INDIA-ISRAEL TIES: TRADE, TECHNOLOGY, TOURISM TO BE TEMPLATE FOR NEXT 25 YEARS

Investments to boost tourism, education and cultural ties and building bridges with the Indian diaspora in Israel can help boost ties between the two countries

Tuesday afternoon at Ben Gurion airport was one for the books. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi disembarked from Air India One and engaged his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in a bear hug, it marked the beginning of the first ever state visit by an Indian prime minister to Israel. The optics were encouraging; Netanyahu gave Modi the red carpet welcome that’s otherwise reserved for Israel’s closest allies and the Pope.

Modi on his part has also been gracious enough to accord this visit the attention and visibility it deserves. Not only has he kept Ramallah off his itinerary (having already hosted the Palestinian president in New Delhi earlier in the year), he also honoured the memory of the victims of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem and paid tribute to the founding father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl.

And in another well-judged move, Modi is scheduled to meet 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg, whose parents were murdered in the Chabad house attack during the 2008 Mumbai carnage. Moshe, barely two years old at the time, was rescued by his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel. It is worth mentioning here that in December 2008, when then minister of state for external affairs E. Ahamed presented the government of India’s views on the attack at the UN, he listed all the buildings that had been targeted except one: the Chabad house. Nine years later, when Modi meets young Moshe, it will be portrayed as a reminder of the common security challenges that both India and Israel face but it will also perhaps be the most genuine acknowledgement of India’s embrace of the Jewish nation.

That said, it is important to place the evolution of India’s Israel policy in context.

Since India established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, relations between the two countries have grown at an astonishing pace, covering a wide range of issues from defence and homeland security, to agriculture and water management, and now education and even outer space. And while Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have historically been more supportive of India’s relations with the Jewish nation, let’s not forget that it was a non-BJP prime minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, who established diplomatic ties, and also that bilateral ties continued to grow apace even during this past decade of Congress rule.

Similarly, while Modi deserves full credit for going public with India’s de-hyphenation of its Israel and Palestine policies (and taking the related course-correction measures such as rethinking India’s voting choices on anti-Israel resolutions at the UN and dropping the demand for East Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state), the fact remains that in private this de-hyphenation had already taken place. 

In effect then when Modi landed in Jerusalem on Tuesday, he did not necessarily start a new chapter in India-Israel relations but took the one that was opened 25 years ago to its logical conclusion. And while that is a fine thing in itself, for the visit to be truly substantive, it is the roadmap for the future that will hold the key.

In particular, two issues deserve attention.

The first is trade. From just $200 million in 1992, bilateral trade (excluding defence) peaked at about $5 billion in 2012 but since then it has dropped to about $4 billion—which is a pittance compared to both India and Israel’s trade numbers with other countries in the region. Also, bilateral trade has not diversified much—diamonds and chemicals still make up for the large chunk of the pie just as they did in previous years; high-tech is only a small part of the deal. Sure, a few Israeli companies such as Teva Pharmaceuticals, Truphatek, Netafim and Amdocs have big offices, factories or subsidiaries in India, but their numbers pale in comparison to the Israeli presence in the West.

One big reason why India-Israel trade has in fact stagnated is that the Israeli private sector has struggled to find its feet in India. No doubt, India can be a tough market to crack but Israeli businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, mostly remain focused on the Western markets that they are familiar with and for which their products are designed. This also means that those same products are not always well-suited for the price-sensitive Indian market. Costs can be reduced by leveraging the large Indian market and deploying the economies of scale but this isn’t an Israeli strongpoint and Indians haven’t been able to fill the gap either.

This problem with scaling up technology is also evident in the agriculture sector—one of the core areas of bilateral cooperation. Take, for example, the numerous Israeli “centres of excellence” that showcase Israeli agricultural expertise and provide know-how to Indian farmers across India: as individual units they are a huge success, but they are not viable businesses yet.

From the Indian side, there have been only a few major investments in Israel—for example, in 2013, Tata became the lead investor in the $20 million innovation fund at Ramot, the technology transfer company of Tel Aviv University; last year, it also helped set up a new technology incubator; Mahindra, Wipro, Sun Pharma, Reliance Industries and Infosys have also made investments in Israel, but there’s still a long way to go. The Israeli market is too small for most Indian small and medium enterprises, though the big conglomerates stand to gain significantly from investments in research and development.

A third factor for the lukewarm business ties is cultural difference: Israelis and Indian approach business differently and often find it difficult to get on the same page. Finding the right business partner can be tough, and connections between the business elites of the two countries aren’t particularly strong. This sort of feeds into the larger problem of inadequate people-to-people ties between the two countries—which is the second issue that deserves attention.

Simply put, Indians and Israelis don’t know enough about each other. For the vast majority of Indians, Israel is a war-ravaged country that’s located somewhere in the Middle East; for a few others, Israel is this mythic military power, slaying the demon of Islamist terror. From the Israeli side, again, India doesn’t feature on its mental map of the world, and when it does, it is usually as an exotic holiday destination.

Investments to boost tourism, education and cultural ties and building bridges with the Indian diaspora in Israel can help significantly in this context. Indeed, these are the low-hanging fruits in the bilateral relationship that can be plucked right away. 

This article was published on livemint.com

MODI AT THREE: REWIRING DELHI’S FOREIGN POLICY CORE?

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn into office on May 26, 2014, many wondered how the decidedly provincial leader would steer India’s engagement with the world. He had almost no experience in New Delhi, having spent most of his time as a senior politician in Gujarat. His visibly distressed critics wondered: how could he possibly sit at the global high table?

Three years on, such concerns may seem a distant memory. However, it is helpful to keep them in mind, even if only as a reminder of how far he’s come. Today, Modi has not only emerged as quite the globe-trotter, but he has also made foreign policy a top priority, linking it closely with India’s economic trajectory. It is against this backdrop that this piece will assess how Indian diplomacy has evolved under Modi, who is now more than halfway through his five-year term, and where the prime minister may be headed next. Of course, few will disagree that foreign policy has been one of the more successful items on Modi’s governance agenda–he has successfully talked up the India story abroad; at home, the country’s global ambitions have found reflection; and a fundamental refocusing of India’s foreign policy seems to be underway.

Public Diplomacy

The first point to be made is about the man himself. While the Office of the Prime Minister has always played a predominant role in setting the foreign office agenda, Modi has taken ownership of Indian diplomacy to a level unmatched since Jawaharlal Nehru. He has leveraged his own skills as a salesman and showman in equal measure as he seeks to deliver on his vision of how an ascendant civilizational power such as India should conduct itself in the comity of nations. This was most evident at his Inauguration – attended by leaders from the neighborhood – which was reminiscent of an emperor’s crowning where the kings came calling.

Modi’s foreign trips have been consistently public and grandiose, and there is nothing less than a spectacle every time he himself hosts an important head of state. Previous Indian leaders have been welcomed in foreign capitals with much pomp and show, and Delhi has hosted many world leaders in the past. But Modi, powered by his historic once-in-a-generation mandate, has added more than just a tinge of glamor to it all; like a rock star with his speeches and selfies, he has made it larger than life.

One consequence of this has been that India’s public diplomacy has finally come into its own—it has broken out of the bureaucratic mold and become a far more innovative and people-friendly program. A good example of this is how External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has effectively used Twitter to make her office accessible to Indians abroad, serving as a good reminder that foreign policy is about more than just treaties and negotiations – it is ultimately about serving and safeguarding the interests of your citizens.

Software Upgrades or New Hardware?

In terms of specific policies, Modi hasn’t actually made any major changes. All of his leading initiatives and policy formulations – be it Neighborhood First, Act East, Look West, reaching out to Africa, rebuilding ties with the diaspora, or reimagining India as an Indian Ocean power—have been in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)’s handbook for decades. Modi certainly deserves credit for revitalizing these ideas, but are these just software upgrades or has there been a rewiring of Delhi’s foreign policy core?

It is difficult to answer this question with certitude at this point but there are some interesting indicators in the way that Modi has steered India’s relationship with Pakistan on the one hand, and the United States and Israel on the other. With Pakistan, he seemingly started in good faith but when that didn’t bring desired results, he changed tack. Last year, he ordered the “surgical strikes” and since then, there have been a few reports of preemptive strikes on terror launch pads in Pakistan. Does this indicate a new policy towards Pakistan or is it just that the government is trying out different options to see what works? It’s hard to tell but it is noteworthy that Modi is at least willing to test the different tools in his toolbox that most others were unwilling to touch.

With the United States and Israel, he has not really gone against the grain, but instead, he has built on existing trends. However, he has discarded the baggage of past policies that his predecessors were reluctant to shed and pursued a course of action that he thinks best serves India’s national interests.

With the United States, for example, he has comprehensively junked Cold War paradigms and proceeded to strengthen bilateral ties because he believes that this partnership is crucial for India’s development. Critics worried that if India got too close to the United States, it would get caught in the America-China crossfire and alienate its old friend Russia. But Modi is confident that India is capable of protecting its own interests—without tattered ideological cloaks. And so, his government has also deliberately underplayed the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Sure, Nehru was one of its founding members (and NAM remains a proud moment in Indian diplomatic history) but the grouping is now well past its expiry date, and there is no reason why India should pretend otherwise.

Similarly, with Israel, Modi has acknowledged the Jewish nation as a longstanding friend and made a carefully calibrated attempt to de-hyphenate it from Palestine. Both processes were already underway in private but Modi has gone public. This is evidenced by India’s voting patterns at the United Nations and even more crucially in its decision to drop the demand for East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. This happened, notably, during the Palestinian president’s recent India tour and in the run-up to Modi’s trip to the Jewish nation, which will be the first standalone visit by an Indian prime minister.

So, what does this say about how India views its engagement with the world? It may still be too early to connect the dots, but Modi’s top diplomat, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar’s comments from a speech he gave in 2015 may be helpful: India wants to “aspire to be a leading power, rather than just a balancing power.”

In other words, India aspires to graduate from a “global swing state” that can support a pole state (like the United States) to a pole state or “leading power” in its own right. Of course, as Ashley Tellis observes, “leading power” is essentially a watered-down version of a “great power” and achieving either “will depend fundamentally on its ability to durably achieve multidimensional success: sustaining high levels of economic growth, building effective state capacity, and strengthening its democratic dispensation.”

Laying the Groundwork for Global Ascent

Whether India will deliver on this objective in the long-term remains an open question. But it has certainly begun to lay the groundwork. For one, it is actively reaching out to countries as diverse as Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States to establish different kinds of developmental partnerships. While India has longstanding historical ties with all of these states, Modi has very specific ideas about who fits into this potentially transformational moment for India and how.

Modi’s efforts to take a more proactive, as opposed to reactive, approach in the subcontinent must also be taken into account. After all, if India cannot emerge as the undisputed leader in its own backyard, it cannot realistically ascend globally. India’s economic prosperity is intricately linked to its neighbors, hence this government’s emphasis on improving South Asian trade and connectivity.

There are also some interesting new projects in the pipeline, such as the Asia-Africa Development Corridor wherein India will partner with Japan to carry out development projects across the African continent. India has longstanding experience working with its partners in Africa, but it will be interesting if it can now take that cooperation to a new level.

There are clearly a number of moving parts. But if Modi can steer India towards growth and development, he just may put his country on the path to great power status, marking the beginning of a new phase in Indian foreign policy. That would undoubtedly define his legacy.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

HASINA’S INDIA VISIT: MOVING BEYOND TEESTA

Later this week, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, one of India’s staunchest supporters in the region, will finally be making a state visit—her first since the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance came to power in New Delhi in May 2014. In those three years, she has come to Delhi twice—in 2015, to attend the funeral of President Pranab Mukherjee’s wife, and then in 2016, to participate in the BRICS-Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Outreach Summit. But a state visit seemed to have been inordinately delayed.

That Prime Minister Hasina has agreed to a state visit even though New Delhi has been unable to deliver the long-awaited water-sharing agreement on the Teesta river is noteworthy. In the India-Bangladesh context, this agreement could have served the purpose of a high-value deliverable—especially for Hasina who has invested enormous political capital in Bangladesh’s relationship with India. She would have rightly been expecting a deal on the Teesta in return. However, continued opposition from the state government in West Bengal has not allowed for any diplomatic progress to be made on this issue.

Hasina’s critics at home have often charged her with peddling an Indian agenda and failing to secure Bangladesh’s interests. The Teesta deal was supposed to be her comeback– her big diplomatic deliverable–but if that’s not going to materialize, then she will be seen as having returned empty-handed. In other words, Hasina is actually taking a significant political risk with this trip. The question then is: Why and why now? What are the other items on the agenda that could possibly counter-balance this risk? And what can India do to ease the pressure?

The answer lies in counter-terror cooperation. This has been one of the biggest achievements of the India-Bangladesh bilateral in recent years but as radical jihadi groups mount a renewed threat in this part of the subcontinent, it’s time for both countries to up the ante.

When Hasina and her Awami League government returned to power in 2009, they launched a nationwide crackdown on groups such as the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh(HuJI-B) that had been given a free hand by the previous administration of Khaleda Zia (which counted the insidious Jamaat-e-Islami amongst its allies). Hasina’s government also assured New Delhi that anti-India activities will not be tolerated on Bangladeshi soil.  In keeping with her word, Hasina destroyed terror camps and went after militants from India’s northeast who had found sanctuary in Bangladesh.

But this was not all. When militants were flushed out of their safe havens in Bangladesh, many fled to India, particularly West Bengal. Here, the state government turned a blind eye to the jihadists as they regrouped and gained strength. The situation became worse after the Shahbagh movement in 2013 led to an outpouring of secular, progressive sentiment in Bangladesh—and in the process, galvanized extremist elements. Last year’s deadly Dhaka cafe blast was just one example of how the latter have been reactivated. Some have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, adding yet another layer of complexity.

Across the border, in Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s refusal to take on Islamist hardliners, even as general law and order in the state has deteriorated, has created a ticking bomb of its own. This became evident in 2014 when an accidental blast at a family home in Burdwan district exposed the JMB’s network in Bengal—as well as a plot to topple the Sheikh Hasina government. Since then, several links have been exposed between terror networks in West Bengal and Bangladesh and other transnational groups. For example, the Dhaka attack masterminds are known to have traveled around Bengal and met with at least one Islamic State sympathizer in Malda. Another suspect was recently arrested from Kolkata.

These developments have serious security implications for both India and Bangladesh as the Burdwan blasts in Bengal and the Dhaka café attack in Bangladesh stand proof. It will be interesting to see if and how they form the backdrop for a defense pact that may reportedly be signed during Hasina’s upcoming visit.

Understandably, much of the commentary about the defense pact has been focused on the Chinese angle—and how this is India’s response to China’s overtures to Bangladesh in particular and in the region in general. There has been a lot of talk about how Delhi has been worried about Dhaka’s purchase of two submarines from Beijing and is, therefore, seeking to strengthen its own defense relationship with Bangladesh. In Dhaka, the concerns are different. Some analysts worry that a defense deal with India will upset China while the opposition has claimed that this may not be in the best interests of Bangladesh.

But irrespective of the China factor, few will disagree that given the current security scenario, wherein local Islamist radicals connected to transnational groups have reared their ugly head, the deepening of military ties between Delhi and Dhaka is a necessity.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

INDIA-CHINA STRATEGIC DIALOGUE: BIG TALK, LITTLE PROGRESS

Last week, India and China held the first round of an upgraded strategic dialogue in Beijing. The deliberations, led by Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and Executive Vice Minister in the Chinese foreign ministry Wang Yesui, reportedly lasted several hours. However, though they were describedas fruitful and productive by government sources, there is little to show in terms of progress on the ground.

Specifically, there seems to have been no movement on the two main sticking points on the agenda: China blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and China shielding Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar at the United Nations Security Council. In both cases, the official reason for Chinese obstruction has been couched in principled terms—the sanctity of the nuclear nonproliferation regime in the first case and the absence of adequate proofagainst Masood Azhar for him to be sanctioned in the second case. However, in reality, both positions are driven by geopolitical concerns.  As long as these concerns and considerations continue to define the bilateral, it is difficult to see how the two countries can embark on a strategic partnership of any consequence.

India and China have had a Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity since 2005, but there are “no true areas of strategic convergence” yet. Instead, the bilateral agenda for both countries has consistently focused on the settlement of the boundary dispute and the strengthening of economic and trade ties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to somewhat modify the template during his 2015 visit to China, as evident in the joint statement, stating:

“This constructive model of relationship between the two largest developing countries, the biggest emerging economies and two major poles in the global architecture provides a new basis for pursuing state-to-state relations to strengthen the international system.”

Interestingly, the statement also had a section on “Shaping the Regional and Global Agenda”:

“As two major powers in the emerging world order, engagement between India and China transcends the bilateral dimension and has a significant bearing on regional, multilateral and global issues. Both Sides agreed to… coordinate their positions and work together to shape the regional and global agenda and outcomes.”

Last week, after the dialogue, Jaishankar echoed these sentiments. However, there is little evidence suggesting that it will fructify any time soon. China is simply not interested.

India may want to play with the big boys in Beijing, but China sees no reason to change the status quo. As far as China is concerned, India is a regional power and simply not in the same league as itself. Hence, when India demands a seat at the global high table, which is essentially what something like membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group is all about, China will do whatever it takes to keep India out. This is also why China will continue to indulge, support, and shore up Pakistan—so as to counterbalance India in the region. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that China has refused to remove its shield protecting Masood Azhar at the UN.

That said, as China’s global profile grows and it increasingly seeks to present itself as a rule-shaper and rule-keeper, it will be interesting to see if China eventually perceives its public defense of a proscribed terrorist as embarrassing enough to merit a change in strategy. Nevertheless, as of now, Beijing does not feel compelled to change its position on Masood Azhar anytime soon.

However, in several interviews this author has conducted over the past month as a Stimson Center South Asian Voices Visiting Fellow, China experts at various American think-tanks have speculated that China may be privately pressuring Pakistan to address the issue of terrorism. China is investing upwards of $50 billion in building an economic corridor through Pakistan that will connect to its own Xinjiang province, and it is imperative that Pakistan put its house in order if the project is to be effectively implemented.

In India, as argued here, the key question is whether Pakistan’s effort to clamp down on terrorism at home will extend to anti-India groups. It seems that China has no good reason to push Pakistan on this in the present context. On the contrary, Beijing will not mind at all if Pakistan—having managed the situation at home—continues to keep the pot boiling in the subcontinent. For long, China has used Pakistan to undercut India’s influence in the region. Today, as India’s economy races far ahead of Pakistan’s, the latter’s disruptive influence has waned. While it still retains some nuisance value vis-à-vis India, terrorism emanating from Pakistan cannot derail India’s growth, just as Pakistan’s anti-India narrative on Kashmir cannot prevent India from joining the big boys club. China may be aware of this changing dynamic, but for the time being it has chosen to continue dealing with India as a middle power that must be shown its place in the world order.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

HOW INDIA BECAME OBAMA’S UNEXPECTED FOREIGN POLICY WIN

As President Barack Obama’s eight-year tenure at the White House draws to a close, the general consensus is that his foreign policy record is mixed at best. However, on the India front, the president will be closing on a definitive high. U.S.-India ties are stronger today than they were at the beginning of Obama’s first term, and there is a sense of optimism about the bilateral relationship. This outcome is somewhat unexpected because India was hardly a priority for the Obama administration. In fact, the relationship got off to a rocky start in 2009 and it was not until the final years of the Obama presidency that relations began to flourish.

Initial Challenges

After Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the U.S. government and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh struggled to match the successes that marked the first half of that decade, most notably the U.S.-India nuclear deal and the 2005 defense framework. The nuclear deal marked a generational leap in bilateral ties and set the stage for a strategic partnership. It also acknowledged India’s “exceptional” position in the emerging world order, which manifested into U.S. support for India’s entry into the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Thus, it would be unfair to expect something on this scale every two, five, or even 10 years.

Regardless, the inability of Singh and Obama to take the deal to its full potential was disappointing. Having spent all of his political capital securing the deal, Singh failed to defend it, resulting in the 2010 Indian nuclear liability lawwhich effectively gutted the deal. In the United States, Obama was so preoccupied with fixing the economy at home that he let his predecessor’s biggest foreign policy achievement fall by the wayside. Moreover, on the few occasions when he did take up issues relating to India in his early years, Obama usually made matters worse. For example, he appointed Richard Holbrooke as his first Af-Pak envoy, whose mandate, which was supposed to extend to India, was curtailed after New Delhi expressed its displeasure with the appointment.

Defense cooperation followed a similar pattern. Both Singh and Obama sought to build on the gains they had inherited, but could only make limited progress. For example, in 2012, they launched the one-of-a-kind Defense Technology and Trade Initiative that was supposed to spur joint development and production of high-end defense platforms, but failed to deliver any big ticket items right away.

On a person-to-person level, Obama and Singh, both sort of professorial, enjoyed a certain level of respect and comfort, which was evident during the state visits of 2009 and 2010. However, this bonhomie was not enough to arrest the decline in bilateral ties, which was marked by sparring at the World Trade Organization and an atrophying  defense partnership, exacerbated by unfavorable domestic and global environments. In India, one corruption scandal after another caused the prime minister’s reputation to plummet, and governance was paralyzed on all fronts, including foreign policy. In the United States, Obama’s much-touted “pivot to Asia” – with an eye on China – was having a hard time getting off the ground. At one point, India was supposed to be the linchpin of this pivot, but that too turned out to be a non-starter. Moreover, Obama’s pivot to Asia – and away from the Middle East – was ill-timed. It came when the Arab world was experiencing one of its biggest upheavals, and Obama’s stewardship (or lack thereof) disappointed many, including those in New Delhi’s security establishment.

Obama’s approach to Pakistan and the Afghan war was also criticized in India. Many believed that the United States was fleeing the conflict and leaving India to clean up the mess. Additionally, Obama’s Afghan commitments restrained him from pushing Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, which did not go over well in India. There was frustration on both sides, and just as many wondered if the bilateral relationship had been “oversold,” the 2013 Devyani Khobragade episode damaged relations even further.

Turning of the Tide

When Narendra Modi was elected prime minister in 2014, it seemed unlikely that the situation would improve. Modi had been on a U.S. visa blacklist for 10 years, and many perceived a temperamental disparity between him and Obama. The assumption was that the United States and India would have a pragmatic, business-only relationship at best.

However, Modi upended these calculations from day one. Not only did he put aside his personal grievances against the U.S. government, but also reached out to President Obama with open arms. Together, they injected new momentum into bilateral ties by joining forces in the fight against climate change and enhancing clean energy cooperation. Both men were passionate about these issues and placed them at the heart of the relationship.

Further, the discourse on climate change was inextricably linked to nuclear energy. These have become the two defining issues of the India-United States bilateral in the 21st century. In fact, one of the first big breakthroughs in bilateral ties was during Obama’s 2015 visit as chief guest for India’s Republic Day celebration when both sides announced that they had come to an understanding over the nuclear liability clause. This set the ball rolling for America’s Westinghouse Electric to begin work on its six nuclear energy reactors in India in the summer of 2016, marking the commercialization of civil-nuclear ties.

It was also during this visit that defense cooperation got back on track. The new bilateral defense framework was signed, and four “pathfinder projects” were announced under the DTTI in addition to cooperation on aircraft carrier and jet engine technology. Months later, Modi cleared the way for two additional major defense deals: the purchase of 15 Chinook and 22 Apache helicopters, which had been stuck in the pipeline for years.

Things began to move quickly thereafter. The U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region, made possible by assertive political leadership in New Delhi, resuscitated the American pivot to Asia. In a related move, in September 2016, the Modi government broke with India’s Cold War apprehensions to sign a key foundational military agreementwith the United States. Then, in December, Obama codified India as a “major defense partner,” a unique designation not yet given to any other country.

It is anybody’s guess how President-elect Donald Trump will steer the relationship. However, one can be certain that if he encounters obstacles, the robust institutional framework of the U.S.-India bilateral, buoyed by strong bipartisan support, will help him stay the course.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

HINDUS FOR TRUMP?

The recent community event in Edison, New Jersey, organized by the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC) for presidential nominee Donald Trump has generated much mockery and some anguish in America and India. This is par for the course for just about any Trump event these days, and it is tempting to write it off as an amusing footnote in an election that has, if nothing else, been full of surprises, to put it gently.

And while it is no one’s case that the Hindus for Trump event marked any major shift, trend, or development in this election cycle – reportedly, many members of Trump’s audience in Edison do not even have a vote in the United States and most came for the entertainment and the samosas – it is worthwhile to ask if this event reflects the attitudes and aspirations of at least a section, even if small, of the Indian-American community.

The RHC seesm to be the only outfit in the United States that claims both a Hindu religious identity and a clear partisan political organization. All other Hindu groups, and there are quite a few with deep roots in the community and extensive networks across the country, are officially bipartisan. Fashioned after the Republican Jewish Coalition, the RHC has been floated by industrialist Shalabh (Shalli) Kumar who, along with his wife, has donated a large amount of money to the Trump campaign. The Hindus for Trump event was evidently his display of muscle power to the Republican party leadership – and in that limited context, it was a success. It drew about 5,000 people and remains the only occasion wherein the presidential nominee has addressed an Indian-American gathering. This is even more interesting because the Republicans don’t get very many Indian-American votes. The community, like most other immigrant groups, votes Democrat.

And while this trend is expected to hold strong through the current election cycle, there are indications of a sense of disillusionment within the Indian-American community, particularly with issues relating to Hindu beliefs, heritage, and history. We see this in the California school textbook controversy that goes back to 2006 and in the more recent Diwali school holiday issue. Additionally, there seems to be some disappointment with the Democrats’ India policies while Republicans are considered to be relatively more pro-India.

So, where does the Hindus for Trump rally, RHC, and Trump fit into all of this, if at all? There are two factors that seem to bring the two together: First is Trump’s strong rhetoric against Islamist terrorism which has emerged as an overarching concern among his support base.  The second factor is a little more complicated: for long, Indian-Americans who would have ideally voted Republican for conservative fiscal policies have shied away from doing so because of the latter’s evangelical wing. Trump, with his multiple marriages and many dalliances, has an uneasy relationship with the religious right. And that somehow makes him a fit for the vote bank being nurtured by the RHC.

But even this is an awkward fit at best – for example, Trump’s anti-immigration stance stands out like a sore thumb in this context, even though his supporters painstakingly seek to make the distinction between illegal and legal immigrants. Similarly, how does the RHC, which is presumably against cattle slaughter, support a candidate who once sold steak? There are many such loose ends. In the long term, it will be interesting to see if the Indian diaspora in the United States, like its counterpart in the United Kingdom, shifts to the conservative side or remains loyal to the Democrats.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform

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POST-URI STRIKES: INDIA’S TAKEAWAYS

In the several days since India announced its “surgical strikes” along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, there has been a plethora of commentary already with experts analyzing its military, diplomatic, and political angles threadbare. Now’s a good time to take a step back and view the larger picture – how does this change the India-Pakistan equation in Kashmir and beyond? What are its implications on India’s security matrix? How does it fit into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Pakistan policy and India’s overall foreign and security policy?

Shorn of TRP-generating hyperbole and hysteria, the fact of the matter is that such cross-border raids have been carried out many times before, and there is little evidence to suggest that last week’s strikes were even qualitatively any better (either carried out deeper into Pakistani territory or inflicting greater damage or taking out targets higher up the value chain).  And that’s fine.

The key here is not that the raid occurred but that it was publicized. That was a first. Why? Why did this government break from the past? The easy answer is because it needed to assuage domestic sentiments. There had been a series of terror attacks – Gurdaspur, Pampore, Pathankot, Uri – and to the public at large, it was looking like the government was doing nothing more than kadi ninda (severe criticism), even though it was supposed to be more hawkish on security affairs.

But the Modi administration wasn’t the only one to have faced such public pressure. The government of Manmohan Singh, for example, was in a far worse situation after the Mumbai carnage in 2008, and even in 2013, when the LoC lit up after reports emerged of the two Indian soldiers being killed and their bodies being mutilated. At least in the latter case, it is believed that the Indian Army carried out retaliatory strikes across the LoC but these were not publicly acknowledged – until now. The Congress party recently listed three “surgical strikes” that had been authorized by the United Progressive Alliance government when it was in power.

The conventional wisdom (pushed in no small measure by the Pakistani establishment and contested in some Indian military circles) was that announcing such strikes would compel Pakistan to respond, and this could escalate into a full spectrum military confrontation between the nuclear-armed nations. While previous Indian governments have played safe against this backdrop, the Modi administration took a calculated risk.

It publicized the strike but also carefully framed it as a counter-terror operation, undertaken in the defense of Indian citizens and in an area that India considers to be its sovereign territory. It even urged the Pakistan Army to do its bit to control non-state actors, thereby drawing a line between the Pakistani state and its proxies. This was to ensure that at least on paper the attack was not seen as an attack on Pakistan itself.

Most importantly, Modi and his team seem to have reasoned that the Pakistani government, instead of forcefully responding to the attack, would in fact underplay the Indian strike. Because acknowledging such a strike, especially after it had been so announced by India, would make it look bad. Even in a worst case scenario, wherein Pakistan reacted more negatively than expected, it would be safe to assume that the international community would bear upon Pakistan to exercise restraint – just as it has with India, when the latter has been attacked and repeatedly so.

What this means from India’s point of view is that there is slightly more space than previously estimated for a conventional response to sub-conventional threats from Pakistan. This is the big takeaway, the big win. Now, how much more space there is, and how far the Modi government will probe it, remains to be seen. The lesson to be learnt is that the price of inaction is often greater than wrong actions.

Note that Modi or his team didn’t do anything that was drastically different from their predecessors (such as striking the Lashkar headquarter in Muridke, an option India considered after Mumbai 2008 but dropped). They have no magic wand or silver bullet to speak of. They have the same old toolkit—they just try to work it better.

In fact, it is important not to confuse this old toolkit with the availability of a new one – India still does not have very many options for responding to Pakistani attacks in a way that will not only penalize Pakistan but also compel it to change its India strategy. India can develop some retaliatory options over time, such as covert strikes on terror training camps (not the same as launch pads), but even these will only be punitive. India’s basic problem with Pakistan – its sponsorship of anti-India terrorism – remains.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform