- India is asserting her moment in time.

India is hardwired, from inception as an independent country, to be what used to be called non-aligned, and what India's foreign minister now calls multilateralism.

[upbeat music] - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are taking a deep dive into the US-India relationship.

Will this geopolitical love story have a happy, Bollywood ending, or is India just not that into us?

Judging by the warmest of welcomes that President Biden showed to Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, during his state visit to Washington earlier in June, it's clear that the White House is keen to, you know, define the relationship.

And Biden's even willing to overlook Modi's red flags, ranging from an erosion of democratic norms to recent crackdowns on press freedoms, to the ongoing persecution of Muslims.

And hey, Modi seems willing to overlook America's erosion of democratic norms, too.

Got plenty of those.

Because when it comes to China, both nations have an interest in curbing Beijing's power.

To discuss the US-India dynamic and much, much more, I'm joined by renowned Indian broadcast journalist, Barkha Dutt.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

- Everything is going according to plan.

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Voiceover] Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate, and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by .

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.

Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead.

And .

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[gentle upbeat music] [upbeat music] - Whose side is India on, anyway?

At a global security conference in Bratislava last summer, a journalist posed this question to India's Foreign Minister, S. Jaishankar.

- There will always be two axes.

At this point, I think it's an understood, accepted fact that you have the West, US-led.

You have China as the next potential axis.

Where does India fit into this?

Are you planning to not pick a side?

- No, I'm sorry.

That is exactly where I disagree with you.

This is the construct you are trying to impose on me, and I don't accept it.

- After enduring a century of British colonial rule, it's understandable that Indians would bristle at being told to, quote, "Pick a side," especially when the side they're being told to pick includes their former colonizer.

Indians feel they shouldn't have to hide behind anyone.

This behemoth of a nation just passed China to become the most populous country on earth.

And its rapidly growing economy, number five today in the world, could overtake Germany and Japan's within this decade.

But the exchange does raise a couple of questions about the India-US relationship.

First, the interviewer's assumption that quote, "There will always be two global axes.

One led by the US, and the other by China."

Do I buy that?

I, just like Minister Jaishankar, do not.

She's talking about a bipolar world that anyone over 45, like me, grew up in, with the US and the Soviet Union calling the shots, and pretty much every other country choosing a side.

But unlike in the Cold War days of two dueling superpowers, the US and Chinese economies have long been intertwined.

And that brings us to a much more multipolar environment.

A new global order without superpowers, where developing nations like India or Brazil or South Africa have embraced a kind of geopolitical polyamory.

And now, I'm forcing you to embrace that mental image as well.

And that brings me to my next question which, as it so happens, is a riff on my first question.

So maybe it was only one question.

Is India on our side?

Is India a US ally?

I mean, judging by the plushest of red carpets President Biden rolled out for Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, during his visit to Washington earlier in June, the answer seemed obvious.

- I've long believed that the relationship between the United States and India will be one of the defining relationships of the 21st century.

- Biden's clearly adopting the you can catch more flies with chutney than just vinegar approach here.

And yes, there is vinegar also in chutney, so I won't use that analogy again.

The two nations have also significantly tightened their military ties in recent years.

The Indian Armed Forces now conduct more exercises with the United States than with any other nation.

And both countries regularly share sensitive intelligence.

US-Indian defense trade, which was negligible around the turn of the century, reached over $20 billion in 2020.

And that's in large part due to mutual interest to curb China's military ambitions in the Asian region.

There have been repeated and deadly clashes between Chinese and Indian troops along the two countries' 2,100-mile long contested border.

And then there's the explosion of the Indian diaspora in the West, in the United States in particular, with Indian Americans occupying some of the most powerful seats in America's public and private sectors.

But there's a difference between being a strategic partner and being an ally.

India has refused to explicitly condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Well, that's not like an ally.

And has continued to import record-breaking amounts of cheap oil from Moscow, which the US doesn't really oppose, because cutting off all Russian oil would roil the global economy.

But still, Delhi is also the largest buyer of Russian weaponry in the world, at least for now, purchasing $13 billion worth of Russian arms in the last five years.

India's also criticized the US decision to block Iranian and Venezuelan oil from the open market.

And Delhi has repeatedly tried to strengthen diplomatic ties between Iran, Russia, and China.

Not nice, India.

Allies, strategic partners, frenemies.

Maybe they're all just labels that political scientists, like me, like to use.

But labels aside, how tenable is it for India to maintain such an independent path in an increasingly hostile geopolitical landscape?

Or is not picking sides the whole point?

Here to help me break all that down is an award-winning Indian broadcast journalist and anchor with more than two decades of reporting experience, Barkha Dutt.

She joins me now from London.

Barkha Dutt, thanks so much for coming back to our show.

- It's a pleasure to be back, Ian.

Thanks for having me.

- And a great time indeed.

On the back of your Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip to Washington, a lot of people are saying, in the United States, this is the best bilateral that Biden has had since he became president.

What do you account for the dramatic improvement of US-India relations?

How much of it is China?

How much of it is something else?

- I think a lot of it is China, and a lot of it is also that, in many ways, this is India's moment.

I think, if I were to look at why, sort of, Narendra Modi was literally the showstopper at the White House, I would say there seems to be a great growing bipartisan anxiety in the United States of America about China, about China's aggression, about China's encircling of the Indo-Pacific region in particular.

And there, India and China's strategic interests converge.

So that's one part of the story, certainly.

The other part of the story is the galloping pace at which India's economy is growing.

Despite all of the challenges that we face, India is among the fastest growing economies in the world.

The size of the Indian market, that's the second.

And the third, I think, and maybe we don't talk about this often enough, is the success of the nearly five million strong Indian American community in America.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- From Sundar Pichai to Mindy Kaling, Kamala Harris, referenced again and again by both Biden and Modi, an example of the success story of this community.

I think all of these are the things that work.

Things have converged at this moment in time.

China has a lot to do with it, let's not kid ourselves.

But there are some other things, as well.

- Now, I want to talk mostly about India, but I do have to push back because you talked about China's encirclement of the Indo-Pacific.

And I mean, at least if you look at military bases, it does feel like the Americans are doing the encircling.

Is that fair?

- Well, maybe I should have used the word a little more non-literally.

I think what I'm trying to say is that China is throwing money at countries in the region.

- Yes.

Absolutely.

- And in particular, India's neighbors, right?

And China is using infrastructure.

It's weaponizing infrastructure.

For example, building ports at very, very strategic places.

There is, of course, the One Belt, One Road project of China.

So I think, when India looks at all of this, India sees an aggressive China, a neo-imperialist China, China using both its access to markets as well as just the sheer resources it's throwing at these countries to grow its influence.

So it's basically buying influence for money, is the Indian perspective.

And I know the Americans have multiple concerns about the rise of China, despite Anthony Blinken trying to unsuccessfully thaw that relationship, right?

So I guess all- - No Blinken, you missed it.

- Yes.

[laughs] - Absolutely.

- Yeah, exactly.

- That's all mine.

It's okay.

- Yeah, that's a good one.

But I think that's the big convergence, right?

That's the big convergence.

It doesn't actually mean, I should say, that India and the US will have identical responses to China.

I should say, I wrote in the "Post" that, "Listen, America, India's never going to be your ally in the way that you-" - I know, I saw that!

- Yeah.

- I saw that.

I was so sad.

You said you called the Americans dear friends, but you said that India will never be an ally.

Now, I need to ask you.

I understand that India is an independent country.

They make their own decisions.

It's a big country.

You're gonna have good relations with lots of countries around the world.

But when I think about allies, I think about strategic and military alignment.

And what I see is that the Indians are not gonna be able to buy military equipment from the Russians the way they used to for lots of reasons, not least of which the Russians won't be able to produce at that quality and capacity, and corruption, and problems, all that.

But then, you've got the Chinese.

And you're not gonna buy from the Chinese because you're concerned about chips and surveillance and all of that.

Every other country's tiny.

The Americans are now saying they're willing to provide serious technology from military companies to go down and build and develop that supply chain in India.

The Americans outspend the next 10 countries in the world on defense.

I mean, if India's gonna get into bed with the Americans on defense and technology like that, doesn't that put India on a road to maybe becoming an American ally?

Am I really reading too much into that?

- I mean, never say never, but I don't see it happening.

I think the sort of outer limit of this relationship is going to be strategic cooperation.

I don't at all deny the fact that India would like to stop our dependency on the Russians to buy weapons.

I think the General Electric deal to manufacture engines for fighter jets in India is extremely critical.

I think conversations around purchasing armed drones is extremely critical.

So I see your point, Ian, that we, as a country, need to move away from the Russians.

And America is the obvious alternative, but will that translate into joining a security/military alliance?

No.

India is hardwired, from inception as an independent country, to be what used to be called non-aligned, and what India's foreign minister now calls multilateralism.

Now, you can push back and say, "What does that actually mean?

Does it even mean anything?

You've got to pick a side."

The fact is the Indians, right now, have got, I want to say get away, but I don't know if that's the correct phrase, have managed to move from a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the SCO, right to a meeting of the court, and not have really had to pay any consequences for it.

So India is asserting her moment in time for a variety of reasons.

Every country plays to its own self-interest, and India is doing the same.

- Now, there's not a lot of pushback on India's democratic weaknesses right now from the United States, in part because India is having its moment, and part because the United States has its own challenges, politically, at home right now.

But I did note that Modi and Biden both decided to take questions, which is not something that the prime minister does very often.

And he was pushed back specifically on issues of treatment of minorities.

He denied the existence of discrimination based on race, but I thought it was notable that he actually was willing to comment on it at all, in the context of the United States.

Do you see any shift at all, inside India, in terms of Modi's, what had been his particularly toxic relationship with Muslim minorities?

- As a matter of fact, the BJP, the ruling party that Mr. Modi leads, is trying an outreach program in the last few months in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, with the Muslim community.

In fact, a segment of the Muslim community that's known as the Pasmanda Muslims.

And I'd be very intrigued to see, actually, what comes out as a result of that.

But I want to say a couple of points about this democracy debate.

Looking at that press meet where both Biden and Modi were asked about India's record and democracy and rights for minorities, I thought there were lessons for both sides.

I think the lesson for the Modi government is you don't like this question.

You get prickly about it.

You think it's biased Western media stereotyping, but the evidence tells you, you can't ignore this question, so you have to find a way to engage with this question.

You have to find a way to address this criticism if you think it's unfounded.

You can't just say, "I'm just going to evade this, and this is an area I'm not going to go into," because the op-eds and the questions and the journalists and even 70 lawmakers of America are going to bring it up with you.

So don't evade the question.

- And by the way, my understanding, Barkha, is that Indian journalists will bring it up too.

- Some Indian journalists will.

Not all.

Some will and some do.

And the point is it isn't going away.

But for critics of the Modi government in America, some in the Western media, some in the Democratic Party, or maybe even among the Republicans, I would say that Indians, even those who do not vote for Modi, tend to close ranks if they think a Western power is being all judgy.

It may come from our history of being a colonized nation.

It may come from us saying, "Hey, are 70 lawmakers in India's parliament going to write a letter to Modi, saying, 'Please remember to tell Biden about gun violence.

Please remember to tell Biden about the abortion rights that women don't have.'"

I guess the point I'm trying to make is there are messages for both sides.

For the critics in America, let India battle this out.

It'll probably be more productive.

Don't be judgy.

Talk to us as an equal.

For the Modi government, you can't hide from this question.

You need to start engaging with it.

It's a real question.

And you have to engage with the criticism that is brought to your door on this question.

- I mean, Modi did say, of course, that democracy is in India's DNA.

And I understand that's a very useful talking point when addressing Congress, but how much do you think India's democracy, as a set of values, is actually essential to what Modi is trying to do, to the legacy he's trying to build?

- That's a very interesting question, and I may sort of offer a counterintuitive answer, because I speak neither as a supporter nor a critic, but I would hope as a dispassionate observer.

I believe that Modi's image, to him, in the world is important.

I believe that the prime minister comes from a somewhat bruised history.

Remember, this was the same leader who was once denied a visa by the Americans.

- In the United States, absolutely.

- Yeah, and not able to enter when he was Gujarat chief minister for nearly a decade.

It matters to him to be seen as, what in Hindi we call Vishwaguru, a leader of the world, a leader on the world stage.

And therefore, I think it matters to him.

And I think he also feels that the Western press stereotypes him, as does some of the liberal press in India.

He's always believed that.

But I think that Modi's sense of his own legacy comes from actually winning elections.

Modi is who he is, and as powerful as he is, because he wins elections.

And so in some ways, Modi's brand lies in democracy, because he derives, he's not Putin.

He hasn't made himself president, and he's not Xi Jinping.

He is the elected leader of a vibrant democracy.

Yes, you can argue that what happens between elections, not at elections, I believe our elections are absolutely democratic, and some might argue even more so than the American process, where a section of the polity refuses to accept election results in the US.

But in India, the concerns are what happens between elections.

Is there a way of deepening democracy when it comes to a free press?

Is there a way of deepening democracy when it comes to losing archaic laws, like putting away people for sedition?

That's where we must focus.

But I think Modi and his fans and his supporters cannot disassociate themselves from the democracy question, because Prime Minister Modi is as powerful as he is because Indians vote for him.

- And it's not just that Indians vote for him.

It's the level, the extent of his popularity.

I mean, at a time when established leaders are just getting destroyed across democracies all over the world, this is a guy that's not only consistently won, he's still at some 70, 75% approval ratings across almost 1.5 billion people.

I mean, that by itself is a fairly staggering statement.

- Yeah.

His approval ratings have only improved.

Some surveys suggest it's above 60, 65%, others above 75%.

But they've improved.

He has not diminished in personal popularity, though his party often has.

And this is a very interesting situation, because it's not that Modi doesn't lose elections.

Modi loses state elections all the time.

But when it comes to a national election, I think the real challenge for the opposition is that Mr. Modi has managed to pivot India's parliamentary democracy, modeled on the British system, to a somewhat American presidential system, where the individual is actually determining the outcome of a national election more than the arithmetic of 500 plus seats.

So I think that's where India is at.

I would, of course, sort of hope that Mr. Modi's popularity is channeled into engaging with some of these criticisms, instead of seeing them as sort of congenitally adverse to him, which is how he, perhaps because of his historically adverse relationship with sections of the media, has always seen the media commentary on him.

- Before we go, I mean, I do want to go back to what was, of course, the worst period that I remember for India in a very, very long time, and a lot worse for you, was about two years ago, when you were on the show, and it was just in the depths of COVID, and you had just lost your father.

And I wondered, before we close, if you could just tell us how you're doing, and also maybe a word or two on this book that you just wrote about that time in your life.

- Thank you for asking, Ian.

It's sort of a strange thing to go from being the chronicler of a story to becoming the sort of protagonist, and becoming the story that you have been reporting.

And in some ways, I traveled across India during the pandemic, and we had a shutdown of public transport, and so I had to do it by road.

And we are a big country, and I traveled from the north to the south, and then not just did reports, but wrote a book basis that.

And then yes, in the middle of all that, I lost my father to COVID.

It's been, personally, a very, very painful time.

And professionally, ironically, some of my best work.

And to reconcile that is quite a difficult thing to do, emotionally.

Sometimes you feel haunted by guilt.

You feel like you could have done more for your father instead of more for the story.

And I know it shouldn't be a choice at all, and it wasn't, but I flew back to Delhi as soon as I heard.

But you have all that guilt that children have about their parents.

And so, well, I live with it by hunkering down and working even harder.

I don't know any other way to do it.

My father's ashes are in a rose plant at the back of my house, in a little garden.

And I like to feel he's there, and he approves of what I'm doing.

My book is based on the people behind the headlines.

I thought that there was a lot of data that was thrown around the world during the pandemic.

So many million this, Dashboard America, Dashboard India.

But what happened to those people?

What happened to children who died?

What happened to single parents?

What happened to graveyard keepers?

What happened to those who had to burn the bodies?

What happened to hope and despair coexisting?

So it's called "Humans of COVID."

It's about literally the people of the pandemic.

- Maybe you just owe your dad your best work, you know?

- That's what I try and tell myself.

- I think so.

Look, thank you so much.

It's always good to see you.

I hope to see you in person soon.

- Thank you, Ian.

And thanks for having me.

[soft atmospheric music] - And now to Puppet Regime, where Vladimir Putin is adamant that everything is going according to plan.

Roll that tape.

- [Voiceover] The Kremlin speechwriters who brought you the hit show, "This Invasion is Going Great," present their new series, "Everything is Going According to Plan."

Follow President Putin as he travels time to explain how famous disasters weren't really disasters at all.

Everything was going according to plan.

[upbeat music] - Wow, look at this.

Disaster?

Nyet, nyet.

That is seven million cubic feet of hydrogen being liberated from Nazi control.

Everything is going according to plan.

Ah, the islands.

If I told you we could round up 10,000 of the world's worst people, trap them on a desert island, and force them to listen to nothing but Ja Rule until they tweet for mercy, would you call that a disaster or a great plan?

Cheese sandwiches for everybody.

[laughs] Everybody thinks suffering mutiny is bad for me, but actually it's part of really clever plan for me to .

.

.

Uh.

- Puppet Regime!

- That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you like what you see, or you want something very different but you think maybe I'll be able to provide it for you, why don't you check us out, see if that's true, at gzeromedia.com.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - [Announcer] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Voiceover] Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate, and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by ... Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead.

And .

.

.

[gentle upbeat music] [bright music]