Prime Minister Narendra Modi has nicely rounded up the year on the diplomatic front by getting US President Barack Obama to be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations in January 2015. Even if Mr Obama is in the final stages of his relatively staid presidential tenure, a period in which US leaders are seen as “lame duck”, inviting him may indeed be deemed the most concrete gain of Mr Modi’s six months in office.
This is on account of the fact that the invitation to the US President speaks of the clear desire of Mr Modi to befriend the United States as a special kind of partner for India’s progress, evident from the fact that this is the first time India is inviting an American President to be the chief guest on Republic Day. Typically, the chief guest is chosen from a country that India wishes to keep in focus in a given year. It is also a wider acknowledgement of that country’s continuing importance in India’s scheme of things. In the case of the United States, both are true naturally, but there is more.
There is a signal all round that India may be shedding inhibitions of the past to befriend America in a manner it had not done before, although the two countries signed the India-US civil nuclear agreement in 2005. This impression is strengthened by the fact that New Delhi did not bother concerning itself with the “lame duck” factor. The question really is not President Obama but the United States. And it is precisely this that critics of a deep and abiding engagement with the US are likely to concern themselves.
There cannot be any doubt that the US has been the world’s most important power since the Second World War on account of its technological, financial and military prowess, which have given it inordinate influence — more than any country can dream of — in international life. And yet, India and America were “estranged democracies”, chiefly because, in the Cold War years, India did not wish to walk into the American sphere of influence after getting free of colonial rule.
Both countries re-adjusted their sights when the Soviet era ended. New Delhi grew closer to Washington in time. It is, however, a fact of life that Washington has had a complex relationship with most major countries, and has more than one close friend in different regions of the world, even when those friends do not see eye to eye. It is on such a chess-board that Prime Minister Modi is semaphoring Washington. This can potentially be a move of historic proportions, and demands deft play on India’s part.
