Modi-Obama Summit: Implications and Opportunities

University of Chicago held a discussion at their newly opened centre at Capitol Point, Connaught Place, New Delhi. The topic of the discussion was ‘Modi-Obama Summit: A Paradigm Shift in the relations of India and United States’. The speakers in the panel included various eminent personalities- Mr. Micheal Pelletier, an artist and technical director in Creative Environment, Shashi Tharoor, former Under-Secretary General of United Nation and current MP, Mr. H. K. Dua, a Member of Parliament – Rajya Sabha, Ambassador Lalit Man Singh, former foreign Secretary of India and Indian Ambassador to US, Gurcharan Das, political commentator and author of many acclaimed books, Dr. Rajiv Kumar, renowned journalist.

Ambassador Lalit Man Singh

Mr. Micheal Pelletier initiated the discussion. He started by thanking the University of Chicago and then he added that these are very exciting times for Indo-US relations.
He said, “I think it is important to recognise that the India-US partnership has been building over the years and had has support from various parties on both sides. He also said, “We have seen, from the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and through the UPA government till today, the support for growing the partnership. So I think there is a historic trend to it”. What has happened in the last few months is that the trend has been kicked up a notch. From the phone call to the “incredibly successful” visit of Prime Minister Modi and now the Republic Day invitation to Obama shows that the relation has really ramped up. He added that this indeed is a ‘Paradigm Shift’. There have been many high level engagements between India and the United States over the past six months.

Dr. Rajiv Kumar

He pointed out that the Prime Minister’s visit to the US was particularly important in terms of popular opinions and the perception of India. It sent a message that India wanted to engage and involve with the US. And to engage the Indian community was something special. Then to go to Washington and have a personal connect with Mr. Obama was a very good sign in terms of foreign affairs. It is important to have a personal connect amongst leaders. He concluded by saying, “All in all, the number of visits and the number of topics that they addressed- defence, energy, smart cities, space, trade, and health etcetera – at this tempo and in this depth is truly transforming”.

Gurucharan Das

Shashi Tharoor, was the next speaker and he initiated by saying, “I must say I am a bit of a sceptic”. He openly disagreed with Micheal, “We have heard a lot of things about the ‘Paradigm Shift’ and to hear Micheal talk about “unprecedented” things, I could give him six precedence for everything he mentioned”. He said that he wasn’t sure if we gained much of substance. He then added, “In many ways the paradigm shift, in recent years, was the Bush-Manmohan breakthrough. The nuclear deal was a paradigm shift, because it involved something that could not have been imagined previously. It was really, truly extraordinary a change in the relationship. “I think that the visit of PM Modi turned out to be bit of a damp squib. It is very difficult to find out anything tangible that came out, especially during the visit to Washington. I cannot point to a single success. If we look at the different things like breakthrough in defence production, transfer of state of the art equipment to India or in the transfer of the state of the art in green technology, absolutely nothing. But he acknowledged that there were achievements. But the achievements were personal. “After years of being on the visa ban list, he had to make sure that he restored normalcy. It was rather a necessary corrective to the negative image that many American had. He achieved his basic objective of introducing himself and showing American leaders that he is the man they can do business with”.

Mr. H. K. Dua

H.K. Dua was the next speaker. He began by saying, “Modi does believe in out of the box thinking and in making bold moves. But one thing is clear. A few years ago I couldn’t have imagined an Indian PM inviting the US President to the republic day parade”. When Obama came in his last visit, it was supposed to be a defining partnership but somehow that didn’t happen. We never got the kind of response we were hoping for up until now. He then added, “I think Obama would like to see India to be more generous on the climate change issue, if we cut down our emissions. He would like us to follow the Chinese example for settling the climate change with US”. The area where Indians have high hopes is to see if Americans are ready to give sensitive technology to India.

Ambassador Lalit Man Singh then took the mic and said that Manmohan Singh’s 2005 visit was a ground breaking visit. The nuclear deal was signed. This Modi visit was a trendsetting visit. But he said that he wouldn’t be as parsimonious as Shashi Tharoor in summing up his achievement. He said, “Let me tell you what I think are the real achievements of Mr. Modi’s visit. Firstly he repaired the damage to the relationship which has suffered for the preceding four years. He brought back, as they say, the fizz into the Indo-US relations. Secondly, I think he changed the mood of the American business”. Mr. Modi turned their mood as to look at India with fresh eyes, as a place where they can invest money. He also added, “Raising FDI in defence from 26% to 49% is I think, a big step. We are expecting the American Defence industry to come and take advantage. There is going to be more cooperation on the homeland security. Anti-terrorism is not a big part of the agenda. The trade issue has been addressed. A solution has been found for the trade-facilitation agreement. And finally the visit has given boost to number of dialogues between the two countries”.

Shashi Tharoor with his skeptical views

Mr. Gurcharan das followed Mr Man Singh. He believed that the potential is very high for this relation and explained, “The reason why the potential is so great for this paradigm shift is because of the fact that we have a new paradigm in the leader of Mr. Modi. We have never had such a leader. He doesn’t carry a lot of baggage”. He further added, “The business of America is business. And this is really the first government that has come out of the closet. Indians were always suspicious and frankly hypocritical. They love money but never admit to it. During the Nehruvian socialist years it was really embarrassing. But Modi, I think is less fettered and therefore the possibility of this ‘Paradigm Shift’ becomes more real”. He said that the last government had plunged us into such a low that investment dried up. He narrated an incident where Mr. Ratan Tata said that he wanted to invest in India but couldn’t. He showed concern about the fact the last government stalled 750 infrastructures. He also said that a 1% growth rate is 1.5 million jobs. Each job creates 3 indirect jobs, subsequently. Each job supports 5 people and that is a massive number of jobs that we lost. We dropped from 9% to 4%.

The moderator of the discussion

The last speaker of the day was Dr. Rajiv Kumar. He said that India has always been in a state of perpetual take off. And the take-off never happens due to the refusal to recognise that at the end of the day, it’s about building business relationship. He said, “Since the second world war, no country has risen from a low income economy to mid or high level economy without the access to American technology and markets. Irrespective of India like it or not but the US-Asia pivot will go ahead. That’s not the scenario you want to found on. If there is US-Asia pivot, India must be a part of it. He ended the session by saying, “In the essence what I wanted to say is, we need to bring to this relationship the realism of Business to Business interaction, vibrancy of People to People and get the Government to Government interaction somewhere in the background.