The Precarious State of India-US Relations

There are two narratives doing the rounds about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Washington to break bread with US President Donald Trump.

- HT Correspondent

NEW DELHI:

The first narrative, touted by the government and its backers, is that the Prime Minister skillfully threaded the needle with Trump, standing up for Indian interests but also giving the President some important early wins that can position India well for the future.

The second narrative suggests a more pessimistic vision—that US-India relations are at a precarious juncture, where a volatile and transactional President just might upend bilateral ties at a time when India can scarcely afford it.

To discuss where US-India ties sit in the aftermath of the PM Modi visit, Rajesh Rajagopalan was the featured guest on a recent episode of Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International peace.

Rajagopalan is a professor of international politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University and an expert on nuclear policy, Indian foreign policy, and US-India relations.

He spoke with host Milan Vaishnav about former US President Joe Biden's foreign policy legacy, India's longstanding demands for technology transfers, and what he terms a "plateauing" in bilateral ties.