In South Asia, India is rapidly reaching the final stages of industrialization and development. Decades of British colonization and post-war chaos left India with many economic structural problems. The nation was large but with barely enough infrastructure to fulfill the needs of the growing population. However, in recent decades, reform and economic rejuvenation have spurred growth in many Indian industries. Although poverty is still a very large problem, there’s no doubt that India is becoming a large player on the world stage. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, India has the labor and means to construct vast economic networks and become a world superpower in the coming decades. Its economic growth has been steady as of recently, but recent developments by the country’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have shed some doubt on how the United States and India will interact in the future. 

From 2001-2014, Modi was the chief minister of the West Indian state of Gujarat. And, long before that, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of the major Indian political parties for decades. The BJP is largely right-wing and often reflects Hindu nationalist positions. Modi, as a leading politician in the BJP, gained even more credibility when he created unprecedented economic growth. This credibility allowed him to secure the nomination as the BJP’s candidate in 2013. After winning a majority in government and becoming prime minister, Modi engaged in several reforms to try to improve India’s economy, which was beginning to plateau. He met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the first time a Chinese leader had visited India in eight years, and traveled to New York City to meet with former U.S. President Barack Obama. Domestically, he liberalized many sectors of the economy, especially in regard to foreign direct investment in civil defense and transport. Structural changes, such as the demonetization and removal of the 500 and 1,000 rupee banknote, were part of Modi’s promise to get rid of corruption, a rampant problem in India. 

However, Modi has also begun approving new laws that many have criticized as being against India’s secular and democratic foundations. A controversial citizenship law, passed in 2019, offered easier citizenship for multiple racial and religious groups, but not Muslims, of which there are over 170 million currently residing in India. As India’s staggering growth began to slow in 2019, reforms such as the previously mentioned rupee demonetization began to have indirect consequences and brought many notes out of circulation that had also been used to finance trade deals and business expansion in key cities, such as New Delhi and Mumbai. In wake of this slowed economic success, Modi began to grab power and push a cultural narrative of Hindu nationalism and increased authoritarianism. Examples of this include the shutting down of internet and cell service in Kashmir, a region that has experienced a significant amount of conflict and tension due to the overlapping claims of governance from India and Pakistan. Citizenship was cut off to almost 2 million people in the East Indian state of Assam after Modi implemented a new National Register of Citizens, which gave increased accessibility of citizenship to Hindu populations, leaving other minority groups left in the dark. 

In September 2020, the Indian government passed three new farm acts, which reduced the ability of farmers and those reliant on agriculture to sell their produce. It also removed certain items from “essential foodstuffs” and created a legal framework that pushed producers into prearranged contracts with other entities. This sparked an ongoing protest that accumulated over 250 million farmers and other agriculture-reliant workers. Negotiations have not only fallen through, but there have been harsh police responses by the government. In January of 2021, police forces engaged with protestors in Delhi, and these recent clashes have drawn international attention to the decaying of Indian democracy. 

Biden, after being in office for a few months, has faced increased pressure to undo the actions of the Trump administration and begin condemning India more strongly for their rollback of human rights protections. A Biden-Harris administration is more likely to respond to India’s growing abuses domestically, and the recent acts of authoritarianism have acted as red flags across the world. Kamala Harris stated in 2019, during her presidential campaign, that “We have to remind Kashmiris that they are not alone in the world” and that “there is a need to intervene if the situation demands.” It’s still unclear whether future action against Modi will be fully realized, or if Biden will ignore such abuses in hopes of continuing a strong relationship with India. 

America has been willing to work with authoritarian regimes before, especially when the relationship is mutually beneficial. A strategic U.S.-India defense partnership could be a bulwark against Chinese expansion in much of Central and Southeast Asia. Biden has been hard against North Korea and China, pledging to defend East Asian allies, such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Maintaining stable relations with India may be necessary in trying to achieve this reinforced commitment to Asian alliances. There’s no guarantee of peaceful Indian cooperation, however. The Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, in a visit to Delhi in April, announced that sanctions on India may be viable due to India’s new arms deal with the Russian Federation. Biden will be forced to make a tough decision in deciding how he wants to approach Modi and must consider whether American action could cause potential backlash in the region. There’s no doubt that India is a rising nation, and Biden stands at a key intersection, where every action has the potential to cause mass ripple effects in both Indian and American governments and change the United States’ long-standing alliance with India forever.

Works Cited:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Narendra-Modi

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-citizenship-idUSKBN1YH0KV

https://time.com/5647323/india-kashmir-conflict-public-opinion/

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/02/971293844/indias-farmer-protests-why-are-they-so-angry

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/16/biden-harris-win-what-it-means-for-india

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/india-protesting-farmers-met-with-police-violence-at-delhis-red-fort/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/20/lloyd-austin-india-sanctions-s400-missile-477304