The US Vice-President JD Vance’s recent visit to India concluded with impeccable optics for both sides: Pictures of his children playing with the Prime Minister, visits to Jaipur and Agra and, of course, the Indian media going into an overdrive, tracing the relatives of Vance’s wife Usha. Thankfully, no one asked him if he likes butter chicken. The acoustics also synced: In his Jaipur speech, Vance stressed the special relationship between India and the US — predictably enough — and called for a deepening of economic and strategic ties between the two countries. However, beyond the “hum saath saath hain” frontstage, the diplomatic backstage offers much that needs to be unpacked.

Let us start with the speech. While some of it invoked the oft-repeated theme of India-US ties, the way Vance described this relationship was perceptibly different. Gone was the emphasis on the two countries’ shared democratic, pluralist, and free-market ethos. Instead, Vance lambasted previous attempts by Western leaders to “flatten” the world into secular, universal values, and emphasised a relationship based on the acknowledgement of difference. Subtly but surely, Vance signalled two tendencies. First, a growing distance between the US and its traditional allies (Western Europe) as well as the liberal international order that they constituted. Second, by criticising the “condescending” attitude of previous regimes towards India, Vance pointed towards an........

© Indian Express