Modi and Biden Meet to Strengthen India-U.S. Relations: Live Updates

Biden welcomes India’s prime minister despite concerns over human rights.

President Biden emphasized common ground with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India on Thursday during a lavish state visit meant to bolster ties with the world’s most populous nation, while largely skirting points of friction over human rights and Russia’s war in Ukraine, at least in public.

After a pomp-filled, red-carpet arrival ceremony, Mr. Biden and Mr. Modi announced a range of initiatives to advance cooperation in technology, energy and military hardware but revealed no movement toward each other on the areas of disagreement that have strained the relationship in recent months, most especially Ukraine.

June 22, 2023, 3:33 p.m. ET

Luke Broadwater

in anticipation of Modi’s visit, congressional workers have been in overdrive sprucing up the House, bringing in fresh furniture and putting up red curtains outside the chamber

What to know about the state of India’s democracy.

As President Biden rolls out the red carpet for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, he is embracing a country that is coming into its own on the global stage.

India is the world’s most populous nation, finally emerging from the shadows of its colonial past and the immediate burden of combating hunger and disease, and is now also the fifth-largest economy. It has a young work force, a strong tech industry, a growing consumer market and barely scratched potential as a manufacturing hub.

But all the talk of India’s rise masks a backsliding of its democratic traditions.

Expert opinion on the health of India’s democracy falls on a wide spectrum between outright alarm at an authoritarian turn, and belief that the concern is exaggerated given that India has pulled through such stresses on its constitutional democracy before.

Some democracy watchdogs have expressed worry. The way Mr. Modi has cracked down on dissent and free speech, and hounded his opponents, is often seen as comparable only to the 1970s Emergency, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended democracy. India tops the global list of internet shutdowns. Opposition leaders are frequently raided by investigating agencies and bogged down in court cases.

Other experts, while acknowledging concerns, have said the cause for alarm is overstated. Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, argued in an academic article that India under Mr. Modi was a paradox of sorts, with “democratic erosion in certain areas such as civil liberties and protection of minorities, but deepening of democratic norms in many other areas.” For example, more people — particularly women — are voting and running for office.

What sets apart Mr. Modi’s systematic consolidation of power, much of it achieved not through dramatic power grabs but through more subtle and lasting means, is that it is entrenching Hindu supremacy in India’s constitutionally secular democracy.

Mr. Modi’s outsize influence over the arms of state has created widespread impunity for his right-wing vigilante supporters, who are doing the ground work of turning India into a Hindu-first nation. There is a perpetual sense of combustibility, with the country’s religious minority of more than 200 million non-Hindus, most of them Muslims, often at the receiving end.

Large-scale riots with mass casualties have become rarer than in the recent past, but hate is more easily spread through social media, where Mr. Modi’s party and support base have a dominant presence. Emboldened vigilantes have attacked mosques and churches, hounded interfaith couples and lynched men accused of transporting beef, and viral videos of the violence on social media have created a suffocating constancy to the tension.

When clashes happen, the state often doles out justice in a partisan manner. Police officers are often restrained in their actions against Hindu vigilantes. But the authorities — trailed by news cameras — are increasingly quick to exert swift, collective and extrajudicial punishment, particularly in the form of bulldozing homes, when the perpetrator of a crime is Muslim.

Happymon Jacob, who teaches foreign policy at the New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, said India had reacted angrily when the United States had raised human rights concerns, “sending a message to the U.S. that it needs to choose between preaching to India or engaging India.”

“I think the U.S. has realized that it would be sacrificing the geopolitical utility of the Indo-U.S. relationship if it decides to castigate India on human rights issues,” he said.

Karan Deep Singh contributed reporting.

A scorecard for Narendra Modi’s India.

After nearly a decade in power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brings to Washington a record that has prompted pride and outrage.

Among fans, he is beloved for overseeing record growth, building roads and airports, and expanding access to sanitation, clean water, cooking fuel and digital payment systems. Critics, however, say Mr. Modi and his party have unleashed a dangerous wave of Hindu nationalism, muzzling critics and encouraging violent discrimination against minorities.

Mr. Modi’s supporters and detractors have ample evidence to back up their assessments. And, as is often the case with India, which now has the world’s largest population, a lot can be understood through numbers.

Growth

10 to 5: Under the Modi government, India has moved up five places in the global economic rankings, becoming the fifth largest economy in the world. It is projected to have the fastest growth of any major economy this year, continuing a trend that began under Mr. Modi’s predecessor.

74 to 148: In nine years, according to the government, the number of airports in India has doubled.

382 to 693: The number of medical colleges in India has also soared. In February, the government said its universities could seat nearly 100,000 medical students each year, up from around 50,000 in 2014.

117.2 million: That would be the number of toilets that Mr. Modi says his government has installed under a program for rural sanitation.

8 billion: The transactions that took place on India’s new digital payments system in January alone. The rapid growth of the program, which began under Mr. Modi’s predecessor, has relied in large part on the government’s push to give every citizen a unique identification number, called the Aadhaar, which allows for payments small and large.

Repression

4: Governments run by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in four Indian states demolished dozens of properties belonging to Muslims after a series of protests last year. Mr. Modi, who started working with the B.J.P. in the 1970s, has done little if anything to discourage such efforts — or violence against Muslims by Hindu nationalists, or widespread anti-Muslim bias in India’s police forces. An independent study from 2019 found that one in two police officers felt that Muslims were “naturally prone” to crime.

2 million: In the state of Assam in northern India in 2019, two million people were told that they were considered stateless after a mass citizenship check. New York Times reporters interviewed several members of the tribunal making the decisions, and they said they had felt pressured by the government to declare Muslims to be noncitizens.

35: In August 2019, the Modi government stripped constitutional autonomy from India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir. Since then, according to Human Rights Watch, at least 35 journalists in Kashmir have faced police interrogation, raids, threats, assault, restrictions on movement, or fabricated criminal cases for their reporting.

84: India shut down the internet at least 84 times in 2022, the highest number of any country for the fifth consecutive year. In many cases, the blackouts were targeted to locations with ethnic or religious violence that might undermine the image of a peaceful, prosperous India that Mr. Modi promotes — at home, and now in Washington.

In a little over a year, India has gone from purchasing hardly any Russian oil to buying about half of what the country exports by sea. India’s purchases have put it strategically between Russia and the Western coalition backing Ukraine, as the world’s economic relationships continue to be rewired in the wake of the war.

Modi’s visit is a chance for Biden to court an economic partner.

The visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to the United States on Thursday gives the Biden administration an opportunity to make an in-person pitch on a key plank of its economic agenda: “friend-shoring.”

This year, the U.S. has placed India at the center of its ambition to detach global supply chains from the clutches of American adversaries and rely more on allies for critical materials that have long come from countries like China and Russia.

The Biden administration has made clear that it sees India, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, in the friend category, and has been seeking to cement ties as tensions with China remain high and as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to strain international commerce.

At the U.S.-India Business Council Ideas Summit last week, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen noted that the U.S. is India’s largest trading partner, with more than $190 billion in trade last year, and emphasized the importance of increasing trade and investment between the two countries.

“Our aim is to expand trade ties with the broad array of countries we can rely on in order to create more redundancies in our critical supply chains,” Ms. Yellen said. “India is one of our reliable trading partners.”

As the host of the Group of 20 summits this year, India has been confronted with a delicate diplomatic challenge. It has strong ties to Russia and is a major importer of Russian oil and military equipment, but the U.S. and its Western allies have been urging the rest of the world to increase economic pressure on Russia so that it will end its war in Ukraine.

To remain neutral, India has tried to avoid describing the conflict as a war and has instead focused the Group of 20 meetings on other issues.

Ms. Yellen is expected to return to India next month for a gathering of finance ministers, and President Biden and other world leaders will gather in New Delhi in September.

Modi showed that he knows how to deflect a reporter’s question about as well as any other elected politician. He used to do so regularly when he was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat. To the claim that there is “no question of discrimination,” well: There are heaps of question-raising reports to choose among.

Shortly after Biden used his final remarks to try to celebrate his climate legislation, we heard shouted questions of whether his son’s plea agreement showed a “two-tiered” justice system. That moment could very well foreshadow the themes of this presidential campaign.

Modi’s response to criticism of the crackdown on dissent and treatment of minorities was in line with what his government says when facing criticism — but more than what Modi has said on such issues at home, where he usually keeps silent.

As Biden and Modi wrapped up their appearance, they left the room without responding to shouted questions about, among other things, Hunter Biden’s plea agreement.

Modi is brushing off questions over the treatment of minorities in India. Our colleagues have reported that he was mostly silent when some right-wing Hindu leaders called for violence against Muslims.

It’s interesting that Modi addressed the question of discrimination, but not the silencing of critics. Just a few minutes earlier, at a protest near the White House, several demonstrators spoke about the attacks — online and off — that they said they and their family members had faced for criticizing the Modi government.

To your point, Zolan, there are protesters outside the White House and protesters awaiting Modi on Capitol Hill who are concerned with that very issue.

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Protesters: “Go back. Hitler Modi.” Go back. Hitler Modi.” “Modi, you are never welcome in America.” “What is happening in the whole of India. India is a Nazi state. President Biden, you must listen to us.” “Let me remind that the preamble of the U.N. Charter of Human Rights says if a man is not to be compelled as a last resort to rebellion, his human rights must be protected by the rule of the law.”

Modi, answering what is most likely the first question in a news conference in the nine years since he became prime minister, brushes aside concerns over crackdowns on dissent and treatment of minorities under his government in India. He said there is “no question of discrimination” and that “democracy is in our DNA.”

When he first came to office, Biden signed an executive memo directing his administration to call out foreign governments that violated human rights or democratic norms. The president and Vice President Kamala Harris have been pressed recently on how they balance that commitment with swaying nations that can be helpful in confronting Russia and China. Harris was asked about this balance during her Africa tour recently. India’s human rights record is also a primary theme of this news conference.

Modi says, answering a rare question from a reporter, that democracy is in India’s “DNA.”

I’ve been very curious to see if Ashok Bajaj, who is the man behind Rasika and another high-end Indian restaurant in the capital, will be on the guest list. (Rasika is a favorite of the Obamas.)

Modi talking about the Indian diaspora in America makes me wonder if Mindy Kaling will be at the State Dinner. And which other cool Americans of Indian descent got an invite, I wonder.

Biden shrugs off Chinese complaints about his use of the word “dictator” to describe President Xi Jinping, saying that he was simply speaking the “facts” and that he still expects to meet later this year. “I don’t think it’s had any real consequence.”

“Futuristic” partnerships, of the kind Modi mentioned in reference to India’s and America’s strategic-technological exchange, have leaped ahead of the subjects of most old-fashioned bilateral agreements. There is a pivotal role for something new called iCET, or the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies: a framework for cooperation on technologies like A.I., quantum computing and high-end chip fabs. In years past, trade negotiations between India and America foundered on things like farm subsidies and tariffs on processed chicken parts.

Yes, Helene! Especially compared with politicians in the United States, who face pressure to be married as they ascend through the ranks. James Buchanan was the only president to have been a lifelong bachelor. And Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, who is single, made headlines for being a bachelor when he announced a run for the presidency recently.

Modi sticks to his position on the Ukraine war, emphasizing the need for “dialogue and diplomacy” and adding, “We are completely ready to contribute in any way we can to restore peace.” Once again, he makes no condemnation of Russia for violating its neighbor’s sovereignty nor offers support for Ukraine in defending itself.

Modi says that the Indian diaspora in America — four million people strong — is “the real strength behind our relations.” His party has spent more than two decades connecting with Indian Americans, especially in business and technology, where many multinational companies are now led by executives who were raised and educated in India.

Modi says that India is committed to maintaining secure supply chains with the U.S. The Biden administration has prioritized its relationship with India in its “friend-shoring” agenda, which aims to make the U.S. less reliant on adversaries.

I would like to say that I was fascinated by Suhasini Raj’s story today that Modi and all these other high-level Indian politicians are single. Because it’s seen as a thing of honor to be married to the state. Why aren’t we talking more about this?

If India does start to manufacture G.E.’s F414 engine for its Tejas warplanes, it will be one of only five countries in the world to make fighter-jet engines domestically. Only the U.S., France, the U.K. and Russia do now. China is struggling to replace its dependence on Russian technology.

Biden mentioned the two nations are focused on providing opportunities for Indian students to participate in exchange programs in the United States. I’ve often heard complaints from Indian professionals and scholars about the growing backlog of green card applications and delays in the U.S. immigration system. A proposal by Biden to make hundreds of thousands of unused green cards available to immigrants did not survive congressional negotiations during his first year in office.

Modi is reading from two teleprompters set up in front of him. No teleprompters are set up in front of Biden.

While the new weapons agreement focuses on drones and fighter jets, Indian officials have also expressed increased concern about China’s expanded presence in the Indian Ocean, and they have said they are hoping the increased military ties will eventually be expanded to include more collaboration in that maritime domain.

Biden opens the joint appearance with a testimonial to U.S.-Indian friendship without directly addressing points of friction. He mentions the virtues of freedom and democracy without noting backsliding in India and cites Russia’s war without mentioning India’s refusal to back Ukraine.

Biden says that India and the U.S. are democracies that value universal human rights.

State visits historically are scripted affairs that come after weeks of negotiations between diplomats. Those diplomats seek to finalize economic or security agreements both leaders can then celebrate. Biden so far has spent much of his remarks detailing agreements previously finalized by the U.S. and India.

In many ways, this weapons agreement, in which India is set to buy new American drones and to jointly produce fighter jet engines, is a victory for the Pentagon and the American defense industry. Officials from both have used the Russian military’s dismal performance in the war in Ukraine to make the case to potential clients, like India, that their own militaries are better off aligning themselves more closely with American products.

Biden notes that trade between the U.S. and India has doubled over the last decade to $190 billion last year. The U.S. is India’s largest trading partner, and India is planning big investments in the U.S. at a time when the Biden administration is mulling new restrictions on investing in China.

June 22, 2023, 1:44 p.m. ET

Alan Rappeport

Biden says the visit demonstrates how India and the U.S. are collaborating on “nearly every human endeavor.” He mentions space exploration, combating climate change and artificial intelligence.

We don’t yet know how Biden’s meeting with Modi went, but former President Barack Obama said in an interview with CNN on Thursday that he would make the case to India’s prime minister that it is in the country’s interest to protect the human rights of ethnic minorities. “Part of my argument would be that if you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities in India, then there is a strong possibility India at some point starts pulling apart,” Obama said.

Modi has stayed neutral on Ukraine as India embraces Russian oil.

The Gulf of Kutch in India is home to the world’s largest oil refinery. But until recently, Russia, one of the largest producers, rarely shipped crude petroleum there.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, tankers laden with Russian oil became an increasingly common sight along this inlet of northwestern India. A New York Times analysis of data from SynMax, a satellite data analytics company, found that dozens of tankers now arrive every month from Russia.

The ships are signs of a stark wartime phenomenon: Since fighting began, India has rapidly emerged as a primary buyer of Russia’s vast supply of crude oil.

India’s purchases have put it strategically between Russia and the Western coalition backing Ukraine.

The United States, Europe and other countries have imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow. In an effort to hurt Russia but keep global supplies steady, they also imposed a cap on the price Russia could charge for its oil.

This cheaper oil has found new markets — including India, which now purchases nearly two million barrels a day, roughly 45 percent of its imports, according to the International Energy Agency.

In addition to stoking India’s economy, cheap Russian oil has given India a lucrative business in refining it and exporting the products to regions that suddenly need new energy supplies. That includes the European Union, which has banned direct oil purchases from Russia.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has taken a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine. His balancing act will be in focus this week as he makes his first state visit to the United States.

Read the full article on India’s embrace of Russian oil:

Reporters have now been brought to the East Room for the press availability but the White House not given an updated time for when the joint appearance will start.

Outside the White House, where a crowd of Modi supporters gathered earlier this morning, a small group of protesters held signs declaring “Say No to Modi.” Many of them doubted Modi would actually submit to a press conference with unscripted questions. “He doesn’t feel he’s answerable to anyone – no one can question him," said Niranjan Takle, an Indian journalist who says he has been subjected to abuse and threats for his critical coverage of the Modi government.

The U.S. delegation meeting with Indian officials today includes Antony Blinken, secretary of state; Lloyd Austin, defense secretary; Gina Raimondo, commerce secretary; and Jennifer Granholm, energy secretary. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Paris this week for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.

Modi has used a monthly radio program to stoke his popularity and rehabilitate his image.

Once a month, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, walks into a studio set up at his government bungalow and takes his seat behind a microphone. The air-conditioning is switched off to quiet its hum. Thick curtains maintain the room’s silence even from Mr. Modi’s favorite peacocks in the garden outside.

Then the prime minister begins his radio show, for which he has recorded over 100 episodes, with a usual greeting in Hindi: “My dear countrymen, hello!”

The joint press availability, which was supposed to start at 12:45 p.m., has been delayed without a sense of when it will now take place. Reporters at the White House have been sent back to the briefing room to wait.

At the White House arrival ceremony, Modi recalled a trip three decades ago where he saw the White House “from outside.” Injecting his personal story is important to how Modi is communicating his grand reception to his supporters back home ahead of elections early next year. In his campaign, he is intricately linking India’s rise on the world stage to his rise as a global statesman.

Mark the day: Modi fielded live questions from the press.

It’s vanishingly rare for Narendra Modi to directly field live questions from the press throughout a near decade in power. So when the Indian prime minister took two questions from reporters at a White House press event with Mr. Biden on Thursday, it was a notable moment.

From the start of his time in office, Mr. Modi and his staff have been fastidious about controlling his message, and trying to control the media, in general. Though he loves speeches at public events, and has leaned into his monthly radio show as a way to deliver messages to the nation, any exposure to unscripted events had been a no-go before the White House event, and probably will be again afterward.

In hosting Modi, Biden pushes democracy concerns to the background.

President Biden has declared “the battle between democracy and autocracy” to be the defining struggle of his time. But when he rolls out the red carpet on the South Lawn of the White House for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India on Thursday morning, Mr. Biden will effectively call a temporary truce.

In granting Mr. Modi a coveted state visit, complete with a star-studded gala dinner, Mr. Biden will shower attention on a leader presiding over democratic backsliding in the world’s most populous nation. Mr. Modi’s government has cracked down on dissent and hounded opponents in a way that has raised fears of an authoritarian turn not seen since India’s slip into dictatorship in the 1970s.