US Shouldn’t Mistake Modi for India
There’s room for a policy which both recognizes the country’s geostrategic importance and honors its pluralistic politics and culture.
Not as dominant as he looks?
Photographer: Dean Lewins-Pool/Getty Images
Warmly welcoming Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US this week, Congress and President Joe Biden’s administration will underscore the flip side of growing antagonism to China: a deepening infatuation with Modi’s India.
The affection was manifest most recently — and embarrassingly — when US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, wearing a colorful Indian outfit and gesticulating emphatically, hailed Modi as a “visionary,” who was “unbelievable,” even “indescribable.” No doubt, Modi’s India is irresistible to many US leaders as the world’s biggest arms buyer, an enticing market for US capital and goods, and the ancestral country of an affluent, politically consequential and largely Democrat-voting diaspora.