Democracy and reality
India is arguably the most important swing nation in world politics. It is influential enough to shift the balance of power, and its loyalties are neither clear nor consistent.
India is both the most populous country in the world and the only country in the top 10 economies not clearly chosen a side in what President Biden calls the struggle between democracy and autocracy. On the one hand, India is skeptical of a Western-led world and has helped fund Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by continuing to buy Russian oil. On the other hand, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi arrived in Washington yesterday to proclaim his country’s proximity to the US.
Modi’s visit, complete with a speech to Congress and a state dinner at the White House yesterday, has understandably caused some Americans discomfort. (Various Liberal Democrats refused to attend his address to Congress.) In addition to working with Putin, Modi is also a Hindu nationalist whose party has cracked down on political opponents and fomented anti-Muslim bigotry. Speaking at a White House press conference with Biden yesterday, Modi said pushed aside questions from reporters on these issues.
If the Biden administration chose its international friends based solely on their commitment to freedom and democracy, Modi’s India would be a strange nation to celebrate with White House pomp. But the reality is that the US can’t have everything it wants in foreign policy. It represents inevitable compromises.
If the US embraced only those countries with a purer democratic reputation, it would not be able to create a very powerful global alliance. The US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan and South Korea are not strong enough to dominate the world as they once could. They need allies in the South and the Middle East. And India is not only the largest of these countries; it is also one of the most democratic, despite Modi’s flirtation with autocratic methods and India’s historic closeness to Russia.
There is an irony to the situation, but it is one that Biden and other American leaders cannot simply wish away with lofty rhetoric. An alliance consisting only of liberal democracies would likely weaken global democracy: it would alienate many countries in Asia and Africa and lead them to forge stronger ties with China and Russia.
“Rejecting cooperation with India mainly because its ideology and democracy are not in line with Western ideals would only make China stronger,” the editors of The Economist recently wrote. wrote. “It would also show America’s failure to adapt to the multipolar world ahead.”
Striking the balance between effectiveness and morality in foreign policy is not easy. Modi’s critics are smart to use his visit to Washington as an opportunity to highlight his dangerous Hindu supremacy. In the long run, the cause of democracy would benefit from a less xenophobic, less authoritarian India, just as it would benefit from a US where the Republican Party fully committed to democracy and pluralism.
(The Times editors have urged the Biden administration to push Modi on these issues at this week’s sittings. And Maya Jasanoff, a historian, writes in an Opinion essay“Modi has led the country’s biggest assault on democracy, civil society and minority rights in at least 40 years.”
As much as the US pressured Modi, they have never been powerful enough to build an effective global alliance while insisting that all its members be American-style democracies. In today’s multipolar world, the US certainly cannot do that. The compromises can often be unpleasant, but they are inevitable.
Democracy will thrive much better in the coming decades if India and the US are imperfect allies rather than adversaries.
lives lived: Teresa Taylor drummed for Texan acid punk band Butthole Surfers and became an emblem of Generation X aimlessness through the 1990 movie “Slacker.” Taylor died at the age of 60.
SPORTS NEWS
NBA Draft: The San Antonio Spurs selected Victor Wembanyama No. 1 overall last night, the start of the NBA career of a highly anticipated prospect, reports The Times. And Amen and Ausar Thompson became the only brothers to be drafted in the top 10, writes The Athletic.
A new home: The Wizards sent their asset Chris Paul to the Warriorsthose former rivals and going all in on a title next season, reports The Athletic.
A Times obituary: Bob Brown was one of the NFL’s most intimidating offensive tackles in the 1960s and 1970s, but he had to wait decades before he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He died at the age of 81.
Art in the park: The artist Sheila Pepe uses crochet, which she learned from her mother, to create in three dimensions. Her first outdoor installation opens next week in Manhattan and features brightly colored strands of crochet shoelaces, paracord, twine and garden hose stretched between tall posts. “My favorite thing is hooking 20 feet in the air,” she says.