How PM Modi's meeting with Obama will be a gamechanger

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to turn a new leaf in bilateral relations with the United States and visit the country in September for a summit meeting – a country that has been a bug bear for him for close to a decade as it denied him visa when he was Gujarat chief minister – is fraught with myriad strategic and economic implications for how a Modi-led India is going to deal with the world.

For one, it is indicative of Modi’s diplomatic carpet bombing strategy. He has already broken new grounds in India’s outreach to eight neighbours, including Pakistan. With this unprecedented step he announced to the world that he is what his admirers thought of him – a strong leader capable of out-of-the-box thinking and bamboozling even his foreign interlocutors.

Modi could have accepted President Barack Obama’s invitation to visit the US in principle but instead insisted on Obama visiting India first. But he chose not to push the envelope. By accepting Obama’s invite and conveying his availability for his maiden visit to the US in September last week, Modi has indicated that this man of humble origins means business.

By all indications, Modi’s official visit to the US will be a path-breaking one and the foreign offices of both the sides will be working closely for making it a historic occasion with some big-ticket announcements. The broad contours of concrete deliverables from the forthcoming visit will be worked out by the two foreign offices and they have ample time for that.

After having met top leadership of virtually all the SAARC countries, including Pakistan, in New Delhi on 26-27 May, he has acquired invaluable experience in high-table diplomacy. He has already interacted with top leaders of several major countries on phone who called him to congratulate him for getting India’s top job.

This weekend Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi will be visiting India (8-9 June) as special envoy of President Xi Jinping and Modi will definitely be meeting Wang, most likely on 9 June.

Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin, will be visiting New Delhi later this month. Rogozin too will be definitely calling on Modi with a special message from Putin.

Modi already enjoys a special relationship with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and both belong to their own very personal mutual admiration club. Significantly, Modi is only one of the three persons Abe follows on Twitter.

In mid-July Modi is expected to visit Brazil for the next BRICS summit, a high-octane event that he can ill afford to miss despite his busy schedule back home and his government’s maiden budget presentation around that time. He will have one-to-one meetings with leaders of Russia, China, Brazil and South Africa.

Therefore, by the time he visits the US, Modi would no longer be a bunny in diplomacy and interactions with top world leaders.

Of course, one cannot rule out incoming visits of leaders from several major countries in between.

Modi’s acceptance of Obama invite to visit the US signifies a lot of things. First and foremost, it conveys that India has moved on with the US on the most contentious bilateral issue – the Devyani Khobragade incident. He has indicated to the US and the world that Indo-US relations are far more important than getting stuck in the groove over the Khobragade irritant. This issue will continue to be there but will be dealt with at a much lower level of joint secretaries.

Secondly, Modi’s outreach to the US will be economy-centric. The US is India’s largest trade partner with bilateral trade currently pegged at $100 billion. The Americans have been dropping enough hints that this figure can easily be taken to $500 billion in the next few years. Therefore, economy and infrastructure are likely to top his agenda during his summit meeting with Obama.>

The Obama administration, for its part, is expected to come up with an announcement in the meanwhile declaring how important Modi’s upcoming visit is going to be for the US.

Interestingly, Modi’s acceptance of Obama’s invitation has come days after Russia announcing its decision to lift embargo on supplying attack helicopters and other defence equipment to Pakistan. By doing so, Russia has turned its traditional foreign policy on its head and India is naturally livid.

But then it is a hugely important issue which merits a stand-alone article on this topic. Watch this space.

The writer is a strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha