 Well, thanks everybody for coming out. My name is Rick Rosso. I hold the Woodwani Chair in US India Policy Studies here at CSIS. And do not blink your eyes. Stop that blinking. You actually have two Woodwani chairs here on stage at the same time, and actually a third here in the front row, Ambassador Rick Enderforth, who got this program launched. But Heimansingh is the Woodwani Chair in US India Policy Studies based at ICREAR, which is India's finest think tank. So a very unique partnership that CSIS and ICREAR have, which the Woodwani Foundation funds chairs in both countries, which has provided some pretty unique ways to try to influence debate and provide great insights to both governments. I think probably my favorite was when both sides issued the two reports on Bit and Beyond on what each side would like to see out of a bilateral investment treaty. And for those of us that work so much on US India relations, too often it's one hand clapping. The United States wants to do this, India wants to do that. Having co-chairs on both sides of the ocean has provided a pretty unique opportunity to actually have views shared on both sides on common issues. So it's been pretty unique. And it's great to have Ambassador Singh here today visiting Washington, help doing a lot of briefings for our friends in government and outside of government on what this election means. Certainly, you've all heard people like me and others that have watched it from 6,000 miles away try to give you what insights we have, but now you're going to get it from the real deal. Ambassador Singh, I'm sure as you all know, has a long and distinguished career in the Foreign Service joining in 1974, serving in a variety of positions, including in the United States, but most notably at the end of his career in the Foreign Service, served as a couple of ambassadorships both to Indonesia and to Japan. And upon his retirement in December 2010, he moved to Iquir to be the Wadwani chair in India US policy studies. He's also joined on stage, a special guest here, Sanjay Pulpaka, is also with the Wadwani chair at Iquir and has helped to prepare a lot of the work that they've been doing so far. And you may notice a slight accent from Sanjay because he studied in the Shenandoah Mountains here in Virginia itself. So if you hear that Virginia mountain accent, you know where that comes from. So let me turn the floor over to our chief guest, Ambassador Hemant Singh, sir. Thank you, Rick, for that introduction. Thank you for the remarks directed at me. And it's a real pleasure to be back in Washington and to be among friends at CSIS. I see Rick Inderforth and Don Kemp sitting right there. We've been partners in launching these chairs together for the last three years. And of course, we greatly value the ongoing partnership with Rick Rosso who just joined as India Chair at CSIS. I think that the jokes will come at the end because that is something which will probably be helped out by the comments of Rick and Sanjay. Please direct all your difficult questions to them and leave the easy ones for me. Since this is just about three weeks since a new government was formed in India, I was wondering all along what shape to give these remarks to be able to reach out to you and to convey a fairly accurate sense of what has happened. And I decided that, well, originally this title says Indian policy priorities, et cetera, under Prime Minister Modi. Now, at best we can make an early assessment just three weeks down for the government. But it's better to understand at a much more fundamental level what the Modi phenomenon means for India and understand the kind of change that India's social, political, and economic space has undergone over the last several months of the election and then with the result. It wasn't an ordinary election. My prediction is that in years to come, 2014 will be seen as the watershed with the potential to transform India's political ethos and model of governance. Now, since the morning, I've been giving the same remarks at different events with US entities and government entities in DC. But it does occur to me that neither in India nor abroad have we really captured how much of change this represents. So I will walk you through some of those changes which I anticipate happening. Now, of course, 814 million people registered to vote, 551 million voting, 66% of voter turnout, extraordinarily high, even from Indian past Indian experiences where the average has been roughly in the last three elections, 55%. Almost a million polling stations, electronic voting results out in three hours, four hours. It was quite a remarkable festival of democratic transition of government. And what we saw at the end was that for the first time ever since we were independent, a non-Congress party, the BJP secured a parliamentary majority on its own. And our foundational party, the Congress, which has ruled us for most of the time since we were free, suffered its first ever result since we gained independence. There's lots of myths and assumptions about Modi and the victory or non-victory, et cetera. I'll run you through some of them and then give you some of the counter facts. First myth, and I must say that virtually every assumption of India's established left liberal commentariat proved to be wrong. First one, Modi is too politically divisive a figure to ever successfully lead the BJP. In fact, the Modi factor will help the Congress to come back to power. Second, India's vote is fragmented and there is no prospect of any party securing a majority, not now, not in the future. So we have a permanence of the coalition era. Third, that there is no Modi wave, none. It's just a notion and a creation of the media and business who support him. These are actual trends of thinking which we witnessed across the election. And post poll, the denial of a Modi victory has continued. And I'll give you some examples of that. Well, the BJP only secured 31% of the vote. The Congress in 1984 and the Janata in 1977 have done better than Modi did. There's an unfair kind of an edge which Modi secured from media, business, even non-resident Indians, social media he used, et cetera, et cetera, gave him an edge. He does not have a unique mandate to govern. And this is a good nugget from Washington, DC itself. The Modi factor in the BJP's victory is not statistically substantiated. He gained from anti-incumbency and won as he convinced his party that it could succeed. Now, I mean, these are real commentaries which have come, which give you an idea of the sense of disbelief and cynicism which has pervaded this entire time. And it does not recognize the hope and the change which Mr. Modi represents. The left in India, which has been decimated, has now started appealing for proportional representation. But of course that won't help them either because cumulatively they got 4% of the vote and there's always a cutoff for national vote in terms of proportional representation. So they won't have gained from proportional representation even if there was a system like that in India. What are the counter-facts? The counter-facts are that the pre-poll alliance formed by the BJP secured a massive 38.5% of the vote as against a cumulative 23% for the Congress and its allies. Congress with 19% of the vote and the communists with 4% of the vote were comprehensively defeated as were most caste-based parties. All parties which supported the UPA2 government were marginalized. Those which opposed the UPA2 government were rewarded. Now, this election has set aside the assumption about the presumed permanence of a coalition era and the inevitable strengthening of regional parties in India. In fact, this time the non-Congress, non-BJP nationwide, the rest vote came down from 53% in the last election to 49% first time below the 50% mark. The BJP successfully transcended its supposedly inherent political limitations and geographical boundaries. So we don't have that map up here but basically there's a map which you would have seen in the economist which is taken from the Indian Election Commission which shows you the length and breadth of India and virtually all of it is pink. Which is the color which they gave the BJP. Indeed, the BJP turned out to be more successful than the Congress in forging regional alliances. Taken together, if you take the two national parties and their alliances, they secured 62.5% of the vote as against 37.5% for the so-called Third Front which is again very significant in terms of the trends which we have witnessed for the last two and a half decades and what we see now happening at this election. What's the result in broad terms? Our political system, our economic space has taken a comparatively right of center economic model sort of a turn as one. And then you see voter consolidation on a development governance platform across the country. And that's part of the phenomenon which created this massive wave which led Mr. Modi to an outright victory. This implies another few things. Eclipse of India's left liberal anglophile elite and proponents of India's democratic underachievement. Now that's been, they've had their turn in power. They've run the country in a certain way. They have imposed limitations on the country's growth, its social progress, and well, some time or the other this eclipse was going to be inevitable. And it's a triumph for whom? It's a triumph for the vast majority of India's rural urban heartland, small town, vernacular speaking, neo-middle class. Now that's something which was happening in the last two elections. The government was not noticing it. It was ascribing different reasons for the success of the Congress in 2004 and 2009. But I was always having studied foreign countries and their governance systems and their democratic elections and analyzed them and reported on them. Stuck my neck out, as they say in the diplomatic world, saying this will happen, that will not happen, et cetera. Having seen all that happen, I was always wondering when would some change like this happen in India? Right, it's happened now. And what we have is if you go back to the two paradigms or the two ways of governing India after we became independent. One was partly, one was Nehruvian. One was Mr. Patel, who was his partner in the Congress party. This is a return to the other model. So we have a socially conservative, business friendly, nationalist, not in terms of assertion, but in terms of getting India somewhere. And a voting public which prefers or appears to prefer a more decisive use of political power to uplift their condition. So these are the things which I see have been delivered. Now the Modi factor, which already I mentioned, many people are very cynical about whether there was a Modi factor. The main reason for Mr. Modi's success was his demonstrated intention to lead and to take responsibility. Not merely for securing power for his party or for himself, but for a transformative effect on the entire nation. Now this becomes a part of this, of a good democratic model of governance as an instrument of change and power as an instrument of change. And he represents that completely. His party calls it the politics of performance and clearly that prevailed over the traditional politics of identity which have ruled in India. Even Modi's campaign is somewhat critically judged by his opponents who are in disbelief at his success. Because as he put it himself, it is the biggest mass mobilization exercise of its kind in the history of elections. And he crafted a campaign which was presidential style which involved tireless amount of appearances in at hundreds of mass rallies, thousands of smaller events, complete utilization of the full spectrum of media initiatives, social media to reach out to the public and give them an idea of what he represents and what does he represent and what did he project to the people when he was doing all this? Development, jobs, good governance. He made no reference through the election to either the traditional politics of identity or appealed to vote banks to come and support him. So with all that, India's just had a presidential style campaign. This is first for our type of parliamentary democracy and he promises now a CEO style leadership which is the new avatar of Modi since he has been elected to power. I would say that it's early days but he does appear to be poised to be a transformative Indian prime minister. I have three or four implications for India in the long term and then I will move on to his economic agenda and to foreign policy. But please do pay some attention to the implications for India. The, what Modi projected was a new model of inclusion resting primarily on economic empowerment of all citizens with all development for all and greater national cohesion, one India, strong India. The subtext of this, of course, implies an economically unified India and not many India's which has been a kind of a standard norm and accepted across the board. Second implication, the members of this so-called neo-middle class which he targeted, they obviously decided to shed their traditional identity to vote as individuals which can, to my mind, help India progress towards a more egalitarian society with a common national identity and eventually a uniform civil code which is the norm in all modern democracies. The potential for addressing or addressing issues of quotas and reservations which have seen Indian citizenry being broken down into ever smaller identity groups for the allotment of entitlements that now clearly exists and it exists in the shape of moving towards a universal access model to lift and uplift the truly marginalized and then eventually to phase out reservations. So this is again a prospective thing is not happening. It will obviously face resistance but the seeds of this change have already been planted. Restoring the idea of India from compulsory group identities to individual freedoms and a common citizenship promised by the Constitution. This is a big, huge leap if it actually occurs because our Constitution promised us individual rights and freedoms and a single common citizenship but the way we were governed for 60 years fragmented India over and over again into communities which were then each of them apportioned enough to keep them happy but they were treated separately and you had more community identity than you had individual identity. This is a very modern democratic, let's say practice and hopefully it'll come to India as well. Now some will still say that we'll go back to some kind of regressive, fight-wing, narrow agenda. I think nobody recognizes more than Modi himself that there is no scope for narrow or exclusive agendas, exclusivist agendas in the diversity and plurality of India and India is a multi-religious country. It will always need to be nurtured as a pluralistic society and I think he's shown amply since he got elected to power by being very inclusive in his approach and by reaching out across the board that's how he sees the reality and he recognizes that. Political stability going forward? Well, they've got 336 out of 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, it can be increased by a couple more after the new inductions which are still pending. In the Rajya Sabha they have only 63 out of 250 seats so how will they govern if legislation has to be passed? In the short term before the Rajya Sabha over the years becomes slightly different in its composition, they can resort constitutionally to the joint session of the houses and in a joint session the BJP and its partners currently have 401 out of 795 seats which is a plurality. Now this does not include dozens of regional parties which may just join in voting for what the government proposes but this is just purely the map as it exists on the ground today. In the coming two years we are going to have a series of state elections across India and BJP currently rules 7 out of the 21 major states of India. The number seven is likely to go up to 14 by the time this cycle of elections is over sometime in 2015 which will give the BJP across the board much greater political control and presence in India and which will help more these efforts to enlist the cooperation of states on his policy agenda for one India strong India. So that is the introduction and I'm done with the election. Move on a little bit to give you a snapshot of his domestic and his foreign policy agendas. Domestic agenda, first impulse Modi on coming to power apart from the fact that he soar in a cabinet which had only 45 instead of 75 members tried to rationalize many of the ministries so that things which are handled in a cohesive manner can be so handled within the government. He prioritized the ramping up of governance mechanisms for efficient delivery and policy implementation. Now that's the word which has gone out everywhere across the government. There's a new buzz in town. Ministers arrive at nine o'clock in the morning. There are things happening all over the place. Ideas for the future are sought to our notice. It's a completely different ball game. The PMO which is the Prime Minister's office has been restored as the hub of cohesive decision making within the government and Modi has also given himself the portfolio of handling quote all important policy issues, unquote. So basically you know where the buck stops. You know from where the direction is coming and all decision making has been taken away from these fragmented groups of ministers which had been constituted in the previous government and transferred back to the cabinet committees which are meant to handle them. Which means the decisions will get taken in cabinet the way our constitution provides and will be taken with accountability and responsibility and on time. Now his 10 point, much has been written about these 10 points in 100 days and things like that. His 10 point agenda for governance is pretty simple and straightforward. Dynamizing the bureaucracy, increasing government transparency, focusing on public services which means education, health, water and energy, spurring infrastructure and investment, addressing the economic challenges including through the budget, leveraging modern technologies for enhanced efficiency and monitoring of government services and enlisting the cooperation of all Indian states. That's his governance mantra. That's the template which across the board he crafted on day one and said you have it. This is the way we are all going to go. Now restoring the health of the economy is first among many of the subjects which he's taking up. There are just four areas there. Employment, infrastructure, manufacturing and investor sentiment. Now you remember that throughout the campaign Modi said there is no red tape, there's only a red carpet for investors. He realizes that for the new middle class and its aspirations to be fulfilled he needs the private sector to step in big time and come in and help grow the economy. So focus on investment, private investment, entrepreneurship that's writ large in his agenda. The next is a more difficult task but he's already started that by reconstituting issues around the Prime Minister's office that is restoring the faith of the public in government institutions and reversing the rather entrenched institutional inefficiencies which have eroded public trust. I think that is one of the most important elements which he has to tackle. He has been already able to unleash some of the animal spirits as reflected in our stock markets and apart from the recent developments in Iraq which have dampened things a little bit things have been going rather well since the new government was constituted. Now the budget will definitely be a test for his reformist instincts and it's coming in two weeks time. Mr. Modi has pointed out that the government coffers were left practically empty by the outgoing government and there's a huge overhang of payments which are still pending the new year. It reduces the scope of the government to spur growth through spending but nonetheless he said be prepared for some pain in the short term and I promise you a budget which will be an investor friendly budget. I can't say anything more because the budget processes in India are very, very closely held that processes currently the discussions and deliberation on that is ongoing. Now his immediate challenges as he crafts the budget he has these issues of food inflation deficit subsidies inflexible labor markets bad land acquisition law pass last year many of these issues we'll have to wait and see in the coming months. Could I just get a little bit of that water please? Thanks. As he goes along one thing which he has already got the government system to be moving on is to conduct a comprehensive review of the foreign direct investment limits and to start the process of opening up virtually everything except one or two areas where there will be some residual restrictions and the overall blueprint for his 60 months in office five year term of Indian government was given in tremendous detail in the president's address to the Indian parliament a week ago it's quite an unprecedented sort of address because it spells virtually everything out that we will do this and we will do that it's not detailed in the sense of how will we do it and what will we deploy but it gives a clear picture and I'll just read two things out of that two or three things the states and the center in India are an organic team India we believe in cooperative federalism this has been a perennial case for dysfunction in India oh well the center can't do it because the states don't do it the states can't do it because all of them are not together et cetera et cetera his idea is very clear he's been a chief minister for 12 years a very successful one and he knows where the central government has neglected the participation of the states in taking the whole country forward on a single platform now his inclusive policy is basically focused on agriculture reviving agriculture don't forget the fact that in the 12 years he was chief minister of Gujarat the agricultural growth rate in that state was 9.5% per year three times the national average and this was really at the heart of the so called Gujarat phenomenon because yes industry was marching along trade manufacturing other areas but the rural heart land in a normally water deficient state was doing fine and was galloping along as well he has signaled zero tolerance towards extremism and terrorism which is good because I think that there's no brand of religious extremism which India's diverse society would like to see erupting for business and in America there are a lot of concerns about business let me read one line predictable, transparent and fair economic policy environment rationalization and simplification of tax regime to make it non adversarial and conducive to investment enterprise and growth now I don't know what else the budget will have but on current reckoning this element should be reflected in the budget when it comes out in 10 days time he's also spoken about massive infrastructure development works high speed trains, modernization of ports new cities, 100 new cities hinterland connectivity and for his focus on labor intensive manufacturing obviously it will not be possible unless he undertakes some really, really long delayed labor reforms which will be good for the economy well, okay the turn to foreign policy there is no doubt at all that India's external profile will stand to gain from the prospect of a strong leadership and a stable government which is likely to engage the world bigger than has been the case in the past Modi is unquestionably a nationalist he is deeply committed to India's emergence as a strong self reliant, self confident power he will have a powerful impact on India's foreign policy reviving interest in engaging India and driving bilateral initiatives abroad I personally do not agree with commentators who see some continuity or largely continuity with either Mr. Vajpayee's BJP government or the UPA I really see much greater change and dynamism rather than continuity in his handling of foreign policy issues he on being elected and when he spoke to leaders across the world who called him he emphasized the enormous soft power of India's democracy and he indicated to them that he will leverage this factor to find India's rightful place in the world in his words the people of India want to see a resurgent nation regaining the admiration and respect of the international community these are sentiments but you know where he is coming from and when you hear them expressed repeatedly by Mr. Modi but it is important to recognize that Mr. Modi's Indian dream is not a dream of nationalist assertion his dream is one of empowerment and higher standards of living for the Indian people he will stress the primacy of national interest but at the same time he will be fearful to avoid any hawkish statements of any kind his ruled out confrontational approaches towards neighbors and has reached out to them right at the start of his innings and invited them to his swearing in he will clearly accord priority to restoring high economic growth and re-establishing the economic foundations of India's national power in turn will entail measures to improve the domestic and external environment for ensuring a high growth trajectory so you can expect a much more proactive global engagement and economic diplomacy from Mr. Modi his determination to reinvigorate government institutions and strengthen government capacity will also have a beneficial impact on India's comprehensive national power and I'm sure all friends of India will celebrate that two more areas where two obvious areas where where his domestic policy will intersect with foreign policy are economic engagement with the world and building India's defense capacity so in terms of reviving India's economic growth by ensuring a stable business environment free from regulatory and political uncertainty capricious policy making and cumbersome bureaucracy this that's one plank which he's already promised and since taking office he has signaled his intention to progress military modernization through a balanced mix of procurement and indigenous capacity building clear and credible strategic posture I do believe that Mr. Modi will contribute very meaningfully to that emerging as we go ahead and this will not only contribute to India's national deterrent capacity but also to its potential as a net security provider alongside regional partners he said this last Sunday that we will neither threaten anyone nor will we be intimidated by anyone we will look the world in the eye and deal with it this is a very practical very pragmatic person and he is really somebody who can change the normal way of India's underwhelming performance in the region and restore India's trajectory towards becoming a major Asian power the BJP manifesto talks about web of alliances to strengthen India's weight on the global stage and hopefully this implies a more pragmatic non-ideological stance the way I see it, the way I would like to put it is that India will now be more aligned to its own interests which serve them so that clarity is finally going to descend the ideological baggage of the past is unlikely to appear in his government three countries I want to talk about then I'll end first let me talk about Japan he is signaled from the beginning that he will pay the highest priority to building relations with Japan his first major bilateral visit outside South Asia will be to Japan in two weeks time and I think that you can see that visit in early July will set the trend for India's strategic and economic partnership with Japan coming closer and closer to a quasi alliance between the two Asian democracies he has visited Japan twice 2007-2012 and I think broadly speaking as democratic leaders with a commitment to reigniting national self-confidence Abe and Modi have much in common so there will be a few things which will be tied up in this visit I don't know how much time there is just two weeks to go in for major new deals and initiatives but you can expect some in the strategic arena and in the economic arena as well China from the day when the verdict of the Indian people was announced has been somewhat unsure of what to expect from a Modi government and during the election he called upon China to abandon its mindset of expansion and then also during the election he went on to say that if India and China can make things work together it benefits to both nations and to a rising issue Chinese leadership reached out to Modi only after he assumed office as prime minister not on the day when he was elected there are good reasons for that because Communist China with its system of government could hardly publicly acknowledge the successful transfer of power through peaceful and democratic means in a vast diverse Asian nation there were some commentaries before these initial messages were exchanged but they were a bit confused because they did not quite reach a balance between is Modi an economic reformer with whom China will gallop along or is he a right wing nationalist of which China should have some concern now this was also something which they witnessed because at his inauguration the presence of Tibetan leader who is the Tibetan government in exile prime minister was noticed by the Chinese and of course they protested etc. but finally they sent foreign minister Wang Yi to Delhi and he was there last week I will just say that Mr. Wang Yi was received very warmly his messages from the Chinese leadership were gratefully acknowledged but following the talks the one line which struck me as part of our regular briefing was that respect for sensitivities and aspirations of each other is essential for the expansion of bilateral relations so if I derive from that what Mr. Wang Yi went back to Beijing with he probably went back to Beijing with the understanding that India is prepared to work together with China but will stand up very strongly for national interests and so this this is now going to be a basis where there will be a greater balance and greater mutuality of accommodation and respect which will come into the relationship and it's not the same thing as what we were used to in the past it's not quite a continuation of the past when the UPA and Mr. Vajpayee were reaching out to China India and the United States well nobody in this town is unaware of the fact that over the past year the India-U.S. Strategic Partnership has dissipated there's been a sense of mutual disappointment there's diminished political attention there are several economic contentions and disputes which have emerged and I admit that there were perhaps many areas where there were grounds for U.S. disappointment with the previous government and these covered the economy they covered defense and they covered strategic arenas but on the Indian side as well there are questions about the nature of America's strategic commitment to relations with India on trade and investment issues in particular the U.S. approach of unilateral investigations and the diplomacy of demands as Rick puts it has become completely counterproductive now if this is the background there is little bit more of more of work coming up because the U.S. overture to candidate Modi was inexplicably delayed to February 2014 there has been some recovery post-election but I don't think we can just say that the past has been entirely swept under there are bound to be residual grievances in India about the past which include the visa denial for Mr. Modi maybe I think I cannot describe any reasons because I cannot describe define why the U.S. act in the way it did but perhaps I think across the board this past several months maybe the comprehension of the scale of change represented by Mr. Modi is not being fully taken on board and requires much more study what he represents for India requires study where he will take India requires greater study so if there is a lack of direction and clarity at the moment the U.S. side PM Modi has already made it very clear that he has a desire to restore full momentum to bilateral ties he regards America as the most consequential country for India and he has said that if a country's relations are not determined by what happens to an individual so basically from his side he is ready to move on move ahead and hopefully that's what we will see happening as the year progresses now to restore the strategic vision which existed for the last decade in the relationship my belief is that the lead will have to come directly from President Obama and Prime Minister Modi and the future direction of this relationship will therefore very heavily depend on the outcomes of the September summit which is we have still not scheduled the exact dates but the idea that there will be a summit meeting has already been agreed as far as the other nitty-gritty issues with the State Department and the Indian Foreign Office etc are concerned I won't labour that point I will simply say that progress on relations will be under Modi will be pragmatic will be even on occasion transactional and there will be new yardsticks of mutual respect and reciprocity in terms of the relationship overall and some of these misunderstandings which arose last 8-9 months I think speak rather about how we have managed the relationship can we think of a BIT can we think of India's involvement in greater levels and more advanced levels of trade and investment relations with the United States I think first of all let's say that the entire course of various investigations the unilateral US investigations into India's trade investment practices I think this cycle has to come to an end because only when it comes to an end you can really open up and start talking about something new the way the cycle has gone on where certain very limited agendas have become the main point in the India-US relationship I think that again has to be the best on the US side we as the US withdraws from Afghanistan as more dangers grow in Asia in East Asia as well as to the west of India I think we need to step up our security dialogues our strategic dialogues we need to address each other's concerns and anxieties we have been doing it which have been established but I think from the Indian side we do perceive at the moment a need for the US to redress a shortfall on walking the talk and that's a perception which is not limited to India it's more widely shared in Asia all the way across East Asia as well on the Indian side much of what the Modi government is likely to do on improving the climate for economic growth and investment will fundamentally stem from domestic impulses not US pressure this I really want to emphasize however the revival of India's potential as an effective regional player and strategic partner under Prime Minister Modi will no doubt be something which would be welcomed by the United States with the official impact of our ability to work together with greater convergence on the important strategic issues of the day the signals by the Modi government that he will fast-track military modernization throw open the defence industrial sector for foreign direct investment leaves a very considerable scope for pursuing India-US defence trade and technology initiative which has been ongoing but nothing really transpired taking it beyond trade into the sector where we will be actually partnering on technology sharing, co-production and things of that sort so hopefully this will be one of the priorities which will be taken up when the leaders meet on regional dialogues I'll conclude with that which are being revived there's a long lull in our East Asia dialogue and the the trilateral is also being revived it's supposed to be held next week but it's been postponed by another few weeks I think the time I would say that the time has come for India Japan and the United States to really progress impactful programs of co-operation which carry a meaning direct meaning for regional states and we've heard a lot of proposals from the United States including the Indo-Pacific corridor etc but frankly the US is far behind both India and Japan in terms of projects under implementation for connectivity in the region and with Modi visiting Japan in a couple of weeks I think the involvement of Japan and India with connecting our Northeast with Myanmar and across all the way to Vietnam that trend will pick up speed there's very little US equity in that apart from statements of support for a Indo-Pacific corridor and then there is the question of the entire maritime security HADR related issues which we can bring to the table for regional states I think we are still dealing with these in limited format which is India Japan US or India Japan or India US to really be meaningful these trilateral initiatives have to be dovetailed with ASEAN-led processes which are established but we haven't plugged into them effectively because that's the only way that the entire region will see that these three countries are working together helping us building capacity and building maritime security thank you very much I think as much as I could have covered I've covered the ground it's been rather theoretical because as I said just three weeks since the new government was constituted lots of room for change, lots of room for surprises those are never something which you can preclude but there is a different new style of governance and a new paradigm for utilization of a mandate for transforming India which is causing the buzz in India and I hope that people in the United States will recognize the extent and breadth of that change what it means for India in the future as a society, as an economy and as a country which can stand up and be a partner especially a partner from the United States thank you thanks Ambassador for saying that was really terrific one of the difficulties I think of dealing with a country that has such a large English language press is when you follow it from this side of the ocean there's so much chatter and so many sources it gets a little confusing sometimes so hopefully certainly for me and hopefully for others you brought a bit of clarity and narrative about all this massive amount of activity that we've seen so far I think the line that I'll take away is India's policies will be aligned with its interests that's a terrific line and certainly we've all seen times that that's diverged in the recent past and also the idea of Mr. Modi and the BJP government as true change agents and sometimes people say well it's just another government India's been a certain way since independence and I always retort that what we saw with these two gentlemen helping lead the charge of the time in a short span of time India went from nuclear testing to nuclear cooperation with the United States in a six year window that's fast that is very fast and so you've seen these opportunities in the past where when things get aligned they move faster than any of us can expect and importantly America needs to stay awake on this and again you probably saw most of you were probably on the list in the most recent newsletter that we put out which talked about the 28 or so dialogues that we had with India and recommending some changes to them which the Indian press that's all they reported on CSIS says blow up the dialogues and change them small subtle changes the real message of the newsletter if you read what we wrote was go back to those dialogues don't give up on them and go for them a bunch of CEO sitting across from Prime Minister Modi and his trusted advisors and offering advice on how the climate can be improved to help them bring new investments into the country will probably get a better year than they had in the past so I also echo Ambassador Singh's remarks that I think on the side of the ocean we need to stay awake and get ready to be responsive when we see overtures because it's going to happen in a different fashion than it has in the recent past let me before we open it up to the audience for questions that I really and we've been scratching our heads on this quite a bit at the office thinking about writing a paper but then we figured you're coming why bother writing when we're going to have the expert here India-Japan relations clearly pride of place in the establishment right now and we've seen it the last years of the Congress government what is it what did you see that was was there like a single intellectual framework in Japan that made both government and industry approach India at the same time with such strength or is it just a lot of pieces that kind of came together at the same time that resulted in what we would call in our basketball terms a full court press where every time you turn around there's a leader there's a CEO there there's an investment there how did that sort of when did you start to see the dawn that they're looking at this a little bit differently it happened quite rapidly in the period 2009 the initial breakthrough came when Prime Minister Mori just ignored the Gaimushu advice and said I don't care if India has tested nuclear devices I think there's a buzz in the Indian economy I want to know what it's all about and you get me on a plane I want to go and visit that country and he did that primarily on Prime Ministerial authority overriding concerns in the foreign office made the opening in 2000 then we had a bit of a lull because Mori of course left within a year and Koizumi came to power now by the time Koizumi reached his height and the relationship between Bush and Koizumi was taking the two countries places we also saw the phenomenon India's economic rise speed up to 8-9% per annum both Japan and the United States got very excited about it they felt this was a new opportunity and a democratic country in Asia which was coming up and would be able to the US and Japan in Asia also provide a huge growth potential to the world economy this then went on to become a initiative between Mr Bush and Manmohan Singh who by that time had become Prime Minister and Mr Koizumi was never going to be far behind because he was very close to President Bush at the time the progression of converting this into a bit of a flood not quite a flood but somewhat of a flood of Japanese interest in investment and of codifying the relationship between India and Japan Japan lives on alliance commitments as you know they are your biggest ally in Asia it's a society which codifies its agreements with foreign powers and works along them so between 2006 and 2009 we signed a defense agreement a security agreement a comprehensive economic partnership agreement a whole range of new understandings between India and Japan to become partners in emerging Asia to work for Asian stability and security and to bring co-prosperate to our two nations that's the rough progression how it happened Mr Modi himself is very let me put it this way I said during my remarks that he regards America as a country which is greatly consequential to India's future and he is clear from the statements of the government that he attaches that kind of top priority to really building or reviving the momentum of India US relations Japan is his most favorite country now in those two visits in 2007 and 2012 what he saw of the transformations which Japan had made in its own economy in its infrastructure in its technological capacities it left him impressed and please do remember that unlike most other Asian countries or even the United States India has no historical baggage as far as Japan is concerned we lauded the victories of the Japanese over the Russians in 1905 a signal that Asians could become free and free from European powers all across we had a duality in fact during the independence struggle because 40,000 Indian troops joined Subhash Chandra Bose's National Army and went over to the Japanese side and 750,000 Indian troops helped the British Empire take back Asia from the Japanese but it was all done on the basis that the people of India were never at war with Japan and so rekindling that kind of Asia does not have the kind of cohesiveness which Europe has obviously single civilization Christian civilization with lots of connections going across but Asian historical regionalism is a very important phenomenon and I don't think we should ignore that because that historical regionalism is about 100 years old it involved Japan, it involved China involved India we were not free but it did have beginnings and roots down at that time so picking up the threads is going to be I mean a number of love and he's made it very clear that this is the top priority relationship for India and I know he hasn't said that but it covers the entire scope of technology, economy security, defense Asian architecture Asian stability and the stronger we are with Japan, Japan is with I think this relationship is a mutually supportive sort of it's a virtual cycle of three relationships the trilateral is about you know building incrementally with each other the weakest leg of this relationship at the moment is India-U.S and I'll just ask one more question opening it up which is about India-U.S so I think the perspective from the U.S. side I know the perspective from the U.S. side on why the relationship really sort of petered out in recent years we made the biggest decision on in our bilateral history by opening the door for civilian nuclear technology and by parliament not being able to pass a bill that actually allowed for civilian nuclear technology sharing between the two is there a chance that that cinder in the eye and the relationship on our side could potentially be addressed or do you think that's not part of the the short list of things or even the longer list of things that would be on Mr. Modi's priority list do you think that ranks somewhere okay no it's I would say that civil nuclear agreement between India and the United States was not just about nuclear power it was basically a strategic understanding between India and the United States that they had worked together in shaping the world in the future and that reassurance, that mutual reassurance was fundamental to enabling the nuclear deal to actually come about now how did we deal with that not very well and the liability bill caused concerns across the world caused concerns for all partners who are potential partners for developing civil nuclear energy we've been struggling to find legal understandings which can skirt around the limitations of product liability which is covered in that bill when will this government be able to address or correct that situation I think if it is seen as if we decide once again to revive civil nuclear power as a big plank in our energy security policy then eventually down the road I think they should be pushed because the Japanese wanted that change the French wanted that change the Russians wanted that change America wanted to change and who worked for that deal America did so quite clearly redressing some of the residual problems with that civil nuclear deal and the implications of the liability bill is something which we need to work on I would also say that this sense of let's say mutual disappointment which you have noticed in the last year or two on the economy I completely agreed the UPA just stopped performing and delivering on any benchmarks for economic growth of India itself I mean the policies did not quite add up at all and on the defense side we had a strange hold back because we have the most extensive defense relationship with the United States in terms of military exercises we are not allies but we are perfectly interoperable and especially our navies and our air forces as well our special forces as well they all train together but there was a kind of a hold back on that in the previous regime I don't think it's going to exist anymore and finally on the strategic element what I mentioned about the ideological baggage our historical past and non-alignment and strategic autonomy and things of that kind that again was a part of the congress paraphernalia and baggage of history so it's something which hopefully will now be permanently laid to rest and replaced by an alignment with our own interest and an alignment with all the friends who help take that interest forward well let me open it up to the floor and hopefully folks have some questions for Sanjay too we need to get him energized here all the difficult questions yeah right here in the we have a microphone coming around hi I'm Dr. Donna Wells I'm an expert in the Russian language internet can you talk more about integrating the ASEAN countries into a possible regional security alliance ASEAN countries in a regional into a possible regional security alliance Asian security is not going to be built around alliances we fully recognize the fact that American alliances in Asia have bolstered regional stability and security in order for the last 50 60 70 years there's no doubt about that in fact we have benefited from it as well the region's economies have greatly benefited from that but the given Asia history a combination of historical regionalism and a let's say at least an attempt to have non-competitive non-confrontational security architecture that is definitely the way in which Asia is going to go including ASEAN ASEAN has led this process of cooperative regional security architecture since it initiated the ASEAN regional forum some four decades back of some not four two and a half decades back and the acceptance by countries like the United States Japan India of ASEAN centrality in this cooperative security architecture and giving it some kind of a leader-led apex through the East Asia summit this is something which is still very much under discussion is not really moved in that direction but it would be very good for Asia if we could move in a direction of having clear cut let's say allocation of responsibility to the East Asia summit as a leaders forum to the ADMM plus as a defense ministers forum to the ASEAN regional forum or any other entity as a political and security issues forum and the ASEAN maritime forum plus as a regional these are all cooperative security architectures they're not alliance based Abbasala wait for the so everybody can hear I run a US India policy institute a small not for profit in Washington DC I just moved over from Delhi about two years I was at the NCAAL National Council of Applied Economic Research I'm a trained economist now very interesting talk very reassuring however it's a kind of a bright future lying ahead enough and although you did say that it's more changed than continuity but I have so far not yet got the idea that we are changing particularly on two counts I will give you that which you missed the economic side hardly one percent change so far budget we will find that out budget is a matter of reallocating money from this budget head to another one I know social sectors because there is a talk about defense there is a talk about exporting arms and ammunition but there is not talk about environment there is not talk about environment there is not talk about food because we are 1.2 and growing and Gujarat agriculture is not food agriculture it is cotton agriculture so we can't eat cotton to build up our nutrition so I think the whole paradigm of agriculture and rural poverty is not in the mindset of this government yet that's my point but the question which I'm asking is how do we change so it's very quiet I almost see there is nobody who understands economics in the BJP government neither Modi nor you know I'm basically talking of the expertise beneath the decisions so I see them very upset now in this whole lecture of yours you missed the point about what the BJP stands for what the BJP stands for as opposed to Modi as a professor teaching all the students his ministers to centralize the power is this the democracy we are talking about I know the so called decentralization in the previous government may not be the best combination but the centralization of power which I beginning to feel that could damage the democratic that's my view I would like to elaborate because it's not easy to get the states co-op right do you have a question we got pretty limited time of Basela do you have a question in here although there is quid pro quo which is very forthcoming between the various parties coming in and mind you there are 70% electorate are still not voted to BJP 70% electorate did not vote to BJP yet so there are more coalitions and changes going to and with respect to Japan that's the cheap money the investments the cheap money from Japan is what is needed for infrastructure and that's where the direction is but the largest consumer market is the other side of the Atlantic thank you well that's your perspective and to my mind it continues the same questions about whether Modi won at all did not present any change at all in a very fundamental sense and you proved my point that there is huge amount of cynicism still out there which is not seeing what is happening in India as far as the broad statistics are concerned well we can debate till the cows come home but the average of governance in India has been around about 30 to 35% Modi and the BJP have 38.5% there is absolutely no difference from what the national average has been the fact that that does not mean in any way, any shape or form that there is some kind of a minority government which has come to power because this is exactly the pattern of India the length and breadth of India we don't have that map up here but we can we can share that with you the transcending of all boundaries across on a single consolidating platform of national growth and regeneration this is something which has happened for the first time as far as centralization and things like that is concerned in the last two weeks you just read the statements coming out of the government in the last two weeks the entire pattern is going to be cooperative federalism and it's going to co-opt the states take their concerns on board and make a single enterprise out of this India growth story one India strong India now you also mentioned about the agriculture economy please read the manifesto presented by the president of India to parliament last week the largest portion is on empowering agriculture across the board and you're right that there's a lot of BT cotton in Gujarat and India's let's say rice and wheat bowls are elsewhere in Andhra and Punjab and Haryana and other places Maharashtra the fact of the matter is that the biggest way of showing inclusion is to improve the productivity of our agriculture once again and that's clearly something which the government intends to do I don't know where you get the 1% change idea from in the economy where there's no change at all I mean we're going to wait for the budget what he has done so far is to say let me get the government of India working again that in itself is a huge chunk of per capita national GDP growth in the future second he has said that we will have a investor friendly approach so that people can invest happily in India our own domestic investment cycle has shrunk we used to have 38% investment rate and 17% private investment rate we're down to 10-11% private investment this entire thing has to be revived taxation reform GST tax across the board across India each one of these are incremental inputs into the happier healthier growth of the Indian economy as far as structural reform is concerned let's wait and see at what pace the government will pursue that I keep saying I think businesses they want big reform but they also don't need big reform necessarily they want a government that is targeting a less that is more friendly I keep saying you look at the real numbers already since the start of the year the FDI number is released by the government of India about 41% in the first three months that's even before voting began 41% increase in FDI plant property and equipment institutional investment it's already 50% higher this year than it was all of last year so the numbers are showing that indeed investors are choosing India at a pretty astounding rate just because they view the government is going to be friendlier even if they don't know what the specific policy changes are going to be two points have been raised here one that the BJP got nearly 31% so therefore somehow the representative nature of the government seems to be little diluted I don't think that's the approach that we need to take in a multi-party democracy when four or five parties contest elections here a dozen regional parties contest elections getting 31% is a huge thing it's not a small thing and the other dimension is trying to compare this 31% with the percentages that the political parties got during earlier elections I think it's like comparing apples and oranges because the nature of the representational density in India has increased substantially I mean I'll give you an example for instance there is this party called pyramid party of India which contested elections in coastal Andhra what have pyramids got to do with India but somehow there is a party called pyramid party of India which is contesting elections in coastal areas what do they believe in they believe that if you have a small image like pyramid on your head your spiritual energy will flow into you and these guys are contesting elections and now these guys got certain percentage of votes what does it mean I mean we can laugh at this agenda of this political party but it means that there are people with various persuasions, various ideologies contesting elections in India and they are taking quote share and Indian political parties system is allowing that kind of system to flourish and that's the nature in which in the context in which you need to understand this 31% in 80s and 90s trying to make entry into political process of this country means people would have said told you you would get bumped off if you try to contest election as an independent but today nobody is afraid of contesting elections few software engineers come together put up a party and run a collection campaign they are running elections contesting elections they may lose deposits so therefore when we try to assess the nature of the percentage that the political parties like BJP or Congress have got we need to understand the nature of the change, the increased representational density in Indian politics so therefore for me whether it is Congress or BJP getting 30% is a huge thing in Indian politics and we need to understand this dynamic rather than run it down the other dimension is about centralization of politics we should be very careful about centralization of power in Indian politics but this is not the first time that the question has come up and they used to fire elected chief ministers of the state just like that today you cannot fire a chief minister of any state in India so easily governors who are appointed by the central government the union government today is finding it difficult to remove them because their political appointees of the previous government even there they are finding it difficult to remove governors yes we should be careful about centralization of power but the nature of the structures that are operating in Indian politics makes it extremely difficult to have certain amount of centralization of power so the person who asked this question is not in the room today I mean just left now I'll let him know I see him every couple hours so I'll pass along with the rest of your answer these things need to be factored in the complexity of the issue the vote chair percent two there's another one from the book of dirty tricks in India where other parties will run a number of candidates against the leading candidate with the exact same name and occasionally they'll take a two or three percent or four percent each one so I saw that had 12 candidates with same names contesting the election we got time for one more let's go to the second row right over here microphones coming over there if you can keep it brief and let us know who you are my name is Barbara Dello I wanted to pick up on two things you said I hope I got them right you spoke about nationalism and you said that Modi got some of his support from the economic middle class those with social conservative values if that's correct and I wanted you to expand two things I wanted you to expand on the social conservative values and also wonder if there's any element of the global liberal agenda that sometimes is exported from the UN and even the US that may conflict with some of the um that may interfere with relations with India so what is the social element in the party and how may global liberal affairs the subject can answer parts of that I'll simply say that India is and will always remain a liberal democracy the quality of rights enjoyed by our people will only benefit from the kind of phenomenon which Mr. Modi represents because he wants to move India on the same platform as you enjoy in the United States which is a single citizenry under the constitution and the law and with equality of opportunity given to everybody through a universal access model rather than a compartmentalized what is it called in America the reservations are called something else affirmative action sort of a model and we haven't had that pot for a long time the we've started believing that we are always going to be fragmented that we are a conglomeration of communities coming together with some complex web of interactive exchange of benefits distributed across that front now for me as a practitioner including a person who represented India at the commission on human rights I would say that we really need to stand by the universal declaration of human rights the American constitution and our constitution which are all based on individual rights guaranteed under law and that's the direction which we will always have there's got to be no dilution of that I mean the analytic frameworks that we deploy whether it is word liberal different things in different contexts similarly the word right wing nationalist may mean different things in different contexts Narendra Modi is a right wing nationalist Xi Jinping is a nationalist I mean the word nationalist does not capture the complexity that goes into defining certain things and similarly is the word liberal when we say is Narendra Modi government or the BJP government or NDA government is it going to be liberal it may mean different things yes it may be liberal in its economic policies definitely that doesn't mean that he will follow tacharism or ergonomics because you cannot deploy same kind of frameworks in Indian context where the governments need to do welfare programs but at the same time you have to facilitate social mobility which requires growth so you need to find the middle ground where you need to address both these concerns in terms of economic policies may mean different things in Indian context well in just a couple of weeks we will get to see a lot more on what India's economic agenda will look like as the ambassador Singh mentioned with the release of the budget and the accompanying budget speech by finance minister J. Lee in parliament then over the summer we will supposedly see the U.S. India Street Dialogue Meet and possibly in September then meeting of the heads of state so certainly the economic agenda will become clearer and what happens in our bilateral relations if we don't know by the end of the year we likely will never know but I suspect we're going to know quite a bit and pretty shortly so thanks everybody for coming and joining me in thanking our two terrific guests here