A U.S.-India Reset: Kugelman in LAT

The outcome of India’s national election — a resounding triumph for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party — has put the United States in an awkward position.

The BJP’s Narendra Modi will soon be India’s prime minister. In 2005, Washington revoked his U.S. visa, citing a law banning visits by foreign officials responsible for egregious violations of religious freedom. Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat state, had been accused of not doing enough to stop deadly communal riots in 2002 that left at least 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslims.

Predictably, Washington and New Delhi are abuzz about the implications of the BJP’s victory for the U.S.-India relationship, which has suffered in recent months.

Such talk, however, misses a larger point.

Read the rest by WOTR Contributor Michael Kugelman at the Los Angeles Times.

Image: Al Jazeera English, CC