India evaluates its ties with a post-Trump US

Tracy Wilkinson, Tribune News Service

Eric Garcetti is not exactly a household name in India.

The Los Angeles mayor whom President Joe Biden nominated to be his ambassador to New Delhi has raised questions for some Indians about whether US-Indian ties might change after the Trump-era favoured-nation status. Administration officials insist India remains a priority and a vital partner.

But few things can match the “Howdy, Modi” rally then-President Donald Trump staged for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 at a state fair in Houston. Modi responded in kind a few months later with a massive gathering billed as “Namaste, Trump” in India’s Gujarat state. The two regularly heaped praise on each other, even as Modi’s policies on human rights and democracy were criticized as abusive.

Garcetti, as a political appointee, has little expertise in India beyond several visits and a year of college study of two languages spoken here, Hindi and Urdu. He does not have much professional experience in diplomacy, although he has a master’s in international relations and was a Rhodes scholar, and he chairs C40 Cities, a global network on climate change. Traditionally, US envoys to New Delhi are steeped in knowledge of the complex, volatile region or have lofty credentials.

It may not matter.

“Overall, the trajectory of US-India relations has been going steadily upward for two decades,” said Vikram Singh, an India expert at the US Institute for Peace’s Asia Center. The changes in the relationship are more likely to be in form and efficiency, with the substantive issues too big to allow for major shifts in the dealings between the two countries, he said. Those include forming a bulwark against an aggressive China and US requests for assistance on Afghanistan.

The relationship “won’t be performative, as it was with Trump,” Singh said. “It will be much more businesslike.” Singh noted there were already several touchstones for Garcetti: focus on an enormous city, issues like climate and energy, emerging technologies and the arts.

“It will be natural fit to go from Hollywood to Bollywood and India’s own tech industry,” Singh said.

Garcetti did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reaction in New Delhi to Garcetti’s nomination has been subdued but generally positive.  In a leading newspaper, the Hindu, commentator K.V. Prasad took note of “unflattering” assessments of Garcetti on his home turf but added he would be welcome here. He gets high marks for what is perceived as a close friendship with Biden, whom he served as a national campaign co-chair in 2020.

“From the standpoint of India, what is important is that Mr. Garcetti can pick up the phone and talk to the President and the Vice-President when required to move the pieces to provide momentum to the bilateral ‘global strategic partnership,’” Prasad wrote.

Others are more dubious, especially given this delicate moment for India, with a flagging economy, devastation from the pandemic and worries about threats from its neighbors like China and Pakistan.

“Garcetti is a rather lightweight appointment,” said Mumbai resident Kishore Mandhyan, a retired senior United Nations official. “The appointment of an ambassador to India who understands the regional situation, who understands the internal situation in India, who understands his own government is very important. You would normally want somebody who can hit the ground running.”

Since taking office, Biden administration officials have taken pains to reassure the Indians of continued goodwill. “There are few relationships in the world that are more vital than the one between the United States and India,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said as he visited New Delhi and met with Modi and other senior Indian officials.

Biden, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III telephoned their Indian counterparts within days of the inauguration, a sign of the high priority being given the long-standing partnership. India was part of Austin’s first trip overseas as secretary, with both sides keen to enhance military cooperation as defense against China. Vice President Kamala Harris is of Indian descent, and there are numerous Indian Americans in senior government posts.

India and the US share wariness of an emerging China, on India’s northern border and threatening to overpower numerous states in the Indo-Pacific region where the US is focusing its own military and political resources. India also fears a return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which would work with India’s archenemy, the nuclear-armed Pakistan.

India also is a partner in the so-called Quad, a “security dialogue” involving the US, India, Australia and Japan aimed at countering Chinese influence, especially in the South China Sea where Beijing is erecting military bases on the disputed islands of the region.

Blinken spent about 24 hours in New Delhi, and repeatedly stressed the “shared values” of “the world’s oldest democracy” — the US — and the largest — India.

In meetings with reporters, Blinken was asked if he had pressed Modi on human rights. Modi has come under severe international criticism, including from US lawmakers of both parties — though never a cross word from Trump — on several steps he has taken to consolidate power and promote his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda. For example, he pushed through Parliament an act that makes it more difficult for India’s Muslim population to acquire full citizenship, and he has repressed dissidents and opposition news media.

Blinken said he raised these problems while continuing to “celebrate a shared set of values” that underpins the two countries’ democracies.

“We view Indian democracy as a force for good in defense of a free and open Indo-Pacific — indeed, a free and open world,” Blinken said at a news conference, with Indian External Affairs Minister SubrahmanyamJaishankar at his side.

Jaishankar seemed to hit back, albeit subtly, at Blinken, saying recent policy decisions in India were taken to “right historical wrongs.” “Freedoms are important, we value them, but never equate freedom with nongovernance or lack of governance,” he said. “They are two completely different things.”

Some local journalist organizations and other activists attacked Blinken for failing to take on the Indian government with sufficient force.

It is not yet clear how Blinken’s comments went over with Modi, who takes umbrage at most criticism.

It will be a challenge now left to Garcetti, assuming he is confirmed by the Senate, and it could be a prickly endeavour when he moves into the heavily guarded Roosevelt House in the verdant 28-acre Delhi compound that contains the embassy and other official US properties. Five chandeliers grace the wide entry hallway, where photographs of almost every US president since Franklin Roosevelt, all of whom visited India, line the marble walls.

US ambassadorships can be political plums, with assignments to more ceremonial embassies like those in the Holy See or Paris often doled out as rewards. For Garcetti, the posting to a country like India that plays such a significant and precarious role in international geopolitics will be a complicated test.

A.K. Merchant, a leader in the minority Bahai community in New Delhi, needed prompting in remembering Garcetti’s name — he knew it was someone from California. Merchant was emerging from a meeting with Blinken where he and other members of the Indian civil society explained the difficulties religious minorities face under the Modi government, one of the challenges awaiting Garcetti.

“Let us see what happens,” Merchant said.