Ties tested, bonds boosted

Modi and Trump, in this file photo, greeting some of the large crowd, most of Indian ancestry, who turned out for an event with the leaders during Modi’s official US visit, at NRG Stadium in Houston. — ©2025 The New York Times Company

OVER the past year, a pair of legal bombshells have put India’s growing relationship with the United States to one of its biggest tests yet.

Just as the two sides were announcing unprecedented expansions in defence and technology ties, US prosecutors accused Indian government agents of plotting to assassinate a US citizen on US soil.

Months later, the Justice Department filed fraud and bribery charges against India’s most prominent business mogul, whose enterprises have soared to dizzying heights on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power.

Still, the relationship has held.

After decades of mutual suspicion between the two countries, said Eric Garcetti, the departing US ambassador to India, the fact that now nothing seems to derail their ties is proof of their strength.

“I don’t think there is anything out there big enough to threaten the trajectory of US-India relations,” Garcetti said in an interview at the embassy in New Delhi, two days before President Joe Biden left office and Donald Trump was sworn in as his successor.

“This is incredibly resilient and almost inevitable,” Garcetti added. “It’s really the pace and the progress that’s not inevitable, like how quickly we get there.”

The Biden administration’s doubling down on the relationship with India came after nearly two decades of efforts to shed Cold War-era suspicions that had culminated with US sanctions on India’s nuclear programme in 1998.

Washington sees great potential in India as a geopolitical counterweight to an increasingly assertive China.

Already the world’s largest democracy, India took over from China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023.

India’s demographic advantages and growing technological capacity could help diversify global supply chains away from China, a priority of the United States and other major powers.

Now comes Trump’s second presidency, with its America-first orientation and threats of steep tariffs on trading partners. While leaders of many countries are unnerved, Indian officials insist that they are not among them.

S. Jaishankar, the foreign minister, said in January, India enjoys “a positive political relationship with Trump” that it hopes will only deepen.

As he attended the opening of a US consulate in the tech hub of Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore, Jaishankar quoted Modi as saying that the two countries were overcoming “the hesitations of history”.

Modi has enjoyed a strong rapport with Trump, an important factor because of the US president’s personal approach to international relations.

During Trump’s first term, Modi hosted him at a grand rally in his home state of Gujarat, as well as at a large gathering in Texas of the Indian diaspora – an increasingly crucial extension of the Indian influence in American politics.

But some analysts cautioned that Trump’s unpredictability and transactional approach could pose risks for India.

Two issues in particular are bound to test the relationship, and most likely soon.

During the election campaign, Trump criticised India as gaining an unfair advantage in trade by maintaining high tariffs.

And India could be swept up in the controversy if Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Indians make up the third-largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Centre. If Trump sends large numbers of Indians back to their home country, it could be a major embarrassment for Modi.

Garcetti described the bilateral relationship as “the most compelling, challenging and consequential” for both countries.

A former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Garcetti arrived in New Delhi in April 2023, after the mission had remained without an ambassador for two years. His confirmation process had hit a wall over accusations that he had overlooked complaints of sexual harassment by an aide when he was mayor.

He made up for the time lost with a burst of energy and outreach like that of a politician in campaign mode.

He was everywhere, from cricket grounds to cafeterias to cultural programmes.

Sporting a leather jacket, he even got behind the piano to open for jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves, who had come to perform at the Piano Man Jazz Club in New Delhi.But by the time Garcetti tried his hand at dancing to a viral Bollywood tune at a Diwali celebration, relations between the two countries had hit major obstacles.

In India, right-wing trolls had seized on the US allegations of Indian government involvement in a plot to assassinate a US citizen advocating a separatist cause in India. That, along with the US indictment of business mogul Gautam Adani, was evidence that the United States was trying to dampen India’s inevitable rise, the nationalist online voices argued.

The Biden administration appeared intent on addressing the assassination episode quietly with New Delhi, demanding accountability without allowing it to become a major diplomatic sore point.

“On Capitol Hill, within the White House, I think with those in the know it was a real moment of reflection and pause,” Garcetti said of the assassination case.

“It didn’t pause the momentum – you know, relations between countries are always multifaceted and simultaneous and not just between governments. But I think it was an immediate gut check.”

Garcetti said the Biden administration had been reassured by India’s response. New Delhi had accepted the US demand, he said, “not just for accountability but for systemic reform and guarantees that this will never happen again”.

An Indian government inquiry that concluded last month recommended legal action against an unnamed person with “earlier criminal links”.

It said that the action “must be completed expeditiously”, in what analysts saw as an attempt to begin the Trump era with a clean slate.

“If we want to cooperate in other areas that are important to us, intelligence sharing, etc, trust is the basis of everything,” Garcetti said. “But I’ve been pretty blown away with how trust can deepen through a challenge.” — ©2025 The New York Times Company