Covid 19 pandemic came as havoc all over the world. The whole world has seen mass destruction during this time. The US has been the worst-hit country. Till now there have been around 5.8 Lakh fatalities in the US alone out of 35 Lakh deaths in the world. India was able to protect itself from the adversaries during the first wave but in the second wave, India became the second worst-hit country after the US with around 4.5 Lakh new cases being registered every day.
India and the US emerged as strategic partners and good allies during the pandemic. During the first wave when Donald Trump was the president of the US, India provided a large number of Hydroxychloroquine tablets to the US.
India-US Interdependency for serving national interests
Before the outbreak of the pandemic, PM Narendra Modi visited the US for attending the ‘Howdy Modi’ event and addressed the Indian masses there. This showed that how India is a very important strategic partner for the US for its interests in the South-East Asia region. After the US President Donald Trump visited India to attend the ‘Namaste Trump’ event.
The countries are bound to have a good strategic partnership to serve their national interests. India in the Southeast Asia region is being seen as an emerging superpower countering the superiority complex of China. The US which sees China as its biggest competitor needs India in every realm to secure its economic and strategic interests. India being a huge market also holds its position for being an economic partner for the US.
The emergence of Quad
The changing geopolitical structure of the Southeast Asia region and the Chinese aspiration to expand its boundaries has emerged as a threat to the regional countries like India and even the current global superpower US. India along with the US, Japan, and Australia formed a coalition called Quad. This group became fully operational after China’s aggression towards its neighbors including India. India is an important part of this group so as to counter China and provide maritime security for free and smooth trade through the Indian Ocean.
The US named its Pacific Command to Indo-Pacific Command which signifies the importance of India in the region. China also tries to expand its territorial waters in the South China Sea. The Indian Navy is capable of counter this aggression of China by putting a naval blockade in the Malacca Strait which will completely stop the essential supplies of China. Thus, India is very important for the US to carry its maritime trade smoothly.
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Sudden dip during the second wave
The US-India relationship during the second wave saw a sudden downfall when India was struggling to keep up its aspiration high against the pandemic. The new president-elect of the US Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to stop the export of all the essential goods. This led India to suffer the slowdown in indigenous vaccine production as most of the raw materials required to produce the vaccines are provided by the US.
On the other hand, a Mumbai-based company VAV Pharma continued to supply phospholipids which are rare and crucial ingredients for producing vaccines, to US vaccine manufacturers. This practice by the US government could be seen as a strategy to sell the vaccines of its local manufacturers like Pfizer and Johnson&Johnson.
These companies are producing a surplus amount of vaccines but the price of these vaccines is way too high as compared to the Indian produce.
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The Indian strategy
India’s National Security Advisor Ajeet Doval talked to his US counterpart Jake Sullivan to remove the ban on the exports of the raw materials to India. The US, after this formal conversation by the Indian NSA, revoked the ban from the export of raw materials to India.
The conversation of NSA Ajeet Doval made the US government and the deep state realize that any retaliation from the Indian side would result in the deterioration of the relations between the two countries as strategic partners. Also, the US may lose its close ally and may also suffer economic loss as India is a huge market for US manufactured goods. Losing India as an ally can also cause the US a failure in countering the exhibition of supremacy by China.
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There is an old saying which states that there are no friends in geopolitics but only allies with interest. Even the history shows the same as the US and the USSR were on the same side in the World Wars but emerged as two different power blocks and now they are sheer enemies. India is emerging as an important country for any other country in the world. Even the US and Russia can’t survive without India because of its strategic location, its economic importance, and also its potential to grow as a superpower.
