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25-06-2023
NEW DELHI/ WASHINGTON: Following a lavish state visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington, US President Joe Biden has called his country’s partnership with India among the “most consequential in the world”. The media explores the factors that contribute to the visit’s potential in strengthening the ties between the two nations.
The US’s relationship with India, the world’s most populous country is “stronger, closer and more dynamic than any time in history”, Biden said at the completion of a pomp-filled state visit by Modi to the White House.
The remark may not be an exaggeration. “This summit suggests that the relationship has been transformed. It underscores just how broad and deep it has become in a relatively short time,” says Michael Kugelman of The Wilson Center, an American think-tank.
A key reason is that Washington is keen to draw India closer so that it can act as a counterbalance to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. India-US ties had not lived up to their promise following a landmark civilian nuclear deal in 2005 because a liability law passed by India three years later hobbled purchase of reactors.
“This followed a fading commitment to the relationship during (former prime minister) Manmohan Singh’s second term as the leader of a coalition government. With Modi there has been a lot more enthusiasm about embracing the 
US. Biden has also given an overall broad directive to make it work,” says Seema Sirohi, author of Friends With Benefits: The India-US Story.
The India-US relationship has seen many ups and downs since the US seriously began courting India first under President Bill Clinton and then under the George Bush administration. The response from India was measured, never overeager or too forthcoming.
The reason was the way India saw geopolitics and its own place in the global order. The strategy of nonalignment, started by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, has always been deeply rooted into India’s foreign policy.
India never wanted to be seen in one camp or the other, or to be seen as junior strategic partner to a global superpower. Modi has not left the ideals of what some describe as “strategic altruism” in Indian foreign policy.
