Biden turning down invite to be R-Day chief guest disappoints India

China’s aggressive rise in the Indo-Pacific region had brought these countries together to deal with the challenge being posed by Beijing.

The United States President Joe Biden’s refusal to accept the invitation to be Chief Guest at the Republic Day celebrations next month has disappointed India.
New Delhi will now have to postpone the Quad Summit it had planned to host on January 27, a day after the Indian Republic Day function.

Biden’s decision to stay away from India comes when bilateral ties between the two countries are strained following the US accusing India of orchestrating a plot to murder US-based Khalistan leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Pannun, who encourages separatism in India, has been declared a terrorist by the Indian government.

But India has denied its involvement in any plot to kill Pannun and made it clear that it was not the government’s policy to do so.

This has not stopped the US from publicly accusing India and sending senior officials to the country to further probe the matter.

Though India has set up a high-level committee to look into the matter, the public accusation by the US, which is widely seen as a close strategic partner of India, has been embarrassing for the government and strained relations.

Biden’s decision to turn down India’s invitation has made it worse and led to speculations about the future of their bilateral ties.

Indo-US ties
The US is India’s largest trade partner, and bilateral trade reached over $191 billion in 2022. Besides, the US has also become a major defense supplier and partner of India in recent years, supplying it with many sophisticated arms and weapons systems.

The two sides are now planning to set up joint production of jet engines in India. Moreover, the US has also made India a partner in the fields of hi-tech, AI, big data, space, and other sophisticated technologies.

The US President came to India in September for the G-20 summit in New Delhi. He arrived a day before the summit to attend a private dinner hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his honour.

This was Biden’s first visit to the country since becoming the US President.
In June of this year, he also invited Modi to the US for his first state visit to indicate their bonhomie and the growing strategic ties between the two countries. Biden had also made an effort to convince his colleagues among the developed countries that were part of the G-20 to ensure the New Delhi summit was a success.

Current strains in ties
However, his refusal to be the Republic Day celebrations’ chief guest will now force India not only to look for a leader to replace him but also to look for fresh dates for the Quad Summit.

India, the US, Australia, and Japan are the four members of the Quad.
The Prime Ministers of Australia and Japan, who had prior domestic commitments, would have made an effort to come to India if Biden had agreed to visit. Now, none of them will be under such compulsion and can agree on a mutually convenient date for the next Quad Summit in India.

Though Indo-US relations had shown steady growth since 2000, Barack Obama was the first American president ever to come to India as the Chief Guest of the Republic Day celebrations in 2015, in the first year of Modi’s prime ministership.

But in 2018, Republican President Donald Trump also expressed his inability to come to India as the Republic Day chief guest due to urgent domestic commitments, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was brought in as his replacement.

From India’s perspective, an invitation to a leader to be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations is highly symbolic, as it shows the country's importance to India and the growing ties between the two sides.

An invitation is only extended after Indian diplomats unofficially ascertain the leader’s availability.

In the case of Biden, even the US ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, had confirmed that an invitation to the American President had been extended.

Therefore, his inability to visit New Delhi next month has sparked speculation about the dramatic change in Biden’s approach to India between September and now. There is a possibility that Biden’s preoccupation with the emerging scenario in the Middle East and the forthcoming US presidential election, due in November next year, has forced him to stay away from travelling to India.

But Indian officials cannot miss the connection between the allegations made by the US of India’s involvement in attempting to kill Pannun and Biden’s decision to reject the invitation to be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebration.

The accusation by the US comes within months of similar charges made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against India for its alleged involvement in the murder of a Canadian citizen and Khalistan leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada in June.

The US had helped Canada piece together evidence to establish India’s alleged involvement in Nijjar’s killing.

Its cooperation with Canada and the current charges against India for masterminding the attempt on Pannun have surprised India.

The fact that despite India sharing its concerns about Khalistani leaders’ involvement in terrorist and separatist activities in support of their demand for a separate Sikh country, many Western countries have failed to take them seriously. The governments in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia have been reluctant to act against Khalistanis even after Indian buildings and assets have been attacked in their respective countries.

China’s aggressive rise in the Indo-Pacific region had brought these countries together to deal with the challenge being posed by Beijing.

However, if differences in each other’s security concerns come to the surface, it will also raise questions about their resolve to unite against China.