The rewards of Indo-US ties

The first meeting between PM  Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump has been scheduled for end June in Washington DC.  This ‘no-frills’ interaction has been described by the Indian Foreign Ministry as discussions that “will provide a new direction for deeper bilateral engagement on issues of mutual interest and consolidation of a multidimensional strategic partnership between India and the US.”

The orientation of the bilateral relationship between the world’s oldest and largest democracies has been complex and often contested. It was routinely described during the Cold War decades as an ‘estranged’ relationship between the two governments though societal contact was robust. The nuclear issue bedevilled the relationship from 1974 onwards and to the credit of the  2005 Bush-Manmohan Singh perspicacity and resolve, the bilateral moved from deep estrangement to one of tentative engagement.

In mid-2014, soon after assuming office, PM Modi was able to invest this critical relationship with his distinctive stamp and the personal ties that he developed with then President Barack Obama were unprecedented for the two countries. The moot question for end June is whether the first meeting with Trump will lead to such affable personal chemistry and whether there will be policy continuity in the India-US relationship post-2008 — when India was accorded exceptional nuclear status due to the high-level political resolve at the time.

It is almost a decade since then and hence the reference to a ‘new direction’ is appropriate for a variety of inter-linked reasons. In short, the bilateral grid has changed — from the domestic political context in both countries to the animated global strategic framework.  Protectionism, emotive nationalism, radical ideologies, and jihadi terror have acquired alarming tenacity.

The underlying turbulence has many contributory factors and perhaps the most significant is the change in profile and posture of the US in the Obama-Trump transition.  When Trump became the unexpected winner of the US election in late 2016, he promised to review and recast every major initiative of his predecessor and both the withdrawal from the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the Paris climate change agreement are cases in point. 
PM Modi will be going to the US to meet with a Trump presidency that seems to have little depth or interest in India  (recall the Trump line about “I love Hindu’..?) and the US is yet to appoint an ambassador to Delhi. More recently in early June the counter-factual Trump allegation about India and climate change met with a firm rebuttal from the Indian foreign minister and this is part of the uneasy atmospherics.

However, PM Modi who is known for his pragmatic approach will seek to consolidate the many bilateral initiatives that have been embarked upon post-2008 even while firefighting on other issues that are directly related to the Trump churn.

Climate change is a global issue and PM Modi has already indicated the Indian response, namely that the commitment to Paris remains undiluted despite the US withdrawal.  The more urgent issue relates to the status of the Indian IT industry apropos the US and Trump’s determination to reduce H1B visas and the ‘hire American’ advocacy. A new direction is sorely needed here. 

The Indian IT industry enjoyed a windfall over the last two decades as a major global service provider and even though the contribution was at the lower end of the value chain, the growth of Infosys and Wipro are illustrative of this trend. Market forces and cost-cutting globalisation has seen the mushrooming of global firms in Indian cities and  Bengaluru with over 750 foreign companies is an example.

However, the nature of the IT industry is also changing globally and the advent of automation, robot advisers and AI (artificial intelligence) is leading to a storm wherein many of the Indian IT advantages will become redundant. 

Large-scale retrenchment and unemployment in the traditional  IT  workforce both in India and in the US is on the cards and the Modi-Trump meeting will have to ponder over what kind of political management is warranted for an inherently market-driven technological transmutation.

The long-term issues will be in the security and strategic domain and relate to whether there will be continuity from the Trump administration in the post-2008 defence and military inventory policies. Over the last eight years, the US has emerged as a major military supplier and the challenge is to harmonise Modi’s ‘Make in India’ commitment with the Trump prioritisation of ‘Buy American’.

The writer, a former Commodore in the Indian Navy, is Director, Society for Policy Studies, Delhi. Views expressed are personal.