No doubt it was a visit driven by positive
sentiments that added further positives during its course, setting the mood of
the future discourse.
Barack Oabam's visit to India, with
some historic firsts in India-US ties like Obama becoming the first US President
to visit India twice while in office or the being first US President to be the
chief guest of India's Republic Day Parade, was successful on many vital
counts.
It extended the streak of bonhomie
that was successfully injected in worsening India-US ties during Narendra
Modi's September 2014 US visit.
It successfully built on the developments
thereafter, Modi further meeting twice with Obama, in Myanmar and in Australia
during multilateral meets, and backdoor negotiations on contentious issues like
the civil nuclear deal.
It renewed the India-US 'Defence
Framework Agreement' with co-production and co-development ventures.
It emphasized on the balancing act in
Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean geopolitics with India's growing role and growing
collaboration with the US in checking the Chinese ambitions.
It saw Narendra Modi assuring Barack
Obama and the US businessmen that India would remove the whims of red-tapes and
Modi would personally look after the execution of proposals and projects.
It saw Barack Obama assuring India to
look into Indian concerns on H-1B visa issue. H-1B visa is the route for
opportunities for Indian techies in the US and Indian companies have been
raising concerns ever since immigration reforms were initiated by Barack Obama.
It saw commitment of $4 billion by the
US to start new initiatives.
It saw the personal chemistry between
Narendra Modi and Barack Obama reaching to the next level where Obama promised
to come back to India with his daughters and assuring that the ties would
continue to prosper even if Obamas were not in the White House.
It saw two vital protocols broken to
extend the commitments at personal level - first, Narendra Modi broke the
protocol and received Barack Obama at the airport. Second, Barack Obama ignored
the requirement of his security details that 'he should not be in open air
events for more than 45 minutes' and stayed for the complete duration of the
Republic Day Parade.
And above all, it was not without the
signs of 'checks and balances' - on the lines of the visit being 'transitional
if not transformational' as the US Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes
had said before the visit.
The long and checkered history of India-US ties indeed needs a gradual and transitional approach to cement the ties further - watching and fine-tuning the responses while on the move - testing the waters to see if the 'ambitions to become the global partners' come along with the assuring developments of 'being all-weather friends'.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
