Whichever way one cuts it, there is no missing the centrality and intensity of technological cooperation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s just-concluded visit to the United States. Technology has been at the centre of Modi’s bilateral interactions with President Joe Biden, the minilateral summit of the Quad leaders, his interaction with the US CEOs, and the address to the United Nations Summit of the Future.
The outcomes from the PM’s technology diplomacy are expansive — you have to be a real nerd to go through the long joint statements issued by the PM in the bilateral with Biden and the Quad summit and a tech policy wonk to absorb the meaning of the range of new initiatives. They cover areas ranging from semiconductors to biotechnology, telecom to artificial intelligence, clean energy to quantum computing, and small and modular nuclear reactors to robotics. They cover both advanced civilian and military applications and are bound to contribute to the modernisation of India’s techno-industrial base.
This is not the first time though that technology has figured at the top of India’s national strategy and diplomacy. There have been at least three earlier occasions in independent India’s history when technology took centrestage. Each of those phases ended without a realisation of India’s full possibilities because internal and external factors had severely constrained technology strategies. Today, the domestic and the external are coming together to turn the fourth phase of India’s technology diplomacy into a consequential one for India’s security and prosperity.
The NDA government’s new focus on building advanced technology capabilities, Washington’s quest for capable partners amid the deepening rivalry with Beijing, and the effort to rearrange global supply chains are driving India on the one hand and the US on the other. Technology has become an important focus of India’s engagement not just with the US but several countries including France, Germany, Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, and the European Union.
Back in the 1950s, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru put special emphasis on gaining access to advanced technologies as a key driver of India’s economic modernisation. Together with Homi Bhabha, Nehru reached out to the US and other Western powers to successfully lay the foundations for the development of nuclear and space technologies in India. The US also became a major supporter of the Green Revolution through collaboration in agricultural technology. The geopolitics of the moment — the perception of India as a democratic alternative to communist China — as well as the spirit of “scientific internationalism” and “developmentalism” in the US lent much-needed momentum to Delhi’s technology diplomacy.
By the 1970s, the momentum began to falter amidst India’s economic populism, anti-Americanism, growing bureaucratisation of science and technology, marginalisation of India’s private sector, Delhi’s drift towards Moscow, India’s nuclear test of 1974, and the consolidation of the global nonproliferation regime that steadily reduced the space for technology diplomacy.
The space that existed in the then non-sensitive areas was treated with disdain in Delhi. Recall that Delhi made it hard for IBM to stay in India. And its lack of interest drove US semiconductor makers to Singapore and Malaysia. Meanwhile, the large number of scientists and technologists trained in Indian universities and IITs, frustrated at the lack of opportunities at home, stepped out and walked through America’s open door to technological talent. Meanwhile, Soviet Russia’s salience in India’s defence, atomic energy and outer space programmes began to grow in the 1970s.
To their credit, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi made a big effort in the 1980s to correct the failures of the first phase by putting technological cooperation back at the heart of India-US relations and exploring the space that existed outside the realm of the non-proliferation regime. Rajiv Gandhi’s strong technological orientation and his special emphasis on telecom and computing capabilities provided the political energy at the top to push for greater technological collaboration with the US. While the second phase produced some significant results, structural constraints — internal bureaucratic resistance and the external constraints driven by the non-proliferation regime — limited progress.
India’s nuclear tests of 1998 made matters worse as the US imposed additional sanctions, but they also persuaded Washington to seek a long overdue reconciliation with India on nuclear issues. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments sought to build on this opportunity and the big moment came in 2005 with the India-US civil nuclear initiative. But deep divisions within the political class and opposition from the scientific bureaucracy made it hard for India to seize the moment.
The return of a majority government to power in 2014 unleashed fresh energy into India’s technology diplomacy in the fourth phase. For one, the Modi government began to tie up some loose ends of the US nuclear deal and put digital and green technologies at the top of the policy agenda in the first term. The technological focus expanded to include AI and semiconductors in the second term. These initiatives were in tune with the technological revolution unfolding in the world and have acquired fresh momentum in the third term.
On the American side, the growing recognition of the challenges presented by China under George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Biden led to the expanding investment in the defence and technological partnership with India. This culminated in the initiative on critical and emerging technologies (iCET). Last Saturday’s joint statement at Wilmington adds to the broad framework for strategic and technological cooperation unveiled during Modi’s state visit to Washington in June 2023.
The shared US and Indian geopolitical interest in stabilising the Asian balance of power has been reinforced by the common desire to reduce excessive global economic dependence on China, and build technology coalitions among like-minded countries. The Indian “brain drain” to the US from the late 1960s has now become a living technological bridge between the two nations.
The fourth phase of India’s technology diplomacy has done well to seize the new international possibilities, but it needs to be buttressed at home with the long overdue reform of the science and technology sectors. Otherwise, the internal bureaucratic resistance will inevitably lead to sub-optimal outcomes.
The writer is visiting research professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
