From Indifference to Interest, Virtually

The US visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi this past week can be called a success -- for Modi, because he reinforced his stature and legitimacy as a world leader with the largest-ever democratic majority vote, and broadcast his own vision for India on a global stage; and for his host, US President Barack Obama, embattled at home by partisan politics and abroad by an ill-advised foreign policy, the bilateral meeting was largely positive.

In short, the frayed friendship between India and the US has been patched up. Now, it’s time to put it to work.
It may actually happen. Unlike the past mirage of great India-US expectations, there seems to be a clear recognition of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. And the ever pragmatic Modi pinpointed two existing strengths: a) working with the US on India's virtual infrastructure, and b) calling on the Non-Resident Indian community for a positive participation in India.
Both are at the stage of take-off. India has long had its virtual infrastructure in place. Physical infrastructure, strangled by corruption, never really materialised, leaving all of India's creativity to blossom in its virtual spaces. Satellite, Cellular and Software have been at the centre of our economic growth and societal change since 2000. Cooperation in these can, per a Gateway House study, push bilateral trade to $1 trillion by 2030.

India's NRIs are also a continuum in the bilateral. They are both Modi's long-time supporters outside India and the original links of the Bengaluru-Silicon Valley connections. Indian-origin Valley techies and venture capitalists built on the turn-of-the-century Y2K opportunity, sparking the entrepreneurial technology culture in India. Today, a third of Silicon Valley start-ups have an Indian co-founder. Still, Bengaluru has enough capital, but not enough innovators and, as investors say, "not enough success stories." NRIs can help generate those innovators and successes.

At Madison Square Garden, when Modi urged them to participate in India as tourists and investors, he was thinking both of Bengaluru, and of the example of the Chinese diaspora. Before the giant multinationals made China their global manufacturing base, the overseas Chinese community -- particularly in the US, Hong Kong and Taiwan -- had begun investing in China in large numbers. They were the interface to make China and its Communist government more scrutable to outside investors, and a pathway to China for the large Western investors.

Modi's easing of visa restrictions for US citizens, both NRI and not, indicated his seriousness. He will be looking to the NRIs to move beyond small-time bond, real estate and rupee arbitration, and become  investors in financing India's virtual and physical infrastructure build-out. He will particularly want them to replicate in India the tech eco-system that makes the US the world centre of innovation.

Even through the dark years of the financial crisis, American companies have shone through and become the world’s most valuable companies: Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and more.
All these have grown from a virtual space - the World Wide Web. India, in the same time, has created just one start-up that has grabbed comparable attention, Flipkart, and even that still dependent on both incomplete e-commerce laws and shabby physical infrastructure. The US, with its deep knowledge of these businesses, can help to upgrade our laws, systems, processes and education.

The innovation culture will surely spill over into the Defence arena, further fortifying the partnership. Then can the two nations hope to operate a partnership of equals, and move from the current indifference and irritability to a true convergence of interests.

(Manjeet Kripalani is the co-founder and executive director of Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, Mumbai)