The US is meeting a "rising India," ambassador says
The U.S.-India relationship has found new momentum in the midst of deepening strategic and economic cooperation, U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma told a Stanford audience on Friday.
“It’s not a hyberbole to say the relationship has soared over the past year,” Verma said to a crowded room in Encina Hall. The title of Verma’s talk was “Why India Matters.”
His visit to campus, organized by Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, was part of a multi-day trip to the United States.
Arriving from Washington, D.C., he attended the first-ever U.S.-India Strategic and Economic Dialogue earlier that week. The meeting of Indian and American delegations was “hugely successful,” said Verma, who assumed his diplomatic post in January, following Kathleen Stephens, who is now is at Stanford as a distinguished fellow.
Verma was also in the Bay Area to accompany Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi during his visit to Silicon Valley, the first Indian head of state to visit the area since 1978. Prime Minister Modi used his visit to promote a vision of “Digital India,” tying Indian growth to the spread of information technology to all levels of Indian society, driven in part by investment from the technology industry in the United States. Leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Modi unseated one of the longest-serving governments in a landmark May 2014 election. He has won high public approval ratings and is one of the most followed public figures on Twitter.
Modi and President Obama have been a driving force behind the two countries’ growing alignment toward combatting global challenges, Verma told the audience. The two leaders share a “certain level of chemistry,” he said.
Obama and Modi held two summits within a four-month time period. And that, Verma said, “drives the governments to come together in a way that they might not ordinarily do.”
Verma noted the strategic overlap between the U.S. “rebalance to Asia” policy and India’s “Act East” policy, both of which commit the two countries to focus defense and economic commitments on the Asia-Pacific region. He praised rapid progress in security cooperation between the two powers, including growing sales of American defense technology to India.
On the strategic side, summit outcomes have included the creation of a joint-vision of cooperation and set up phone hotlines between the heads of state and their national security advisors.
The United States now looks upon India as a “net security provider in South Asia” and supports an increased role for India in international institutions, Verma said.
Asked about how Russia fits in, Verma acknowledged that historically there “has been a close relationship between New Delhi and Moscow. Not one or two or three years, but for decades.” But the U.S. envoy added “we don’t see that as somehow being inconsistent with a close relationship with the United States.”
On the economic side, the two leaders have committed two of the world’s largest economies to increase bilateral trade– from $100 to $500 billion – and meet for an annual economic dialogue.
Modi campaigned on a commitment to reform the economy and eradicate corruption.
However, the pace of economic reform in India has not gone as quickly as the United States would have hoped, and corruption remains an issue across India and South Asia, Verma said.
Answering a question from the audience, Verma pointed to anecdotal evidence of progress from American business in the removal of obstacles to growth from corruption. “There’s obviously a long way to go but my sense is it’s a big priority not only for the prime minister but for the people.”
Although India is modernizing, it still has a number of big-ticket development issues to tackle. Today, 300 million people don’t have access to electricity. And with over 1.2 billion people, India’s size makes it near impossible to implement sweeping change in a short period of time.
The scale of India, alone, motivates the United States to work with India, a nation that will play a “consequential role for decades to come,” Verma said. “When these two countries come together they can have a big impact on peace and prosperity across the world.”
Assessing the relationship potential for the longer-term, Verma said India and the United States’ are rooted in similar values and share diaspora communities. Support for a close U.S.-India relationship is widely expressed in the Congress, from both parties and the Ambassador anticipates the coming U.S. election will not bring any change in that commitment.
A growing number of Americans are choosing to study in India and a similar pattern is being seen in Indians coming to study in the United States. Last year, about 130,000 Indian students studied in the United States. In 2005, that number was only 30,000.
“Fundamentally, I’m optimistic because the people-to-people relationship is so strong,” Verma said.