The areas of agreement and disagreement in Indo-US relations have traditionally gravitated around strategic issues, proliferation, export control, technology denial regimes, imposition of unilateral sanctions, human rights abuses especially in the context of Kashmir, denial of religious freedom, democracy, defence cooperation, climate change and even protocol.
Some of these are especially relevant in the context of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to the US starting this week.
Human rights and protocol
It may be recalled that during his visit to the US in 2019, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had refused to participate in a scheduled meeting with the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Relations Committee because representative Pramila Jayapal, who had authored a resolution on human rights abuses in Kashmir, was to be present during that meeting. Responding to Jaishankar’s refusal, senator Kamala Harris, now US vice president, had said: ‘It is wrong for any foreign government to tell Congress what members are allowed in meetings on Capitol Hill. I stand with Rep Jayapal, and I’m glad her colleagues in the house did too’.
In July 2021 and again in March 2023, US secretary of state Antony Blinken formally raised issues of human rights violation in India during his meetings with Jaishankar. In April 2022, Blinken said that the US was monitoring the rise in rights abuses in India. These allegations about human rights violations in India, especially against minorities, have been repeated by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. His pointed remark, during his recent visit to the US, that Modi was ‘always talking about the past’ and ‘looking into the rear-view mirror’ has become a source of embarrassment for the prime minister.
Directly or indirectly, the issue of human rights is sure to come up again during Modi’s visit. His response will likely be to insist his government respects human rights.
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Strategic dissonance
Strategic dissonance has been at the core of US-India engagement especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the open strategic embrace between Russia and China. India’s ambivalence towards the invasion, its refusal to condemn Russia’s actions both at the UN General Assembly and in the UN Security Council, the acceleration of bilateral trade with Russia powered by the exponential increase in the import of Russian crude oil and India’s decision not back down on the import of S400 missiles from Russia, have already sent a powerful message to Washington that India’s relations with Russia are not negotiable and that Indo-US relations must be de-hyphenated from India’s relations with Russia. In many ways, the US administration has acknowledged this reality by, for example, waiving the CAATSA sanctions that India’s purchase of S400s would otherwise trigger.
In the context of the US-China-India triangle, India is unwilling to support the US in its escalating tensions with China over Taiwan, which many US analysts believe is steadily drifting towards armed confrontation. India has its own problems with China but is not ready to rule out the possibility of engagement and conciliation. In the past year, we have seen the handshake between President Xi Jinping and Modi in Bali despite Galwan, the acceptance of the controversial buffer zone in eastern Ladakh to maintain peace on the border, the decision not to permit any discussion on the Sino-Indian border issue in parliament, and the increase in bilateral trade with China.
Besides these moves, India is “positive” on the idea of an expansion of BRICS – the grouping that links it to Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa – with its initiative of floating a BRICS currency to rival the US dollar. The increasing use of the rupee in bilateral trade with a growing number of countries will also be at the cost of the primacy of the dollar.
Several analysts have flagged the common threat posed by China to India and to US allies in the Asia Pacific region. Over time, they hope for strategic congruence between India and the US. The centrepiece of this developing congruence is believed to be the Quad, where, however, the ‘C’ word is never mentioned. Instead, there are repeated clarifications by members that the Quad does not have a security agenda. Even in domestic discussions in India the government has gone to great lengths in its self-restraint, as already noted. Jaishankar went to the farthest point when he recently said: ‘Look they (China) are the bigger economy. What am I going to do? As a smaller economy, I am going to pick up a fight with the bigger economy? It is not a question of being reactionary. It’s a question of common sense’. The Modi government appears committed to biding its time and willing to even swallow small indignities till India develops adequate comprehensive national strength. It does not look like that Modi or his advisers will deviate from this path by supporting the US in a confrontation with China over Taiwan.
Ashley Tellis, strategic affairs analyst at Carnegie Endowment, says Biden is rolling out the red carpet for Modi because ‘the world has changed’. US relations with Russia and China most certainly have changed. What has not is India’s long-standing unwillingness to reconfigure its relations with Russia and China, whatever the pressure from the US.
Export controls and the myth of technology transfer
The Pokhran nuclear test of 1974 triggered massive US retaliation in the form of denial of critical dual-use and munitions commodities and technologies. The underlying principle behind US export controls on India was to target national capacities. These export controls viewed technology as indivisible, its utilisation for civil or military purposes was seen as a matter of choice. Their description as ‘end-use’ and ‘end-user’ controls was essentially a red herring to mask their true nature as capacity controls.
To ensure other advanced countries did not supply to India what the US was actively seeking to deny it, Washington pushed for the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG in 1974, the Australia Group in 1985 and Missile Technology Control Regime or MTCR in 1987.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visiting Pokhran after the 1998 nuclear tests. Photo: File photo
Paradoxically things began to change when India carried out the Shakti Tests of 1998 and declared itself a de facto nuclear weapon state. By 2005, the George W. Bush administration was prepared to carve out an exception for India from the guidelines of the NSG. There were strategic and technological reasons for this. As India continued to break through the performance threshold of several controlled commodities and technologies through indigenous R&D, the US began to realise that wisdom lay in seeking the cooperation of India to multilaterally control the export of dual use commodities and technologies to other countries.
This was the rationale for gradually inviting India to be a member of the very cartels of which it had been a target. After becoming a member of MTCR, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement, India sought membership of the NSG. This hasn’t happened so far, not that it matters as far as accessing critical technology is concerned. The fact is that membership of these supplier cartels does not mean that India ceases to be targeted for denial of cutting-edge commodities and technologies. Cooperation and denial can go hand in hand. When cooperation is forthcoming, it comes with a high price.
Tellis has recently contended that there has been a remarkable transformation in Indo-US relations which is evident from the ‘transfer of defense technology’ to India. However, the term ‘transfer of technology’, even in the context of joint production, means (as in the case of proposed GE414 Engine), only the transfer of a complete defence platform i.e. the complete system or sub systems in knocked down condition that could be assembled in India. Some components of that system or subsystem could be made in India, if the technology for that exists in India.
However, it does not mean the transfer of the technology required to manufacture the transferred platform. Transfer of technology in that sense occurs only in cases of dated technologies. The GE414 is not a dated technology.
Currents of convergence
The important role played by the US in mainstreaming nuclear trade for India through the NSG waiver has already been noted. There is no doubt that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Sino-Russian strategic embrace, and possible military conflict between US and China over Taiwan are hastening Washington’s attempts to draw India into a similar embrace. China’s rise as a military power is a source of alarm for the Modi government too, even if it is not stated so openly. Both countries have large trade deficits with China, particularly the US, whose annual imports from China are a staggering $564 billion. Both are mindful of the almost crippling global dependence on the import of relatively cheap goods, with low or intermediate level technology, from China.
India is cognisant of US fears about a possible Chinese occupation of Taiwan – the only territory outside of the US which has, among other things, the largest and most sophisticated concentration of high-end semiconductor fabrication facility such as TSMC, which uses US origin technologies. The fear that it could fall in the hands of China has resulted in the US government attempting to transfer fabrication and production facilities technology and software for semiconductors to the continental United States.
This is significant in the context of the reported ongoing discussions between India and the US for technological cooperation in semiconductors under the ICET initiative. The exterritorial jurisdiction of US laws in the event of the US allowing the setting up semiconductor fabrication facilities in India would have to be addressed by both countries.
India’s concerns
In view of the clear and repeated expressions of US concerns about India over a range of issues, will Modi too, among other things, express India’s concerns on the issues that bother us? These are:
(i) the possible imposition of unilateral sanctions against India in the future over such matters as the import of advanced weapons and crude oil from Russia, or over resumption of trade with countries like Iran with whom India has had civilisational links;
(ii) whether the US will provide guarantees for continued supply of parts and servicing of defence platforms and civilian goods validly imported from the US;
(iii) whether the US will observe the sanctity of contracts;
(iv) the extent to which US could apply extraterritoriality of US laws on goods manufactured in India using controlled US technology;
(v) whether the US will discriminate against India vis a vis its NATO and/or non-NATO allies with regard to access to dual-use commodities and technologies for civilian end use; and
(vi) whether it will use India’s future dependence on US origin commodities and technologies to coerce India to align its foreign policy with that of the United States.
To the extent to which Biden raises questions about human rights and religious freedom in India, Modi is also likely to insist that these concerns are misplaced given India’s long-standing democratic credentials.
Prime Minister Modi is unlikely to say anything in the US that could jeopardise the success of the G20 Summit in India in September in terms of just the presence of world leaders, especially of China and Russia. With that caveat, it is what he conveys in his address to the US Congress that will indicate what the Modi government’s priorities are and where it stands on issues that divide, and supposedly unite the two countries.
Rahul Singh is a former civil servant who retired from the Ministry of Defence, Government of India.