People-to-people ties ‘secret sauce’ of India-US relationship: Former US envoy

Washington, June 30 (IANS) People-to-people ties have been the “secret sauce” binding India and the United States through periods of diplomatic ups and downs, former US Ambassador to India Kenneth I. Juster said, as he traced the evolution of the relationship from early American consulates in India to today’s comprehensive global strategic partnership.

Speaking at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) Leadership Summit, Juster said India and the United States had been connected in significant ways for centuries, long before the modern strategic partnership took shape.

“No two nations so far apart geographically have been so closely connected as the United States and India,” Juster said.

Juster noted that the United States established two of its earliest overseas diplomatic missions in India — in Calcutta in 1792 and Madras in 1794 — only a few years after opening its mission in Paris.

He also recalled that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had pushed Britain on India’s independence and that the United States established relations with India’s interim government in September 1946, more than 11 months before India formally became independent.

Juster said the post-Cold War relationship gained momentum after India’s 1991 economic reforms but suffered a setback after India’s 1998 nuclear tests. The subsequent talks between US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh helped put ties back on track and paved the way for President Bill Clinton’s 2000 visit to India.

He said President George W. Bush then sought to transform ties between “the world’s oldest democracy” and “the world’s largest democracy”, with high technology and the civil nuclear agreement becoming central to that shift.

Juster said successive administrations continued building on that foundation, citing India’s designation as a major defence partner under President Barack Obama, the launch of the 2+2 ministerial dialogue and revival of the Quad at ministerial level during the first Trump administration, and the elevation of Quad meetings to the leaders’ level under President Joe Biden.

He said the second Trump administration had continued work with India on defence cooperation and energy security while seeking to conclude a first-ever bilateral trade agreement.

Juster said bilateral trade in goods and services had grown from $19 billion in 2001, when he served as Under Secretary of Commerce, to almost $250 billion today, with both countries aspiring to reach $500 billion by the end of the decade.

“Completing a trade deal would greatly facilitate this,” he said.

He said the India-US partnership had expanded across “almost every area of human endeavour”, including defence, non-proliferation, counter-terrorism, trade, investment, science and technology, healthcare, energy, agriculture, education, space and the oceans.

“Our people-to-people relationship has been especially important. In many ways, it is the secret sauce that binds us together, including through various periods of ups and downs in governmental relations,” Juster said.

He cited the “Howdy Modi” event in Houston in 2019 and the “Namaste Trump” event in Ahmedabad in 2020 as examples of public goodwill, saying the impact of more than 5 million Indian Americans on US economy and society was “immeasurable”.

The former ambassador also praised USISPF and its leadership for helping promote the partnership, saying the organisation and its business leaders had been critical players in the relationship.

His remarks preceded the launch of USISPF’s coffee table book, We the People: 250 Voices That Have Shaped the U.S.-India Relationship, which celebrates individuals across centuries who helped shape bilateral ties.

A video introducing the book said the volume honours “250 stellar individuals across centuries” from fields including diplomacy, medicine, business, academia, activism, engineering, arts, politics and public life.

“These portraits remind us that the story of the United States and India is not just the story of two governments, but a story of people,” the video said.

The book was launched as the United States marks 250 years of independence and India continues to expand its global role. It builds on USISPF’s earlier volume, We the People: 75 Years of US-India Relations, released in 2022 to mark 75 years of India’s independence and diplomatic ties between the two countries.

–IANS

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