American civil society must respect Indian democracy

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Washington for a state visit this week. As D.C. gears up to welcome the leader, it is abuzz with everything India. Think tankers, opinion leaders and journalists all have hot takes and are eagerly looking for major announcements. However, while the two governments remain optimistic and highly enthused about the prospects for expanding the bilateral relationship, Washington’s policy ecosystem is skeptical or, at best, cautiously optimistic.

The relationship between India and the U.S. has never been stronger. The two nations continue to expand their relations across various spheres, with the latest addition of high technology and joint defense production. But while the partnership has steadily expanded at the highest levels of government — defense ties from Hawaii to the Himalayas, economic ties surpassing $100 billion in trade — it continues to find challenges at what is known as the track two level of diplomacy, involving unofficial non-government bodies such as think tanks, academia and the media.

For example, Daniel Markey, a senior advisor at the United States Institute of Peace, argued in an article in Foreign Affairs that the U.S.-India partnership is one of interests, not values; while citing divergences both recent and from the past, he chose multiple poor examples. He wrote, “Gandhi frustrated Roosevelt by prioritizing India’s struggle for freedom against the British Empire over the war against imperial Japan and Nazi Germany” and referenced Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s criticism of U.S. involvement in Vietnam in 1966.

The poor choices are not isolated ones, however. Markey and many other South Asia experts in Washington have spent the last few decades focused on the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, at times even prioritizing that over the U.S.-India relationship, given Pakistan’s eminence in the U.S. war on terror. Organizations and scholars that prioritized U.S.-Pakistan relations have a hard time switching to U.S.-India relations and often contribute commentary that is highly disconnected from the region.

Moreover, American think tanks’ engagement with India is unique in many ways. For example, India’s opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, was recently hosted by Stanford University in California, the Hudson Institute in Washington and other think tanks and educational institutions. The Indian opposition leader took every opportunity to deride his nation’s democratic credentials and engaged in partisan commentary, berating Modi’s party, the BJP.

A question to ponder: How often do American think tanks and universities offer a platform for an opposition leader to engage in partisan campaigning? Similarly, is the undergirding force behind all American bilateral relationships reduced to the binary of values vs. interests? Are U.S.-Japan or U.S.-Saudi Arabia relations reduced to their differences over women’s equality, LGBTQ rights or immigration? Besides Western Europe, are there any nations that share America’s “liberal values”? If the answer is none, then why single out India?

Interestingly, this indirect interference in domestic affairs is a major bone of contention for Indians who see such intervention as reeking of Western overreach. While “non-interference” is anathema to Washington, it is a matter of self-determination for nations of the Global South.

As India emerges as a strong pole in the multipolar world, U.S. engagement becomes even more significant. India carries special solidarity with nations of the Global South: a shared blood-stained history, concerns about climate change and struggles in lifting its population out of poverty.

Over the last few years, leaders from across the world, from Guyana to Papua New Guinea have applauded Prime Minister Modi’s leadership for delivering vaccines and other public goods. New Delhi has consistently advocated for the needs of the Global South. Even a week prior to his trip, Modi called for increased African representation on the global stage and for including the African Union in the G-20.

The Global South envisions a more egalitarian approach to world affairs. This is in sharp contrast to the post-World War II order that, while it increased representation compared to the prior imperialist period, remained a top-down system, i.e. rich nations dictating terms to poor nations. The Global South was forced to count on the mercy of rich nations for debt relief and to fight epidemics.

This power dynamic made Western nations the self-anointed leaders of moral authority on the world stage. Over the last 75 years, American and European leaders hectored and patronized leaders of the Global South on various social issues affecting their country — a practice largely seen as neo-colonial — while they went about running their societies with virtually no foreign interference.

Fast forward to 2023. Practices that used to be taken for granted can no longer be. There are more nations vocally challenging the interference of Western nations in their domestic policies, and India is one of those nations.

Over the next few days, as scholars and South Asia experts make forecasts and predictions for the bilateral partnership, they may want to turn down their virtue signaling and refrain from making moral arguments. That is, of course, if they seek to advance the partnership at the track two level. If not, while U.S.-India track one, or government-to-government, relations flourish, track two (think tanks, academia and media), which often follow the developments of the government, may, in this case, stand apart. This would prove to be an impediment to realizing the full potential of, in the words of several Biden administration officials, “the most consequential relationship.”

Akhil Ramesh is a senior fellow with the Pacific Forum. He has worked with governments, risk consulting firms and think tanks in the United States and India. Follow him on Twitter @akhil_oldsoul.