AMERICA AND INDIA
For U.S. Security, Kamala Must Go — to India: Part 1
An enhanced relationship with the world’s largest democracy is waiting
In September 2021, the Indian head of government, Narendra Modi, invited American Vice President Kamala Harris to visit India. She should go.
And the Biden-Harris Administration should make it a high priority.
The invitation signaled the Indian leadership’s desire to expand the bilateral relationship. As China’s Dragon Throne asserts its will, the USA and India both need friends to extinguish dragon fire.
Consequently, they should be planning her itinerary now!
With three exceptions, every American president has visited the Republic since the Eisenhower Administration. Then-Vice President Joe Biden had his own passage to India a decade ago. Therefore, a Harris trip would burnish her presidential image — an important consideration for someone in the line of succession. Also important when that line is to the oldest-serving president.
America’s apex national security threat, Donald Trump, also traveled to India in February 2020. But the Harris trip should happen before February 2024 — and preferably in late January on India’s 75th Republic Day, their national holiday. As covered by India Today, Harris went to Africa this year and visited the home of her maternal grandfather. Therefore, she should reconnect — in an official capacity — with her mother’s homeland.
(Click below for a brief video clip from this year’s Indian holiday festivities.)
The clip suggests that India, like the Kurdish female fighters, is a work-in-progress for gender equality in Asia. That’s diversity and inclusion. That also forms the arc toward real democracy.
Thus, America’s first female VP should also lead a delegation that includes select Indian-American business leaders — think of Jayshree Ullal of Arista Networks and Sundar Pichai of Google. Those success stories would serve as important symbols of America’s soft power.
Would Russia have any comparable examples it can offer India as business ambassadors? Oil, yes — innovation, no.
The new balance of power equation
But what should be the impetus for accepting Modi’s invitation — beyond enhancing her political profile?
India, like China, represents something unique in modern times: the successors to ancient civilizations of the pre-Common Era, which have become continental powers. That’s a shift authentically MAGA: Making the Ancient Great Again.
And that is something that the superpowers of European genesis had not seen prior to the advent of the 21st century.
But unlike China, India adopted democracy as its model. Of course, that doesn’t mean India has done so perfectly. But as someone who was born of both African and Native American descent, I can attest to the premise that neither has the USA.
Thus, the connective tissue between India and America exists. There is a shared commitment to democratic values. There is a shared language as a result of our common heritage as former British colonies. After China, India is also the largest source of foreign students at American colleges. They are future engineers, writers, financiers — for both nations.
So, the West is facing a new world order involving the renaissance of two of the planet’s oldest and greatest civilizations. Both, understandably, have unhealed memories of their past exploitation by European colonial powers. But only one is a democracy.
That’s a shift authentically MAGA: Making the Ancient Great Again.
The other is reportedly collaborating with Cuba to establish a surveillance post on that Caribbean island. Those reports may be inaccurate, but history reminds us of a spat called the Cuban Missile Crisis. What is worrisome is this: Where the Soviet Union failed as a sustainable economic power, China has largely succeeded — contributing to its threat as an authoritarian juggernaut.
Thus, India and America have aligned interests as headwinds against China’s expansionism. Left unchecked, China’s growing navy could turn the Indian Ocean into a Chinese lake, one extending to the eastern shores of Africa. Likewise, both India and America should be wary of any other anti-democratic powers — explicitly those seeking to dominate maritime routes within and near the Indian Ocean.
The power of “genetic diplomacy”
But a pushback to China is not anti-Chinese. As the philosopher Hegel might describe it, this is a dialectical process which could unfold as follows: From an initial thesis (the PRC’s Asian expansionism), there responds an antithesis (resistance by democratic powers). And from that resistance could unfold a synthesis — hopefully one of collective adherence to liberal values — not raw power — to advance global harmony.
President Biden has stated repeatedly that America is a republic built on an idea, not ethnicity or religion. There are layers of truth in that — as well as contradictions. However, ethnicity and common heritage have been important aspects of America’s soft power in the conduct of foreign policy.
We saw that in Obama’s relationship with Africa. We may see it again if Ms. Harris visits India — and sits in witness of their Republic Day pageantry.
Yet, there is another reason why Kamala Harris should go to South Asia. And it is of relevance to my fellow African-Americans. That revelation, however, will be the grist of a future post.
Thanks for your attention and past claps, and I welcome your responses. I write about multiculturalism, philosophy, and history. To follow future posts, you can press the button on the screen. — Geronimo Redstone
