Soldiers conduct a dress rehearsal in New Delhi on Friday for India's Republic Day parade. The capital will turn into a virtual fortress for U.S. President Barack Obama's visit this weekend, with heightened security measures in place. | REUTERS
NEW DELHI – Barack Obama will do something in India on Monday that an American president almost never does in public: He’ll sit in one place, in a foreign country, for hours.
Obama will be the official “chief guest” at India’s Republic Day parade. The first U.S. president invited to attend, his presence will signal an increasingly close relationship between partners with a sometimes prickly history.
Though presidents avoid lingering in public for security and schedule reasons, Obama will remain on a reviewing stand alongside his host, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the view of thousands of spectators and a television audience of millions.
The unusual appearance, also making him the only two-time U.S. presidential visitor to India, caps a remarkable turnaround in bilateral ties since the December 2013 arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York.
“As we look forward at the kind of global priorities where we want to make progress the next two years, we literally cannot achieve our objectives without cooperation from India,” Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters earlier in the week.
For Obama, who’s scheduled to begin a three-day visit to India on Sunday, strong ties with New Delhi offer potential payoffs on multiple issues. Modi, an economic reformer elected in a May 2014 landslide, wants American cash, technology and expertise along with a potential hedge against China.
Obama’s arrival comes as the global spotlight is increasingly turned to this nation of 1.2 billion people. India next year will become the world’s fastest-growing major economy as China slows, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest projections.
“The universe is conspiring to bring us ever closer,” said Baijayant Panda, an opposition member of parliament.
U.S.-Indian economic ties, despite great potential, remain stunted. Total U.S. trade with China, which has approximately the same population as India, tops $560 billion, roughly nine times the size of Indo-U.S. commerce.
The two leaders will discuss defense cooperation, climate change, trade, counterterrorism and regional threats. They’ve also yet to resolve long-standing differences over the implementation of a landmark 2005 civil nuclear agreement.
Obama’s high profile in India reflects the transformation of the two countries’ relationship from the barely veiled antagonism of the Cold War, when India championed the nonaligned movement and relied upon the Soviet Union for arms. Today, the U.S. is India’s top military supplier.
Yet just two weeks later, he welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to New Delhi and sought Chinese investment alongside cash infusions from the U.S., Japan and elsewhere. In recent years, China overtook the U.S. as India’s top trading partner.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was also received warmly when he visited New Delhi last month. And India has balked at endorsing the U.S.-led sanctions on Russia following its military intervention in Ukraine.
The sudden parade invitation was only the latest unexpected move by Modi, who became prime minister in May 2014 after nearly a decade of pariah status in the eyes of the U.S. government. In 2005, the U.S. denied him a visa for his alleged failure to respond adequately to religious violence in 2002 that killed almost 1,000 Muslims in his home state of Gujarat, which he governed as chief minister. Modi denied allegations that he had failed to protect local Muslims, and a subsequent Indian government investigation later found no evidence to support the charges.
Once in power, he put aside any personal pique to focus on how the U.S. could help transform the Indian economy.
To attract investment, Modi has eased limits on foreign holdings in defense and railways and plans additional changes. Foreign direct investment of $16.2 billion in the six months ended in September was up 11 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the Finance Ministry.
Modi has wooed U.S. investors since convincing Ford Motor Co. to invest $1 billion in an auto plant outside of Ahmedabad when he was chief minister of Gujarat. During his U.S. visit four months ago, he met the CEOs of companies including Pepsico Inc., Google Inc., General Electric Co. and Boeing Co.
“For the prime minister, if India is to get out of being a developing country, there are things the Americans can help him with that no one else can,” said Indrani Bagchi, a foreign affairs commentator with the Times of India. - .japantimes.
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