US policy of containing India’s rise; on the contrary, the US wants to see India emerge as a global power. Modi seems reassured by that message, although there are sections of Indian public opinion which does not see it quite that way. There are also tensions between US and India over the Russia-Ukraine War. India has refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the UN, abstaining in key UN resolutions. India has been buying large quantities of Russian oil at a discount, which has caused anger in some sections in the US. But the Biden administration has pragmatically decided to overlook this, avoiding any sanctions on India and deeming India’s support for the US strategy against China to be more important than pressuring India to cut ties with Russia (which India has refused anyway).

In the final analysis, the Modi visit to the US and the warm and enthusiastic bipartisan welcome he received—with some notable exceptions, like India-born Congresswoman Pramila Jaypal (D-WA) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY)—is inspired more by the two countries’ common hostility to China than by shared commitment to the current US-led international order, which India never fully or substantially endorsed. This might become a problem in the future, but as long as both countries have their eyes on China and what they see as Beijing’s aggressive moves against their interests, the US-India partnership will continue.

I should also point out that while India got lots of attention from this visit in the US and internationally, not all of it was positive, nor will it necessarily lead to enhanced global status for India. It could lose some ground for moving too close to the US, given the unpopularity of the US in the Global South, including in India itself.

Modi is currently running for reelection. Is strengthening ties with the US something that could bolster his reelection campaign?

This is an important question. Modi’s has many detractors in India. His ruling BJP controls only half of Indian states (six in coalition). The other half, 14 states with more than half India's population, are ruled by other parties.  

Modi’s opponents in India might have seen his visit as American endorsement of his Hindu nationalist politics. Even the décor of the White House for the state dinner for Modi was accentuated by saffron and lotus. Few people in the US media noted that the lotus is the election logo of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while saffron is a trademark color of Hindu nationalists (it is also one of the colors in India’s national flag).

I think Modi is a decent person, and his administration has some really talented people, like External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, but he does not have the democratic credentials of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. Many Indians, and not just those from the opposition parties, criticize his government not only for promoting religious intolerance, but also for undercutting the country’s cherished democratic institutions. Some of this is normal political play, but it is also a valid concern, both in the US and India.

One should not forget that in the US, despite all the positive vibes Modi’s visit generated, there was a letter signed by over 70 senators and House members that urged President Biden to raise issues of decline of media freedom and the weakening of democracy and civil society in India under Modi. In India, Modi’s political opponents would see his visit—and the generally favorable publicity he received—as stoking nationalist pride in India and boosting his chance of winning reelection next year.  

In short, for critics, the Biden-Modi summit will do little to reverse the decline of India’s democracy. The opposite might be the case; it might strengthen Hindu nationalism that has undercut India’s democratic and secular politics.