With G20, US fetes India’s rise while accepting differences
For two and a half decades, it has been a top and consistent goal for the United States across very different presidencies -- encouraging the rise of India.
As New Delhi takes the global stage by leading the Group of 20 summit, President Joe Biden will be there as a cheerleader, even as US policymakers come to accept that India's interests will at times be at odds with Washington's.
The gathering comes the same year that India topped China as the most populous nation and surpassed its former colonizer Britain as the fifth-largest economy, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi being feted on visits to Washington, Paris and elsewhere.
"I think in some ways, Prime Minister Modi has wanted to make it India's coming-out party to the world -- as a major power, with its own independent voice, whose time has come," Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said of this weekend's G20 summit.
The US has viewed the fellow democracy as a natural ally that can rival an autocratic and increasingly assertive China, which has clashed with India on their disputed border.
But India has stood firm against another US priority by refusing to isolate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, a nod to its historic ties with Moscow. Heading into the G20, India has sought to play down geopolitics and seek consensus on development issues such as debt relief and climate change.
Rights groups also charge that Western courting of Modi comes despite democratic backsliding under the Hindu nationalist leader, with attacks on minorities and harassment of critical media.
Alyssa Ayres, who helped build relations with New Delhi as a State Department official, said it should come as no surprise that India, a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, remains "fiercely independent."
She said that India saw no contradiction as it seeks "ties with all across the board."
The Biden administration has repeatedly saluted Modi's leadership and said it will work with India to achieve success at the G20, including on reforming international economic institutions.
Aparna Pande, a South Asia expert at the Hudson Institute, said that India, in its quest to boost its own global role, has always favoured a multipolar world rather than one dominated by a single power.
Despite its differences with US, India still offers a strong partner at a time that China is wooing developing countries, she said.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States was "very concerned" about India's position but has "grudgingly accepted it," said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the nonpartisan Wilson Center think tank.
"I think that Washington may even see India's position as one that could have advantages for the US if there is a desire down the road to try to push for some type of mediated, negotiated end to the war," Kugelman said.
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