Delhi Uni­ver­sity As­so­ci­ate Ku­mar San­jay Singh pre­sents a cur­tain-raiser of the pos­si­ble change in sce­nar­ios of Indo-US re­la­tion­ship af­ter the tran­si­tion of power at the White House in the hands of De­mo­c­rat Joseph R. Biden Jr and his com­pa­triot Ka­mala Har­ris.

THE IN­AU­GU­RA­TION OF DON­ALD TRUMP AS THE 45TH PRES­I­DENT OF THE UNITED STATES wit­nessed the es­tab­lish­ment of per­haps the most dis­rup­tive regime in US his­tory. Even US for­eign pol­icy that fol­lowed a re­mark­ably sta­ble tra­jec­tory in the post-WWII era was not spared from the whims of Don­ald Trump.

The pre­sent elec­tions in the US have nearly con­cluded though the of­fi­cial re­sults are still to be an­nounced, Will Joe Biden’s vic­tory, mark the re­turn of the con­ven­tional in US for­eign pol­icy?

How will Biden pres­i­dency af­fect Indo-Us ties?

The in­creas­ing strate­gic ties be­tween In­dia and the United States are likely to con­tinue. These ties, which be­gan with Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton has per­sisted over four Pres­i­dents.

Sig­nif­i­cantly though, un­der Don­ald Trump, the Indo-US strate­gic ties had be­come trans­ac­tional where in re­turn In­dia was ob­lig­ated to buy US arms and pe­tro­leum. Un­der Joe Biden, it is very likely that this trans­ac­tional as­pect of Indo-US will be re­placed with com­mon strate­gic con­cerns to check the grow­ing in­flu­ence of China in the South Asian re­gion.

Biden’s com­mit­ment to­wards mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism will not only wit­ness Amer­i­ca’s re­turn to WHO, Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment and free trade, which too may wit­ness the eas­ing of con­stant threats of a tar­iff war.

Un­der Biden, the Trans-Pa­cific Part­ner­ship Agree­ment will be­come the main plat­form to check China in the Indo-Pa­cific oceanic routes. With the re­vival of TPPA, QUAD might lose the pri­macy that the Trump and Pom­peo ini­tia­tive in Indo-Pa­cific re­gion wanted it to have. With this shift in the sig­nif­i­cance of QUAD, in­creas­ing US pres­sure on In­dia to make a mil­i­tary com­mit­ment in Afghanistan and South China sea will be re­leased, which is likely to be ben­e­fi­cial to In­dia.

More­over, Biden will also re­vive the Obama-era Iran nu­clear deal, which will end the Trump-im­posed eco­nomic sanc­tions on Iran. Even on this score, In­dia will stand to gain tremen­dously from the re­vival of eco­nomic ties with Iran.

“Once COVID19-im­posed eco­nomic slump on US econ­omy eases, In­di­ans may wit­ness the eas­ing of H1B Visa norms.”

Biden is com­mit­ted to restor­ing US lead­er­ship in the world or­der. There would, there­fore, be a re­turn of US to mul­ti­lat­eral plat­forms such as WHO, Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment and in­sti­tu­tions of free trade, which may wit­ness the eas­ing of con­stant threats of tar­iff wars.

There would also be a sig­nif­i­cant shift from the Trump era im­mi­gra­tion laws. Once COVID19-im­posed eco­nomic slump on US econ­omy eases, In­di­ans may wit­ness the eas­ing of H1B Visa norms.

Some­thing that would not be palat­able to the gov­ern­ment of In­dia is that the Biden-led United States gov­ern­ment may turn out to be out­spo­ken on the cul­tural, re­li­gious and hu­man rights poli­cies of the Naren­dra Modi-led Na­tional De­mo­c­ra­tic Al­liance gov­ern­ment of In­dia.

Ku­mar San­jay Singh is As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor in the De­part­ment of His­tory at the Swami Shrad­dhanand Col­lege, Uni­ver­sity of Delhi with spe­cial­i­sa­tion in Mu­ta­tions in In­dian State for­ma­tion post-1947, Ex­tra­or­di­nary laws es­pe­cially In­ter­nal Se­cu­rity Leg­is­la­tions and Hu­man Rights with spe­cial fo­cus on North-east In­dia and Adi­vasi so­ci­ety.