A fine 'bromance' maybe, but US and India must both balance relations with China
Kevin Rafferty says given the complex geopolitical realities, New Delhi will go its own way
It was touching to see Narendra Modi and Barack Obama, the leaders of the world's two largest democracies, together in India. They did not stand stiffly on ceremony, as you would expect of two leaders, especially during the pomp and circumstance of great state occasions.
India's prime minister dispensed with protocol to turn up to greet the US president on his arrival at the airport in Delhi. The two men hugged and joked freely together, as if long lost brothers. The words "lovefest" and "bromance" come to mind.
It was a refreshing change from the contempt that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger showed a generation ago for Indira Gandhi's India, or indeed from the well-mannered correctness of previous prime minister Manmohan Singh in meeting previous US presidents.
The warmth of their encounters inevitably prompts a question about whether a more substantial diplomatic démarche is about to happen. Is Delhi going to abandon its long-standing non-alignment to join Washington in a crusade of the democracies, with China in the opposition camp?
More than 55 years ago, John F. Kennedy, a junior senator from Massachusetts, saw the newly independent India and Communist China as engaged in "a struggle for the economic and political leadership of the East, for the respect of all Asia, for the opportunity to demonstrate whose way of life is the better". He regarded it as vital for India to win that contest. Kennedy became president, and India assumed higher importance in Washington.
Better not get carried away: Obama is in the final two years of his presidency, and the Republicans are out to get him.