Opinion | The US does not treat India as an equal
By Tom Fowdy
On Monday, the United States conducted a one-on-one summit between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, showing a determination by Washington to continue to engage New Delhi as part of its "Indo-Pacific strategy" despite clear tensions emerging over the country's amicable position to Russia, of which it sees as a vital strategic partner for energy and arms. Other meetings are set to occur in the following days, but despite this, tensions nonetheless have bubbled to the surface. After the Biden-Modi meeting, U.S Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stated that there has been "a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials" in India, a criticism of New Delhi which had never emerged previously.
India is in some ways, the most favorably placed prospective power on Earth. Not only has it been anointed as the lynchpin of America's entire strategy of containing China, the aforementioned "Indo-Pacific" but in conjunction with this, all-other powers in the world seek ties with it, including Russia and despite severe tensions in recent years, even Beijing itself. This gives New Delhi a powerful diplomatic bargaining hand, which has long held a strictly independent foreign policy and seeks to preserve what it describes as "strategic autonomy". But herein lies the problem, the United States doesn't really see India as an "equal" in terms of partnership, but as per prescribed, a mere tool for containing China.
India sits at a crossroads over its future. Although it has not had the same level of growth success as China has in the past 40 years, largely due to problems with its political, social and economic systems, it otherwise remains true that as a state of 1.3 billion people India has the potential capabilities to be a superpower state which exceeds that of the West itself. This is why its strategic rise has been made a priority to attempt to counter China with western leaders having made little secret of such. Modi has taken this to his own political advantage to try and secure economic concessions for India from the West, attempting to appeal to investors as an alternative emerging market and in turn orientating Indian foreign policy against China by inciting nationalist tensions.
Whilst this is all well and good for India, the snag in such a weaponization of India is that the West of course seeks to affirm their own political and military supremacy over the world, and not of course India itself, India might be a means to an end, but is not "the end" so to speak, just like how China was buttressed by the West in the 1980s to counter the Soviet Union under the assumption it would be influenced by western values towards being a democracy. India of course, is often described as the "world's largest democracy" making it more ideologically tolerable. Yet ultimately it remains true that its rise would still represent a seismic shift in global power whereby a non-western state, just like China, gains global influence.
And as it happens, under Modi it is true that India's posture has shifted away from being "liberal" with the ruling BJP having emphasized an ideology of Hindutva nationalism which has acquired an increasingly quasi-authoritarian character. Tensions have risen between the majority Hindu population and other religious minorities, including Muslims and Sikhs alike. The West for their part have been willing to overlook this as their focus has been on China, yet since the Ukraine war the question of "human rights" in India has mysteriously appeared in the spotlight recently and in US rhetoric for the first time. Although the US will not of course weaponize it in the way they have done to China or derail relations, it nonetheless speaks of the reality that these countries will always seek their ideological and value supremacy over India.
This ought to remind us of the future. If India threatens the hegemony of the West to any degree, be it political, military or economic, will it be tolerated? Will the label of the "world's largest democracy" be able to suffice it? The answer is no. The West will ultimately only accept an India which rises on terms and conditions they set for it, and would oppose it in any other instance. India is a partner, but it is not an equal. This is why China, India and Russia in particular have a vested interest in a multipolar world, one which is not dominated by the West specifically. As of present, the West and India may have established a set of common interests, but New Delhi must always seek to keep its options open at all costs and not place all of its eggs into one basket. Ceding its strategic autonomy to appease America would be all in all, a terrible and costly mistake for India.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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