An Indian shopkeeper offered kites with images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Barack Obama in Mumbai this month.
NEW DELHI — Ever since India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited President Obama in the fall, the word in New Delhi has been that the two men — one a former Hindu activist, the other a former law professor — had “chemistry.”
Mr. Obama broke the ice by leaving his White House staff behind to give Mr. Modi a personal 15-minute tour of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. Soon after, Mr. Modi decided to invite Mr. Obama to Republic Day celebrations this month, becoming the first Indian leader to choose an American as his guest for the spectacular annual parade.
It is hard to say who was more taken aback: the Americans — Mr. Obama’s attendance required him to juggle the timing of the State of the Union address — or the Indians, when Mr. Obama said yes. He is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Sunday.
The emerging good will between the two leaders was not preordained. Mr. Modi came into office with a formidable piece of baggage, having been blacklisted by the United States government for nearly a decade over his handling of religious riots in Gujarat, the state he led. American diplomats’ efforts to mend fences were late and awkward, and Mr. Modi is known to hold a grudge.
The meeting between the two leaders in Washington, he said, provided that emotional turning point.
This week has brought a marathon of last-minute negotiations, mainly over issues that the United States and India have been grappling with for years.
Mr. Modi has styled himself as a detonator of roadblocks, and some headway may be made this time. A central obstacle is the sweeping liability law passed by Parliament in 2010 that froze plans for American corporations to construct nuclear power plants in India. Negotiators are also trying to finalize major defense purchases and to close gaps on exports of Indian pharmaceuticals, some of which the United States bans over patent disputes and safety concerns.
American officials, meanwhile, have pressed for India to follow China’s lead and agree to an ambitious target to limit carbon emissions, although they have played down expectations for a breakthrough. But the officials said the potential seemed to make another trip to India worthwhile, making Mr. Obama the first American president to visit twice during his tenure.
“Our hope is that the chemistry between the leaders and the personal relationship can lead to positive outcomes for our country,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser. “And so it’s worth the investment in the relationship with the country, the leader and the people of India.”
Famously reserved, Mr. Obama does not forge close relationships with other world leaders easily. But Mr. Modi has been an exception, aides said, as the two leaders found some shared experiences.
“Just the humble origins from which both of them came from and the opportunities presented to both of them” created a “certain space in which the two leaders were able to engage in these conversations,” said Philip Reiner, Mr. Obama’s top adviser on South Asia.
Many of Mr. Modi’s supporters are Gujarati businessmen who have prospered in the United States and preach the successful immigrants’ gospel of free enterprise. In the 1990s, as a campaigner for a Hindu nationalist organization, Mr. Modi spent months traveling in the United States, and aides say he avidly studied the country.
Indeed, the most important message from next week’s meeting could end up being a more subtle one: that the relationship is turning, as slowly as an oil tanker, toward a closer, more predictable long-term alignment.
Richard M. Rossow, an expert on Indian-American relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the president’s decision to return to India so soon after meeting Mr. Modi was the best indication that the two men had sized each other up and wanted to move forward.
“Are they buddy-buddy?” he added. “That’s for them to tell you about. But more importantly for the president of the United States, he sees a counterpart that will actually try to deliver on things that are promised in those meetings. And so I think that is probably the best way that they can show friendship.” - nytimes
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