Narendra Modi is stepping foot in the United States more often than his predecessors, perhaps to escape the years when he was barred from entry. On Tuesday, however, he landed in New York with a newly released title, that of Prime Minister of the most populous country in the world, for his first proper State visit.
India wants to sit at the table of the greats and, in turn, the greats of the world compliment it to tip the scales. Tonight, Modi will have the vegetarian State dinner at the White House, with Joe Biden, who until now had only presented this to his counterparts in France and South Korea.
Earlier, Modi will have addressed the Congress and the Senate, in joint session, for the second time, a privilege with which only Churchill and Mandela had previously distinguished themselves.
On Tuesday, Modi also met businessmen including Elon Musk. “India is more promising than any other country,” said the owner of Tesla and Twitter, a highly censored network in the country.
Early yesterday, Modi continued from the mat, in front of the UN headquarters, the postures of the International Day of Yoga, which he himself promoted.
Relations between India and the US can also be very flexible and Biden will pretend that he does not remember the idyll between Modi and Trump.
On July 14, Modi will again be the guest of honor, this time in Paris, with Macron, at the July 14 parade.
The Pentagon, for its part, is confident that India, Russia’s largest arms customer, will announce the purchase of US engines for its domestically manufactured fighter jets. Modi, for his part, would like the United States’ offers of co-production and technology transfer to materialize.
The truth is that since the end of the cold war, despite the fallout in New Delhi, US multinationals have put their factories in China and not in the most populous democracy. Despite the current rhetoric, no major changes are expected. India pretends to believe the siren songs, beneficial for its stock markets.
Today there will be talk of “strategic alliance” again, as far as the Quad forum is concerned. But the reality is much more complex, as the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs, S. Jaishankar, reminds us, who talks about “taking advantage of all opportunities”.
The “special and strategic” relationship between New Delhi and Moscow has deeper roots, but a much lower human and business exchange. India is also part of the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with Russia and China.
In any case, relations between Washington and New Delhi had never been so fluid. Even if Jaishankar says that India is not up to the task of shoring up the hegemony that emerged from the Second World War, because “the world has changed, no matter how backward the media may be”. And even if it does not recognize itself in the old non-aligned rhetoric, it claims a multipolar order in which India is one of the poles, guided by its interest.
The good image of India in the United States has to do with the economic success of Indian immigrants, pre-selected in origin by qualifications. It’s a reciprocated love. 6% of income tax collection in the US comes from citizens of Indian origin. These in turn, since uprooting, worship the Hindu chauvinism and one-size-fits-all nationalism of the BJP, Modi’s party.
In Silicon Valley, Indian computer scientists – most of them from the South and of the Brahmin caste – run some of the most capitalized and innovative firms in the world. In fact, 25 of the companies in the S index
The flip side of the undisguised brain drain is the cooling of expectations in India. Abroad, moreover, hardly anyone is able to mention an Indian brand.
However, a few months ago, when the economy rebounded after the impact of covid, India came to be presented as little less than the white hope of capitalism.
The burden test is always the same, a timid relocation of the assembly or manufacturing of Apple’s Taiwanese suppliers, such as Foxconn, from China to India. We’re talking about just over 5% of iPhones. The story is spoiled by the revelation that half of the rear covers were defective and that Wispron has left the factory due to labor disputes.
The truth is that, despite programs such as Make in India, hardly any industrial employment has been created during the Modi years. Despite the fact that all the success stories in Asia have passed through the factory before reaching the office, the Brahmin shrewdness believed it had found a shortcut that would avoid getting its hands dirty with industrialization.
But what works in Singapore or Dubai works in a country where tens of millions of young people enter the job market every year.
If the export of “Hindu” goods has increased in the last two years, it has been partly due to the re-export, to virtuous Europe, of Russian crude oil, refined in India, for the greater glory of the greatest of tycoons, Mukesh Ambani.
Modi has completed many of the big works started by Manmohan Singh, from airports to roads, but the Japanese-funded bullet train has just been postponed for another five years. The deadliest accident in decades, this month, is eye-opening.
The US, for its part, will turn a blind eye to the lynchings and destruction of 249 churches this month, without Modi speaking out.
Finally, India, which this year chairs the G-20, says it hopes to act as the voice of developing countries and consults 125 of them with regard to some issues. Something that reinforces the aspiration to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Although he will have to convince China first.
