Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the foundations of American democracy in an address to a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, emphasizing the importance of the partnership between the world’s two biggest democracies on a day of summitry that mixed geopolitics and commercial opportunity.
“Together we shall give a better future to the world and a better world to the future,” Mr. Modi said to rousing bipartisan applause in remarks highlighting a state visit that many in Washington hope will foster closer U.S.-India coordination while countering an increasingly aggressive China.
The centerpiece of Mr. Modi’s four-day U.S. trip Thursday included talks and a rare press conference at the White House with President Biden, the speech to a joint meeting of Congress and a full-on state dinner for the visiting Indian leader back at the White House.
Mr. Modi made no explicit mention of China in his nearly hour-long speech to lawmakers, delivered in English on Thursday afternoon, although he signaled his agreement with U.S. concern over Beijing’s growing push for economic and political dominance over smaller nations of Asia and beyond.
“We share a vision of a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific,” the Indian prime minister said, adding that the “common vision” of U.S. and Indian democracy is one “free of domination,” where “all nations, small and large, are free and fearless in their choices.”
Mr. Modi, who similarly addressed Congress after a warm visit with former President Trump in 2016, added that “together we shall demonstrate that democracy is better, and democracies deliver.”
Administration officials said the White House meetings were capped by a slate of new agreements aimed at expanding trade, high-tech and defense cooperation between Washington and New Delhi, which maintain close geopolitical ties but are not technically allies due to India’s historical resistance to military treaty alliances with any nation.
Talk of irritants in the relationship — including India’s close military relationship with Russia, its refusal to endorse Western condemnations of the invasion of Ukraine, and the human rights record of Mr. Modi’s strongly Hindu nationalist government — were kept to a minimum.
Among the agreements in the works Thursday was one to allow U.S.-based General Electric to partner with India-based Hindustan Aeronautics to produce jet engines for Indian aircraft in India and the sale of U.S.-made armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones, according to senior Biden administration officials.
Officials also touted plans to bolster India’s microchip industry amid the administration’s push to diversify U.S. supply chains and manufacturing bases for high-tech products away from China, with U.S.-based Micron Technology agreeing to put up nearly a third of the investment to build a new $2.75 billion semiconductor assembly and test facility in Mr. Modi’s home state in India.
U.S.-based Applied Materials is also expected to launch a new semiconductor center for commercialization and innovation in India, and Lam Research, another semiconductor manufacturing equipment company, will start a training program for 60,000 Indian engineers, officials said.
On the space front, India will sign on to the Artemis Accords, a blueprint for space exploration cooperation among nations participating in NASA’s lunar exploration plans. NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization also agreed to make a joint mission to the International Space Station next year.
Those agreements hung in the backdrop as U.S. lawmakers and the Biden administration embraced Mr. Modi on Thursday.
The Indian prime minister and his team were welcomed to the White House with the usual pomp and circumstance reserved for a foreign leader’s state visit, including marching bands, honor guards and a multi-gun salute on the South Lawn.
It was only the third state dinner of Mr. Biden’s presidency, following those for French President Emmanuel Macron in December 2022 and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in April of this year.
“I’ve long believed the relationship between the United States and India will be the defining relationship of the 21st century,” Mr. Biden said at the White House arrival ceremony, adding the two nations’ “enduring ties and shared responsibility” will enable them to “tackle the great issues of our time together.”
The message was echoed by some key foreign policy Republicans, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas and California’s Rep. Young Kim, who chairs the panel’s Indo-Pacific subcommittee, who expressed support for “the deepening of ties” with India.
U.S. officials characterize India— which still lags behind China as a trade partner of the United States, but whose 1.4 billion people surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation this year — as an essential international partner for navigating the future of climate change, artificial intelligence, supply chain resilience and balancing an ascendant China.
However, Mr. Biden also made little direct reference to China during public remarks on Thursday.
At a joint news conference, the president broadly characterized the U.S.-India relationship as “among the most consequential in the world, that is stronger, closer and more dynamic than at any time in history.”
The president underscored how the two democracies are already cooperating on the climate, health care and space. He also asserted that the U.S-India economic relationship was “booming.” While India ranks eighth on the list of U.S. foreign trading partners — compared to China, which is third — the Indian economy is rapidly expanding, having risen from the world’s 10th to 5th largest in recent years.
Human rights concerns
Human rights groups have expressed wariness over the Biden administration’s embrace of Mr. Modi, whose strongly Hindu nationalist government is often accused of stifling dissent in India, and discriminating against India’s Muslims and other minorities.
There is also unease over India’s determination to maintain an independent course on foreign and security policy, given that Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who is in Washington with Mr. Modi this week, has been known to espouse a worldview in which New Delhi has no allies or friends, only “frenemies.”
A half-dozen House Democrats boycotted Mr. Modi’s congressional address, citing India’s human rights record and in particular its treatment of Indian Muslims.
Standing alongside Mr. Modi on Thursday, Mr. Biden took time to emphasize that press, religious and other fundamental freedoms should be at the core of how both democracies operate. The president said he and Mr. Modi had a “good discussion about democratic values” while meeting in the Oval Office.
When pressed by reporters about his commitment on human rights, the Indian prime minister said: “There’s absolutely no space for discrimination.”
“Democracy is our spirit,” Mr. Modi, who rarely takes questions from journalists, said through an interpreter. “Democracy runs in our veins.”
He added that India has “proved that democracies can deliver and when I say deliver, this is regardless of class, creed, religion, gender.”
He appeared eager to underscore that message later in the day, stressing in his remarks on Capitol Hill that India is “home to all faiths in the world and we celebrate all of them,” and that diversity is a “way of life” in his country.
“Democracy is the idea that welcomes debate and discourse,” he said. “Democracy is the culture that gives wings to thought and aspiration. India is blessed to have such values from times immemorial. In the evolution of the democratic spirit, India is the mother of democracy.”
The prime minister also heaped praise on the vibrancy, diversity and resilience of U.S. democracy, and made reference to the growing influence that millions of Americans of Indian descent are having on the country’s political landscape.
“The foundation of America was inspired by the vision of a nation of equal people. Throughout your history, you have embraced people from around the world and you have made them equal partners in the American dream,” Mr. Modi said.
“There are millions here, who have roots in India. Some of them sit proudly in this chamber and there is one behind me,” he added drawing loud cheers for his reference to Vice President Kamala Harris sitting on the rostrum stage behind him. Ms. Harris’ mother immigrated to the United States from India.
Between Russia and China
Despite the show of unity Thursday, the U.S. and India have a nuanced history. Ties between the two were burdened by mutual suspicion during the Cold War era, when India built up a strong defense partnership with the Soviet Union.
The relationship has shifted more recently as the two democracies toy with deeper alignment to counter China.
But Russia remains a major factor in the relationship, as Moscow is still New Delhi’s biggest supplier of military hardware. And, even as successive U.S. administrations have sought to wean India off its reliance on Moscow, New Delhi has increased its purchases of cheap Russian oil in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.
Some critics say the U.S. is miscalculating by thinking India can enlisted in a campaign to contain China.
“New Delhi won’t side with Washington against Beijing,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Fellow Ashley Tellis wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, adding that U.S. officials should more carefully question whether their “generosity toward India will help accomplish [Washington’s] strategic aims.”
The extent to which Mr. Biden pressed Mr. Modi in private Thursday on strengthening joint efforts to confront an increasingly aggressive Moscow and Beijing was not clear.
India has not aligned itself with the U.S. and its Western allies in their support of Ukraine as it continues to fend off Russian invaders. New Delhi also has no love for Beijing but has thus far not been fully on board with Washington’s efforts to bottle Chinese expansion.
The state dinner for Mr. Modi was held Thursday night on the South Lawn of the White House in a pavilion with a vegetarian menu to accommodate the prime minister’s Hindu diet.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.