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Pentagon concerned about what would happen if Modi is 'hit by a bus'
June 04, 2015 13:03 IST
The administration and America Inc have invested in Narendra Modi's power to transform India. Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Cabinet ministers (from right) Arun Jaitley (finance), Rajnath Singh (home) and M Venkaiah Naidu (parliamentary affairs). 'It may slow down progress if Modi were to suddenly exit the world stage, but it’s not going to turn back the clock,' a Brookings conference on the NDA government's first year in office was told. Photograph: PTI Photo.
Now the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex -- obviously salivating for billions of dollars of military sales to India and strongly advocating and even more robust US-India defence cooperation, beyond simply joint exercises -- is worried over what could happen to such high hopes if Prime Minister Narendra Modi "is hit by a bus tomorrow."
At the Brookings conference assessing the first year of the Modi government, Diane Farrell, executive vice president and senior director of the US-India Business Council, disclosed that while America Inc had recently been briefing top Pentagon officials, this was a concern that had been raised.
"I was at a building yesterday, which has five sides -- and you can figure it out -- and the question was as we were giving the briefing, what would happen to India if Modi got hit by a bus tomorrow."
"And, the answer we gave, was that it could slow the pace, but the reality is that as the voters expressed last March, India is going to move forward. It’s a matter of how quickly, whether it’s in fits and starts, whether it’s on a sweeping basis, but either way, India will go forward."
When Bruce Jones, Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy at Brookings, who moderated the discussion, intervened and said he would like to explore this concern about "what happens if Modi was hit by a bus," Farrell quickly responded, "No one’s pushing for that -- we are all hoping for a healthy tenure."
When Jones persisted with this concern during the interaction that followed, Farrell reiterated, "I really have a belief in the Indian democratic system fundamentally, and as a result, in spite of the fact that he may be a very centric-driven individual, in spite of his own style, the people I spoke to, say in one way or the another, it may slow down progress if he were to suddenly exit the world stage, but it’s not going to turn back the clock."
"Again, it might take a little longer, but it will happen. There is too much of an aspirational incentive -- you just can’t turn back the clock. You just can’t put the genie back in the bottle," she added.
In February, during a conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment titled ‘Unity in Difference: Overcoming the US-India Divide’, Alan Kronstadt, the specialist in South Asian Affairs, Congressional Research Service -- which is the United States Congress’s own think tank -- that since the Bharatiya Janata Party lacked a ‘deep bench’, the consensus among experts was that if Modi were to suddenly disappear from the scene, the prevailing US optimism on India would rapidly dissipate.
Kronstadt argued that the United States’s engagement with India ‘is predicated on some questionable assumptions,’ and noted that ‘there doesn’t seem to be another Modi in India.’
‘The BJP is not known to have a deep bench on this and so, if Modi were to slip in the shower and hit his head and is removed from government,’ he wondered how it would change the calculations of the US-India partnership now.
At the time, Ashley Tellis, Senior Associate at Carnegie, agreed that the paucity on the BJP bench, and ‘the bad news is that all of this could go for a six — as they say — if something were to happen to Modi because there is no one in India in his party, who has the capacity to mobilise the nation and win the number of seats that he does and shares that conviction of India’s transformation.’
‘You don’t have someone who combines them both,’ he said. ‘You have a lot of people who care about India’s transformation, but they can’t mobilise the country enough to win seats in parliament and run policy.’
Tellis said by the same token, ‘You may have other people who can win seats in Parliament, but care two hoots about transformation.’
‘This guy brings it together nicely, but the bad news is that he’s one of the few and so the bad news is there -- if for some reason, he somehow disappeared from the scene, the optimism about India would begin to questioned again.’
Farrell, who had just returned from India, at the Brookings conference, spoke of how, "To a person in Delhi, on the industry side, affirmed that transparency is now the order of the day. There is credibility that the government is pro-business."
"What they are hoping for is that the same sort of transparency expectation and practice trickling down to the states, which will also have an enormously positive impact when you are talking about industry actually being able to make investment."
As far as America Inc is concerned, Farrell said it was marking Modi’s one year anniversary with "a certain degree of patience," although cognisant that "the budgets have not been bold enough and that the pace of reform is slower than expected."
And, she noted that "if there is a universal theme expressed by industry, it is concern over tax -- the lingering concern about the consistency of predictability of tax."
Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC
Pentagon concerned about what would happen if Modi is 'hit by a bus' - Rediff.com India News
June 04, 2015 13:03 IST
The administration and America Inc have invested in Narendra Modi's power to transform India. Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Cabinet ministers (from right) Arun Jaitley (finance), Rajnath Singh (home) and M Venkaiah Naidu (parliamentary affairs). 'It may slow down progress if Modi were to suddenly exit the world stage, but it’s not going to turn back the clock,' a Brookings conference on the NDA government's first year in office was told. Photograph: PTI Photo.
Now the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex -- obviously salivating for billions of dollars of military sales to India and strongly advocating and even more robust US-India defence cooperation, beyond simply joint exercises -- is worried over what could happen to such high hopes if Prime Minister Narendra Modi "is hit by a bus tomorrow."
At the Brookings conference assessing the first year of the Modi government, Diane Farrell, executive vice president and senior director of the US-India Business Council, disclosed that while America Inc had recently been briefing top Pentagon officials, this was a concern that had been raised.
"I was at a building yesterday, which has five sides -- and you can figure it out -- and the question was as we were giving the briefing, what would happen to India if Modi got hit by a bus tomorrow."
"And, the answer we gave, was that it could slow the pace, but the reality is that as the voters expressed last March, India is going to move forward. It’s a matter of how quickly, whether it’s in fits and starts, whether it’s on a sweeping basis, but either way, India will go forward."
When Bruce Jones, Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy at Brookings, who moderated the discussion, intervened and said he would like to explore this concern about "what happens if Modi was hit by a bus," Farrell quickly responded, "No one’s pushing for that -- we are all hoping for a healthy tenure."
When Jones persisted with this concern during the interaction that followed, Farrell reiterated, "I really have a belief in the Indian democratic system fundamentally, and as a result, in spite of the fact that he may be a very centric-driven individual, in spite of his own style, the people I spoke to, say in one way or the another, it may slow down progress if he were to suddenly exit the world stage, but it’s not going to turn back the clock."
"Again, it might take a little longer, but it will happen. There is too much of an aspirational incentive -- you just can’t turn back the clock. You just can’t put the genie back in the bottle," she added.
In February, during a conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment titled ‘Unity in Difference: Overcoming the US-India Divide’, Alan Kronstadt, the specialist in South Asian Affairs, Congressional Research Service -- which is the United States Congress’s own think tank -- that since the Bharatiya Janata Party lacked a ‘deep bench’, the consensus among experts was that if Modi were to suddenly disappear from the scene, the prevailing US optimism on India would rapidly dissipate.
Kronstadt argued that the United States’s engagement with India ‘is predicated on some questionable assumptions,’ and noted that ‘there doesn’t seem to be another Modi in India.’
‘The BJP is not known to have a deep bench on this and so, if Modi were to slip in the shower and hit his head and is removed from government,’ he wondered how it would change the calculations of the US-India partnership now.
At the time, Ashley Tellis, Senior Associate at Carnegie, agreed that the paucity on the BJP bench, and ‘the bad news is that all of this could go for a six — as they say — if something were to happen to Modi because there is no one in India in his party, who has the capacity to mobilise the nation and win the number of seats that he does and shares that conviction of India’s transformation.’
‘You don’t have someone who combines them both,’ he said. ‘You have a lot of people who care about India’s transformation, but they can’t mobilise the country enough to win seats in parliament and run policy.’
Tellis said by the same token, ‘You may have other people who can win seats in Parliament, but care two hoots about transformation.’
‘This guy brings it together nicely, but the bad news is that he’s one of the few and so the bad news is there -- if for some reason, he somehow disappeared from the scene, the optimism about India would begin to questioned again.’
Farrell, who had just returned from India, at the Brookings conference, spoke of how, "To a person in Delhi, on the industry side, affirmed that transparency is now the order of the day. There is credibility that the government is pro-business."
"What they are hoping for is that the same sort of transparency expectation and practice trickling down to the states, which will also have an enormously positive impact when you are talking about industry actually being able to make investment."
As far as America Inc is concerned, Farrell said it was marking Modi’s one year anniversary with "a certain degree of patience," although cognisant that "the budgets have not been bold enough and that the pace of reform is slower than expected."
And, she noted that "if there is a universal theme expressed by industry, it is concern over tax -- the lingering concern about the consistency of predictability of tax."
Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC
Pentagon concerned about what would happen if Modi is 'hit by a bus' - Rediff.com India News
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