Modi Calls to Biden to Offer Congratulations, Discuss Relationship
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (left) and Vice President Joe Biden (right) host a luncheon for Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi (center) in 2014 (Wikimedia Commons).
Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi made his first call to the U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden, the Indian External Affairs Office said in a statement on Wednesday. Modi offered his congratulations to Biden for his electoral victory, and the two agreed to elevate the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership.
Modi and Biden discussed their joint priorities, including COVID-19 containment, vaccine access, climate change, and free trade in the Indo-Pacific region. In an online meeting for the think-tank Gateway House, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar expressed confidence in the Indo-American relationship’s future prospects.“As vice president, we dealt with him. I happened to be the ambassador during the last phase of the Obama administration. We’d known him earlier when he was in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the ranking Democratic member and then as the chairman,” Jaishankar said.
During the Obama administration, Biden officially visited India in 2013. Modi officially visited the U.S. in 2014 and 2016. During his second visit, Modi addressed a joint Session of Congress presided over by Biden as the vice president. He celebrated increased ties between the states and the elevation of India to “Major Defense Partner” status, which increased the sharing of national intelligence between each country.
Some have expressed concern that Modi’s relationship with outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump will affect his ability to work with a Democratic president. In the last four years, Modi and Trump have maintained a close relationship, even holding joint rallies. Critics have accused Modi of coming close to endorsing Trump’s 2020 candidacy.
Additionally, Trump has avoided directly addressing India’s divisive 2019 citizenship law. The opposition to the law has charged Modi’s Hindu nationalist government with discriminating against Muslims by providing expedited paths to citizenship for other religious groups. By contrast, Biden recently condemned the law. “These measures are inconsistent with the country’s long tradition of secularism and with sustaining a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy,” Biden said.
However, the Biden administration and Modi will likely unite on the issue of free trade. Additionally, the joint intelligence sharing of the Obama era was expanded even further under Trump this October with the signing of the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA). Under BECA, the U.S. may share crucial geopolitical data to improve the accuracy of Indian missiles. At a press conference following the BECA signing, Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper emphasized a mutual desire for a free Indo-Pacific, “particularly in light of increasing aggression and destabilizing activities by China.” Given Biden and Modi’s stated common interest in promoting free trade in the Indo-Pacific and their previous diplomatic relationship, it is more likely than not that relations between the countries will continue to improve.