WASHINGTON, June 14: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official state visit to the US next week is about building and institutionalising cooperation between the world’s two largest democracies for the next two decades, a top American diplomat of Indian origin has said.
Richard Verma, the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, said the visit has come at a “perfect time”.
“There are a lot of reasons why this visit makes so much sense right now because it’s about building in and institutionalising our cooperation for those next two decades, for those next 10 years or so. This is exactly what the president wanted to do. It’s why he has prioritised this visit,” he told PTI on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Modi arrives in Washington DC on a three-day state visit on June 21. The welcome ceremony and the state dinner along with an address to the Joint Session of the US Congress are scheduled for June 22.
Verma, 54, is the highest-ranking Indian American ever in the US State Department.
Verma, who has been associated with President Joe Biden in various capacities for the past several decades, has the distinction of being the first Indian American ever to serve as the US ambassador to India.
The first US ambassador to travel to every Indian State, Verma is credited with the deepening of the India-US relationship.
Biden has taken several steps to develop the India-US relationship both bilaterally and multilaterally with Quad and I2U2 groupings.
Ahead of the official state visit, Verma recollected how Biden, then as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, batted for Indo-US civil nuclear deal under Republican president George Bush and convinced his Democratic colleagues in Congress to vote in its favour.
“I’m so grateful that President Biden, and Secretary (of State, Tony) Blinken are such strong believers. I started my career after the military and went to the Senate to work where then-Senator Biden was chairman of the foreign relations committee. The staff director of the committee at that time was a young man named Tony Blinken. He was my colleague,” he said.
Verma recalled going to the events of the Indian community with Biden, where then-Senator Biden would talk about the importance of the US-India relationship.
“You can find a quote from then-Senator Biden from I think 2003 or 2004, where he says, if the US and India are the closest friends in 2020, then the world will be a much safer and prosperous place. And, he was right. He made that prediction 17 years ago. He turned out to be exactly right about it,” Verma said.
He said the Democratic caucus in early 2000 looked to Senator Biden for guidance on questions related to foreign policy and on how they might vote or handle an issue. “So when a matter sensitive of the US-India civil nuclear deal came up, and Senator Biden came out in support of the deal that brought along the Democratic caucus with him,” said the top Indian American diplomat.
Verma said Biden knew it was important to bring India into the kind of mainstream when it came to civil nuclear trade and thought the deal was really worth it.
“Now, where it’s fallen short is in actually producing nuclear power in India. But where it has delivered an incredible amount has just been in our relationship and how India saw the US bat for it in the international system to try to write an international system that had not treated the global south or rising powers fairly.
“And, it brought in the US Congress, it brought in the Indian American diaspora. That moment really did transform our relationship. So it’s paid huge dividends, even though we’re still waiting for the nuclear power side of it, to pay those dividends,” he said.
India-US relationship has strengthened since then, Verma said.
“I tell people all the time, if you look at the relationship over the last 75 years, I think you have to look at the year 2020 forward as when things really turned. It was with President Clinton’s visit to India in the year 2000. I will say every year since then, it has gone upwards and upwards and upwards. That continues to be the case,” he said.
“So, people say, why? What has been different? I think we realise that in this post kind of Cold War era where we are these two big democracies out trying to protect a rules-based order, trying to ensure that our people have a voice, trying to ensure that disputes are resolved peacefully.
“We have gravitated back towards each other. Frankly, the way President Eisenhower and President Kennedy saw the relationship. We’re actually coming back kind of full circle to where we started years ago. But we’ve gone now much further,” he said.
Verma said the bilateral relationship is not just about defence sales or defence cooperation, but also about clean energy, innovation and technology.
“Our national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, is in India today to talk about emerging technologies, quantum computing, AI and semiconductors and how we can do more work in this field of which India and the US are leading in. So why not talk about these areas,” he said.
Verma said he is really excited about the next 20 years and how the work that “we do in these next two years can really shape those next two decades.”
“I’ll also say we have to just keep working at the relationship. We can’t assume it’s just gonna keep going up. The reason it’s kept going up is because people have worked on it,” he said.
Verma said Prime Minister Modi has played a very significant role in strengthening this partnership.
“When he came into office (in 2014), one of the very first trips he took was to Washington. He and President Brack Obama had a very strong relationship that carried into the next administration. He and President Biden have a very strong relationship,” Verma said.
“From the Prime Minister to the National Security Advisor to the Foreign Secretary, the External Affairs Minister, the very fine ambassador here in Washington, Ambassador Sandhu, I think the entire team has really put itself forward into the relationship. I hope they feel a similar amount of effort, respect and commitment has gone in from the Washington side as well,” he said. (PTI)
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