Chow-Time With Bidens Should Not Lull Modi Into Any False Hopes About Uncle Sam's Intentions

If there is one thing India can learn from the coming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US, it is about how to use a combination of hard and soft approaches to get what you want.

The key takeaway is this: it is only when you have hard power that soft power can be brought into play. If you have less hard power, you should play soft and malleable without giving away anything of substance to the hard power. 

The Indian media has gone ga-ga over how the Joe Biden administration is laying it on thick by giving Prime Minister Modi another opportunity to address Congress. He is being wined and dined by the US President, which includes a private dinner with the Bidens.

This is amusing, even depressing, for Biden is not inviting Modi for dinner because he really wants to treat India as an equal; it is to get us to sign on the dotted line as a lower level ally with as little American concession as possible. 

What Biden is trying to slow down or reverse is India’s growing ability to defend its own interests despite US pressure, as was the case with our stand on Russia-Ukraine war and oil purchases from the former. 

Throwing in a free meal or a televised speech to Congress costs the US nothing if India agrees to go along with the US on most geopolitical issues. This is about a genuine hard power trying to get a softer power to toe the line. Modi should not fall for this.

One of the big mistakes Indians make is to misread symbolic gestures and words as the real thing, when that is far from being the case. Chow-time with the Bidens does not mean the US Deep State will discontinue its hostility to Modi’s “Hindu nationalist” government.

Even as Uncle Sam took his time to appoint an ambassador to India, the man who got the job after a long wait, Eric Garcetti, has promised US lawmakers that he will raise human rights concerns with India. In India, this will be read as another attempt to hold our feet to the fire if we do not follow the US’s geopolitical line on major issues.

So recent comments from top officials in the Biden administration that India is a vibrant democracy should be seen as soft-soap ahead of the Modi visit to the US. No one wants to put Modi’s back up just ahead of a state visit to the US.

It is worth recalling that during the Barack Obama administration, the US President repeatedly praised Manmohan Singh as a “wise leader”, and as “Mr Guru”. During his meetings with Jawaharlal Nehru before China annexed Tibet, the then Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, pretended to be an eager student to Nehru’s knowledge of geopolitics.

We should have been able to separate soft signals from hard realities after what China did in Galwan in June 2020. Even though Modi went out of his way to mollycoddle Xi Jinping during his annual meetings with him, it did not stop China from moving its troops forward as part of its policy of steadily expanding its line of control one square kilometre at a time. China does not mistake soft power for hard. 

India is a $3.75 trillion economy today, and could overtake Germany and Japan over the next few years as the world’s third largest. It is a rising hard power, but there is nothing inevitable about this rise. But the mere possibility worries not just China, but even the US.

The latter wants India to join its camp as a junior partner — like the UK, Japan and Germany — before it becomes an independent force all by itself. Once that happens, which could be roughly by the early 2030s, no power can influence India beyond what it is itself willing to negotiate on equal terms. 

India must clearly pursue hard power on its own terms, and the way to get the respect of the US and China is by growing its economy and military steadily despite attempts by the Big Two to undermine this process. We must talk softly, and focus on acquiring a big stick. We must do more, talk less.

In Arthur Koestler’s 1940s book, The Yogi And The Commissar, the writer contrasts the approaches of the two. The Yogi, at one extreme, wants to focus on inner change; the Commissar will use any means necessary to get things done. But truly beneficial results emerge from a combination of the two.

Put another way, the Yogi seeks soft power, the power within, while the Commissar relies on hard power, power over others.

The lesson for India is that every nation must achieve a balance at some point. Right now, it is hard power that is lacking. Soft power will become useful only after hard power is achieved. Soft power without hard power only invites ridicule and cultural theft. Soft power needs hard fences to protect.

Modi must play Yogi when meeting Biden, but in negotiations over real issues, he must play for time so that India is free to acquire the hard power it needs to support its spiritual and cultural power.

In specific terms, this means offering the lure of the Indian market and defence contracts to influence US policies, but quietly pursuing its own self-interest elsewhere. It means developing our own power in cutting-edge areas like artificial intelligence, just as we did in space, atomic energy, and digital public infrastructure.

Appearing submissive and soft while quietly strengthening oneself in critical areas should be the strategy. Without hard power, no country will respect India.