When the president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met together at the White House this week, things didn’t go as well as you would have expected. The pomp and grandeur had hardly started when it started to go awry. The two were scheduled to give speeches and answer questions from the media later in the day, an event that is likely to generate a lot of content.
The Indian national anthem started playing as Narendra and Biden took the platform together, the Indian flag fluttering in the background. The president seemed bewildered and kept his palm over his heart for a while after thinking the US national anthem was playing before recognizing his mistake and lowering it gradually.
You can see the precise moment on his face when it dawns on him, but at that time, he had been clutching his palm over his heart throughout the incorrect anthem for more than 15 seconds. Having a leader who takes a long time to discern between two anthems that sounded nothing alike is just another humiliating moment for the United States in the international arena. And to be sure, before ever hitting the stage, he was undoubtedly briefed on the appearance’s flow. We are aware of this because his controllers carefully plot each of his movements. I suppose he simply forgot.
However, it’s all right, right? It is not as if the relationship between the US and India is at an all-time low, therefore this meeting involving the Indian Prime Minister and President Biden doesn’t carry a lot of weight.
India has gotten closer to Russia since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, relying on Vladimir Putin’s government for energy and as a regional friend. This has improved relations between the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. India views its relations with Russia as a means of containing China, a country it has a border conflict with and has engaged in military clashes with over the past several years. To put it another way, now is the moment for sustained US leadership in the effort to try to break India free from a relationship with Russia that is detrimental to American interests.
Now, consider if Joe Biden has that sure hand. Is a man who is unable to recognize the sound of his own national anthem going to be able to persuade India to reevaluate its own security concerns in order to more closely resemble those of the West? I’d guess that the answer is no, which is why these embarrassing gaffes by Biden are significant. They are humorous, yes, but it’s much more than that. A high-stakes game like foreign policy necessitates rapid thinking and the capacity to consider all possibilities. The fact that Biden lacks these abilities is one of the reasons why the world is currently in such disarray.
