Transatlantic alignment and divergence
Democracy promotion has emerged as a key theme of deepening relations between India and the West. Central to the US–India relationship, for instance, is an established narrative of affinities between ‘the world’s oldest democracy’ and ‘the world’s largest democracy’. This was one of the foundations of the rapprochement between New Delhi and Washington in the post-Cold War period, as reflected in the joint declaration that was concluded during President Bill Clinton’s visit to India in 2000:
The democratic foundations of the bilateral relationship also underpinned the claim to India and the US being ‘natural allies’, a term first used by India’s then prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, during a visit to the US in 2000. Vajpayee’s successor, Manmohan Singh, reiterated this sentiment in an address to a joint session of the US Congress in 2005: ‘Our shared commitment to democratic values and processes has been a bond that has helped us transcend differences.’ Such a narrative has been maintained as the two countries have developed an increasingly multi-dimensional relationship. The Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy asserted that:
The strategy also noted a need to work with like-minded states in ‘creating a latticework of strong, resilient, and mutually reinforcing relationships that prove democracies can deliver for their people and the world’. New Delhi’s pursuit of deeper ties with the US has been reflected in its stronger advocacy of democracy in its external engagements. This became particularly apparent under the premiership of Manmohan Singh (2004–14), who in his 2005 address to the US Congress stated: ‘As democracies, we must work together to create a world in which democracy can flourish’. In this context, the US and India established the Global Democracy Initiative in 2005, which aimed to share best practices and strengthen bilateral cooperation in capacity-building and institutional development in third countries. India and the US also took a leading role in the launch of the UN Democracy Fund in the same year, with India being the second largest contributor after the US at the time the fund was established.
An established narrative of affinities between ‘the world’s oldest democracy’ and ‘the world’s largest democracy’ was one of the foundations of the rapprochement between New Delhi and Washington in the post-Cold War period.
Shared commitments to democracy have similarly been a key component of India’s engagements with European economies. In the case of the UK, the ‘2030 Roadmap for India-UK future relations’, published in 2021, underscores the two countries’ democratic credentials as the foundation for the pursuit of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Proposed cooperation in areas including trade, defence, climate and health is underpinned by the countries’ status as ‘two modern, open and democratic societies’, with ‘democratic norms and principles’ serving as the ‘mainstay for maintaining a rules based international system and respect for universal human rights’.
India’s relations with the European Union (EU) and its member states are also underpinned by their common democratic foundations. The fact that India is only the second country (after the US) with which the EU has established a Trade and Technology Council (TTC) highlights the priority that Brussels has attached to the relationship with India. The joint statement of the first meeting of the India–EU TTC, which took place in May 2023, declared:
Among EU members, to take the example of France, the 25th anniversary of the India–France strategic partnership was marked in July 2023 by the adoption of a roadmap for the bilateral relationship to 2047. ‘Horizon 2047’ affirms the two countries’ commitment to ‘further deepen’ their strategic partnership ‘in keeping with universal values of liberty, equality, democracy and the rule of law’ in order to ‘strengthen cooperation in the sectors of the future’. Similar language can be found in joint statements between the leaders of India and other European countries.
At present, the US and its European partners are broadly aligned on engaging India. But if concerns continue to grow about democratic backsliding in India, it is possible that a divergence could form in the transatlantic relationship.
There is often more rhetoric than substance to such statements, however. From a Western perspective, cooperation with India is rooted more in geopolitical considerations aimed at cultivating India as a bulwark against the rise of China (discussed below). Whether through growing defence cooperation, efforts to create a ‘free and open’ Indo-Pacific, or the promotion of India as a new industrial hub for the development of critical and emerging technologies as well as more resilient supply chains, the ‘China factor’ has been a key driver of deepening ties.
This also highlights a potential fault line in the transatlantic relationship in respect of India. At present, the US and its European partners are broadly aligned on engaging India. But if concerns continue to grow about democratic backsliding in India, it is possible that a divergence could form in the transatlantic relationship. In the US, there is a stronger consensus on viewing China as a long-term strategic rival, whereas for European governments the case for maintaining constructive engagement with China based on mercantilist interests holds more weight. In this context, the perception of India as a bulwark against the rise of China is stronger in Washington than in Brussels. This means that the US is more likely to overlook or downplay concerns about the status of India’s polity than are European countries, where human rights considerations have historically been more prominent in guiding foreign policy decisions.
Indian democracy as bulwark against China’s one-party state
The idea of India as a bulwark against China is not new. In 1959, for instance, referring to ‘the struggle between India and China for leadership of the East’, the then senator John F. Kennedy emphasized: ‘We want India to win that race. We want India to be a free and thriving leader of a free and thriving Asia.’ What has changed in recent years is the removal of the ideological constraints of the Cold War, which put India and the US on opposite sides of the divide, and a gradual deterioration in the US–China relationship. India is emerging as a potential beneficiary of the push by the US and other Western economies to decouple or de-risk supply chains away from China, particularly in sectors with critical and emerging technologies. This has been facilitated by India’s democratic credentials, demographic dividend, and the absence of any imminent or significant geopolitical fault lines with the West (in contrast to China, given its territorial disputes with other states in the East and South China Seas and risks of escalation over Taiwan).
Renewed border tensions between India and China in recent years have also made New Delhi more receptive to deepening engagement with the West. When asked where India stands on relations with the West and the Russia–China axis following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, noted ‘[W]e are a democracy; we are a market economy; we are a pluralistic society; we have positions on international law and I think that should give a fair part of the answer’, adding that India’s membership of the Quad ‘should tell you which direction we are going’.
Engagement with India has also gained importance in the context of shaping relations between the West and the Global South, where India and China both seek a leadership role. While Beijing and New Delhi share a preference for a multipolar global order and a more equitable distribution of power, India offers a more benign worldview that is non-Western but not explicitly anti-Western.
Engagement with India has gained importance in the context of shaping relations between the West and the Global South, where India and China both seek a leadership role.
India’s DPI has notably been promoted as a low-cost, software-based equivalent of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. While there is a degree of hyperbole in such claims, there is evidence of growing Western collaboration with India in promoting DPI in the Global South. For instance, the US–India joint statement issued during Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in June 2023 noted that the two countries intend to explore the development of a Global Digital Development Partnership to enable the deployment of DPI in developing countries. Shortly before that visit, the EU–India Trade and Technology Council reached a similar consensus, with their joint statement referring to their agreement ‘to collaborate on enhancing the interoperability of their respective Digital Public Infrastructures and on this basis jointly promote secure, privacy-preserving solutions to the benefit of Developing Countries’.
A significant escalation of communal (religious) unrest within India, and/or signs that the BJP’s Hindutva agenda is substantively influencing the country’s external policies and engagements, might prompt Western countries to reconsider their present strategic calculations towards India. Those factors are further explored in the penultimate section of this paper (see ‘Risks on the horizon’, below). In the near term, however, India will continue to be viewed by the West (and the US in particular) as a potential bulwark against the rise of China, with India’s ‘imperfect’ democracy outweighing China’s one-party state when framed in the context of a long-term strategic rivalry between the US and China.
India’s ‘strategic autonomy’ limits cooperation with the West
India’s well-entrenched commitment to a position of ‘strategic autonomy’ in its foreign policy means that it will remain wary of joining any Western-led initiative to ‘export’ or impose democracy, particularly where such actions are viewed as intrusive or coercive. It has also made India reluctant to endorse the concept of ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P), which entails collective international action to respond to a state’s failure to ‘to end the worst forms of violence and persecution’ towards its own population, but can also be seen as grounds for regime change through the unilateral use of force.
A prominent example of India’s disinclination to involve itself in Western-led interventions was its eventual refusal to join state-building efforts in Iraq following the US-led invasion in 2003. This was a significant decision at a time when the post-Cold War rapprochement in the US–India relationship was still in its early stages, so engagement in Iraq was seen as a means to cement relations with the US. Reflecting this, there were complex discussions in New Delhi (within the cabinet, among the parties of the governing coalition and with opposition leaders) about Washington’s request for Indian participation in stabilization efforts, which would have entailed the deployment of some 20,000 Indian soldiers to northern Iraq. While the Indian parliament was unanimous in adopting a resolution deploring the US-led invasion of Iraq, it was more divided on the role it should play in subsequent state-building efforts. Several prominent Indian figures – from deputy prime minister L. K. Advani to members of India’s defence establishment and political commentators – advocated sending Indian troops to Iraq. Ultimately, however, prime minister Vajpayee prevailed in opposing the decision.
India’s long-standing commitment to omni- or multi-alignment in its foreign policy also means that it has been open to engaging non-democratic or weak democratic states. While India is not unique among democracies in doing so, its foreign policy often appears out of sync with Western democracies. In some cases, India’s engagement with non-democratic regimes notably appears to align more closely with China than with the US. Two examples of this are India’s relations with Myanmar and Bangladesh.
