US muddies Modi visit with public outreach to Sikh radicals – Times of India

WASHINGTON: The distracting overhang of US elections, a virtual lame-duck President, and a Washington-generated irritant arising from a White House meeting with Sikh radicals greeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he arrived at Joe Biden‘s home in Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the QUAD summit.
Virtually jettisoned by his own party, the forlorn US President welcomed Modi sans fanfare to his modest home in Wilmington, even as the world’s eyes are on the election spectacle.Officials spun the hosting of the international engagement at his home and at Archmere Academy, the prep school Biden and his children went to, as a “personal touch,” even though a sense of the President’s isolation and irrelevance is palpable in a country boiling with election fever.
Still, Biden struck an upbeat tone on bilateral relations following the meeting, saying the United States’ partnership with India is stronger, closer, and more dynamic than any time in history, and “he’s struck by our ability to find new areas of cooperation” each time he sits with Modi. “Today was no different,” he added.
The US President cut a lonely figure as he greeted Modi — who embraced him after alighting from his car. Biden led him by hand into his three-bedroom home he and his wife Jill bought nearly 50 years ago. A line of pumpkins were laid out on the patio to herald Halloween as Biden walked him into the house, with First Lady Jill Biden (who sat in on a cabinet meeting on Friday questions about its propriety) back at the White House where she was welcoming people for a revamped White House tour experience. Modest digs compared to Trump‘s many ritzy pads, the Biden’s Delaware home’s standout feature is his prized 1967 Corvette Stingray parked in the garage.
A joyous desi garba reception for Modi at the Dupont Hotel in the US President’s home state, which has a large Gujarati diaspora (large enough for Biden to once joke he can’t walk into a Dunkin Donuts without hearing an Indian accent), could not paper over an irksome and residual wrinkle in bilateral engagement on the margins of Quad.
In a jarring note before the meeting, US National Security officials invited Sikh radicals to the White House on Thursday, ostensibly to brief them on Washington’s discussion with New Delhi on what some separatist Sikhs claim is India’s transnational threat to their lives. New Delhi views the matter through the prism of US and Canada giving operating space to transnational subversives. Both sides have sparred quietly over the issue in the background amid charges that New Delhi is condoning, if not conducting, transnational operations to eliminate such subversives.
Sikh groups gloated over the White House attention to their narrative, tweeting, “Thankful to US officials for their vigilance in protecting Sikh Americans. We will hold them to their assurances to do more in safeguarding our community. Freedom and justice must prevail.”
US officials did not elaborate on the meeting and instead chose to talk up the broader engagement saying Biden looked forward to hearing directly from Modi about his trip to Ukraine, as Washington seeks to expand QUAD concerns to cover Russia’s transgressions. The two leader were in talks at the time of writing and are expected to be with each other for an hour before heading out Archmere Academy for the Quad summit.
Biden, and his children Hunter, Beau, and Ashley studied at the 92-year old school.
The Quad meeting is expected to announce a cancer “moonshoot” aimed at finding cures for the dreaded disease, an expansion of the Quad fellows program, and joint coastguard missions, among other advances.
China is the proverbial elephant (or dragon) in the QUAD room, despite American officials repeatedly asserting the security dialogue involving US, India, Japan, and Australia, is not aimed at any one country. Nevertheless, the gag is that QUAD stands for Queing Up Against Dragon.
But with US officials acknowledging on Saturday that each QUAD country has its own approach to China, the dialogue, particularly bilateral exchanges, have taken an expansive turn, covering a range of issues beyond Indo-Pacific, although their salience is up in the air given the imminent political changes in Washington.
While a Kamala Harris victory in November is expected to see a degree of continuity in US foreign policy, a Trump win is likely to trigger a drastic and unpredictable recasting of global issues and relations. The victor, either Trump or Harris, is expected attend the next Quad summit which India will host in 2025.
In many ways, the ongoing QUAD summit is Biden’s international swansong. India was originally slated to host it this year, but Modi “graciously” consented to swapping the hosting privilege in deference to the Biden’s schedule constraints, US officials said.