Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adhering to all the expansive prophesying and future-oriented paraphernalia thought by Nostradamus, did posit the Indian leader into the hot saddle of power and administration in the nation. India, as prolifically propagated and amply amplified by the New Delhi denomination, has become the guardian credo of nationhood. The proud and arrogant parable that the New Delhi dispensation since 2014 is characterised by too much rumbustious rhetoric and endless colonisation has not taken up the fancy of the public opinion stratosphere.
Bharatvarsha is at a quintessential crossroads with the forked roadmap right ahead. Since time immemorial, there has been a gainful belief amongst the establishment that the Global super cop, the United States of America, is a hegemonic, expansionist and neo-liberal arm-twister. India is surmounting the “Criticality” that every nation has to live through and emerge unscathed as part of a nation’s destiny-ordained global odyssey. All these sobriquets now, smoothly and salubriously, settle for a perfunctory delineation of the arch antagonist, the People’s Republic of China. PM Modi, with his anthology of being an efficient Tea maker along with being a monk on a pilgrimage, has had to initiate unpopular and non-populist decisions such as the mocked Demonetisation and the swansong of the surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
In the fast-changing vortex of the Global ecosystem, the United States still sustains itself and holds sway as the grandiose regulator nation-state. India and US being part of the routinised rigour of Democracies with an open and liberal order with an often reinstated constitutionalism and the raga of the rule of law. Especially since the sanctions were imposed on Bharat in the aftermath of the Pokharan II nuclear explosions, the expansive negotiations between Strobe Talbott and Jaswant Singh could not bridge the wide diplomatic and political chasm between New Delhi and Washington. The inking of the 2008 123 nuclear cooperation agreement steadied the turf for the India-US relationship, which has had a chequered trajectory since the opposite voting scenarios at the United Nations and other hallowed International Organisations. The manner in which President Kennedy responded to the SOS epistle of Pandit Nehru at the critical hour of the Chinese military invasion has been shrouded in misinformation and diplomatic gobbledygook. Washington offered its squadrons of starfighters and radars to guard the Indian cities. India and US seem to be headed the same way. This has been realised by the American establishment in the light of the Chinese proverbial” peaceful rise” along with the quest for the Indo-Pacific. Thus, the US has realised that it can be more consequential in the Asia Pacific with a more hands-on board, of which the newly re-invented Quadrilateral grouping is a good example.
President Roosevelt egged on London during the dying days of World War II to grant independence to India. And Pronto, after decades, New Delhi basks in light in its operational and functional oeuvre of Amrita Kal, which is all slated to embark on an odyssey of donning the mantle of a true blue developed and first world nation-state. The pertinent poser is that, in the transformative days of military modernisation and interdependence, how long could New Delhi have ignored the Global sway and the grit of the United States of America? New Delhi might not subscribe to the spirit of American exceptionalism and Mount Sinai nationalism, but how India attained strategic significance from the proud pedestal of Former President Donald Trump reflects the all-pervasive and comprehensive change in the American narrative on Bharatvarsha.
Defence-related acquisition of weaponry in the nation’s geopolitical and economic ecosystem runs through a hackneyed trajectory. Gone should be the days when the acquisition of a weapons system required a stately period of around 10-12 years, and by the time the weapons system was acquired, it ran the chance that the system would become redundant and obsolete. The Indian armed forces are a proud forerunner and a deft instrument for the nation’s sustenance and enhancement of security and stealth. Thus, they deter the antagonist. Still, apart from the hallowed valour and sacrifice narrative, the larger idiom of Defence in any nation is stiffly underlined by the calling of economics and the monetary aspect of it all. This year the Defence allocation stands at a quantum of an increment of 62 431 crores to a kitty of 90 000 crores in the 2023-2024 leave, which is a significant improvement.
The theme of modernisation to has been delved inside with detail, with the modernisation outlay and the development of infrastructure outlay being augmented to 1.62 lakh crore, which is a 57 per cent enhancement since 2019-20. The total defence outlay has seen an avid enhancement of 13 per cent over the last few years. One can also contend that some observers rate the budget as bigger but not better. One of the pertinent posers happens to be the fact that there is an inherent incapacity in the Armed forces to utilise the larger segment of the defence outlay intertwined with the need to firm up the nation’s economy through the instrumentality of greater capital investment along with the dictum of strained Public Finances.
What needs to be comprehended is the new development which is why there has been a change in the American stance towards India. China has emerged as a grave and material threat to the health and stealth of the comity of states, and its biggest rival is Washington’s industrial and Trade complex. The US has cannily created the aspect of Quad with an undeclared objective that China should be contained as a geopolitical and a geo-economic power. Also, it can be understood that with the Chinese hegemonic perch, India, with other Asian democracies, can serve as an able counterweight to China which might gel with the manifest destiny of South Asia, which might see a conflict between New Delhi and Beijing. Thus as both US and India are challenged by the Chinese might and influence, common enemies naturally bring the twin nations as allies. Thus, the resultant camaraderie and ally-hood between New Delhi and Washington. The twin democracies will naturally converge as allies in the coming future.
Also, with the idea of decoupling being attempted by Trump and Biden now, China stands at the crossroads of geo-economics in an age marked by convergence. Similarly, New Delhi also attempted to isolate Beijing by banning several products and services from China. Thus, all in all, the US seemingly have realised that India and US have a convergent manifest destiny to meet with the state of Pakistan, which has earned the epithet of being a failed state and cannot sustain its status as a frontline nation of utility by the White House.
PM Modi stands tall as an anointed Global leader, which is nowhere self-anointed. India’s G-20 Presidency to reflects the rise of New Delhi in the global firmament with the assiduous tasking of peace-making and peacebuilding all across the vitriolic and anarchic setpiece of the larger international system. In a zero-sum game, New Delhi has distinguished itself and the post-Trump American acceptance, accolades and acclaim coming the way of Bharatvarsha is no mean achievement by any proportion and BOP power equation.
Apart from the avowed emphasis and strenuous stress on a war fought on the fundamentals of technological upgradation, the impetus has to emanate from larger outlays and smart utilisation. Here, the United States of America can become a key supplier of technology and military hardware on the lines of what the Kremlin Defence trade means for Raisina Hill. When we contend with the phenomenon of the American Dream, the Indian Dream, constituted by India’s ascent on the global ladder, carries commendable weight. Under the New Delhi dispensation rubric, the nation is not a luftmensch. Still, we are a flock of stately start-ups who believe in dreaming big and working determinedly for the Indian ascent. And, post-2014, it’s not serendipity at all. Many American lawmakers and the establishment have realised and accepted these facts well.
Also, the Indian Diaspora has come into its own in the United States, wherein the presence of leaders and Congressmen of Indian origin is beginning to play an important role both in the setups of the Democrats and the Republicans; New Delhi has come of age in the domestic political firmament of United States. Also, the Asian and Indian rise as honest and law-abiding workers and entrepreneurs are other reasons why the Indian cause has been placed at a higher perch in the American establishment’s radar nationally and globally. Apart from the Diaspora factor, the US needs new weapons markets and receptacles for its multifaceted technology. India has also made rapid strides in AI, cyber warfare mitigation and genome technology, and surmounting the all-pervasive threat of the Covid threat, which Western states, including the United States of America, have received positively and appreciably.
What more can New Delhi look forward to, facilitating a symbiotic need-based security and non-security partnership between both nations in a fast-transforming world with the antagonism with Beijing’s ministrations serving as an adhesive between India and the United States? The Politics of the US, too, has realised the significance of the Indian power and potential, where right from the Madison square garden speech of Modiji to the present-day address in the US Congress serves as an ideal developmental template for the partnership between both nations.
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