Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to the US from 21-24 September to attend the upcoming Quad Summit that’ll be hosted at Biden’s Delaware residence. This follows his trips to Moscow and Kiev earlier this summer, which readers can learn more about from the preceding hyperlinked analyses, as well as his National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval’s trip to St. Petersburg last week for the BRICS NSA Summit. Doval also had a separate meeting with Putin where he briefed him about Modi’s trip to Kiev.
What’s most interesting about Modi’s upcoming trip to the US though is that it’s taking place against the backdrop of newly troubled ties brought about by an alleged attempted assassination last year and America’s role in Bangladesh’s regime change last month. The first greatly worsened mutual perceptions of one another, both at the elite and civil society levels, while the second could pose serious national security threats depending on the policies that the new government implements.
The Quad Summit is therefore a convenient opportunity for bringing Modi and Biden together to discuss their problems afterwards. This year’s event was supposed to be hosted by India, but it agreed to swap hosting duties with the US. It’s unclear why, but Biden might be too frail to travel and/or his team wanted this summit to part of his legacy. Another possibility is that it might be too scandalous for Biden to travel to India after his government accused it late last year of conspiring to kill a dual US citizen.
In any case, apart from trying to patch up their problems or at the very least better manage the mistrust that’s crept into their ties over the past year, they’re also expected to discuss the Ukrainian Conflict. It was explained here a few months back how India might supplant China as the leader of the incipient non-Western peace process, which is also in the US’ interests. Modi’s trips to Moscow and Kiev make him one of the few people in the world who’s met with both Putin and Zelensky to discuss this conflict.
It’s premature to predict the content of any Indian peace proposal, let alone to conclude that one even exists at present, but the point is that Modi’s trip will concern more than just the Quad and bilateral ties with the US. While some will try to put a pro-Western spin on his visit, they should remember that AUKUS replaced the Quad as the US’ envisaged platform for containing China. It’s also important to know that Russo-Indo financial ties are soaring whereas problems have begun to afflict Russo-Sino ones.
Modi therefore isn’t conspiring against Russia or BRICS by meeting Biden, the false perception of which was debunked in detail here, but is advancing India’s interests in ways that don’t harm those two. Russia respects its partners’ right to cultivate ties with the US, and interestingly enough, it just began to re-engage with the DC-based IMF after a several-year hiatus. As for BRICS, it’s just a network of countries that voluntarily coordinate their financial policies, not an anti-Western bloc like some have imagined.
Neither Russia nor BRICS want to see India come under more US pressure so the possible alleviation thereof (even if only in part) after the next Modi-Biden meeting would serve their interests too. To be sure, expectations should be tempered since the trouble in Indo-US ties is very serious, but Delhi’s desire to play a role in the Ukrainian peace process could help overcome some of this mistrust. Observers should thus keep an eye on this event, which isn’t anything special, but it shouldn’t be ignored either.
