President Obama met Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sept. 28 on the last leg of the Indian leader’s visit to the U.S. Sept.23-29, for the United Nations General Assembly meetings, and a historic trip to Silicon Valley.
Touted as the 3rd one-on-one within a year between the two leaders, the bilateral meeting , which was held at the United Nations, largely reinforced qualified commitments to each other’s agendas on climate change, terrorism and counter-terrorism, intelligence and cybersecurity, defense cooperation, science and technology and education issues, U.N. Security Council membership, and the power equation in the East Asia and Pacific theater. All of it adds up to solidifying relations according to some experts. Others consider it “more of the same.”
Climate Change
Climate change was high on agenda at the bilateral meeting. Even as President Obama acknowledged relations overall had been “elevated” and there had been “excellent” follow-through on a whole range of issues, he pressed Modi to take a leadership role in the climate conference in Paris later this year. “I really think that India’s leadership in this upcoming conference will set the tone not just for today but for decades to come,” Obama said. Modi reiterated his commitment to climate change but stood firm on economic growth commitments. On other bilateral issues Obama said Modi had provided an “outstanding” partnership and not just paid lip service but acted on his promises.
That’s something on which Prof. Stephen Cohen, senior fellow on The India Project at the Brookings Institution differs with the president. Despite Modi’s business oriented visit, American investors are unhappy with the lack of, and pace of reforms during the one year under Modi and much of it has been talk rather than action, Cohen contended.
Acknowledging Modi faces an uncooperative opposition party in the Rajya Sabha like Obama and a Republican Congress here, he said, “Leadership requires building coalitions and working with the bureaucracy. Modi reminded him of another Indian leader Ram Monohar Lohia. “A charismatic speaker but what did he do in terms of delivery?” Cohen asked.
Modi acknowledged more than once, first to the business representatives he met, and then again at the bilateral forum with Obama, that he was noting down the “constructive” recommendations and suggestions (read criticism) from the American business community.
Shift in Priorities
Washington’s priority vis-a-vis India has shifted, according to Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. The civil nuclear cooperation deal has been replaced by climate change going by the emphasis given to it by Obama’s team at the bilateral. The veritable nail on the nuclear deal’s coffin was hammered Sept. 21, when General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt said the company would not invest in nuclear projects in India under present conditions. What Obama called a “breakthrough” just a year ago when Modi announced the idea of an “insurance pool,” has held no currency with U.S. investors.
The fallout from the nuclear deal’s failure to launch will be felt in the future, Curtis said. It created a number of skeptics among U.S. policymakers. “There will be second-guessing on the U.S. side about results in the future when it puts its credibility on line and makes such a big political investment,” Curtis said. “Republicans are really angry about this (nuclear deal),” Cohen maintained.
Modi’s Agenda
Apart from climate change, Modi stressed India’s growth as a global power and demanded Washington press for U.N. Security Council restructuring within a limited time frame. He also urged support for expanding New Delhi’s role in East Asia and the Pacific, called on Washington to support its membership in the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation body, and in the International Export Control Regime.
On clean energy, he said India’s agenda was not just a plan to have 175 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2022, but a development strategy to transition to a more sustainable energy mix. Senior Indian officials hinted at an major climate announcement Oct. 2. The economic partnership is the key driver of the bilateral relationship, Modi said, and pledged to work harder on a stronger bilateral framework of economic cooperation including the Bilateral Investment Treaty on Globalization Agreement.
Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institutions said on the Indian channel NDTV, that the bilateral meeting was striking for the breadth of issues covered, and showed an effort to take the relationship outside the Pakistan dimension.
Modi’s first order of business is to tear down the Nehruvian past, Cohen said, but what to replace it with is still an open question. Curtis however, considered it a “good” meeting with “good atmospherics,” which further solidified ties.
Other Meetings
Modi had several other important bilateral meetings on his last full day in the Big Apple, with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. He also attended an exclusive lunch hosted by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, attended by among others, Obama, Putin and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Modi also gave a speech at the U.N. Peacekeeping Summit, where he noted the frontal role India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had played in peacekeeping. He promised an additional 850 Indian peacekeepers.
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