NEW DELHI – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is riding high. His triumphant visit to Washington, which featured a state dinner at the White House and a rare second address to a joint session of Congress, appears to mark a new chapter in the relationship between the United States and India following a quarter-century of ups and downs.

Modi’s visit was preceded by several major breakthroughs, including the recent US-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, which seeks to foster bilateral collaboration on technologies such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, 5G, and cybersecurity. US semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology recently announced that it plans to invest $825 million in a new chip assembly and testing facility in India.

The US and India have also unveiled several defense agreements, including a deal for India to acquire 30 MQ-9B Predator armed drones from the US and a separate plan to produce F414 fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force jointly with General Electric. These deals, which have not been previously extended to a country that is not formally an ally, highlight the intensifying bilateral defense partnership.

The transformation is striking. Throughout the Cold War, the world’s oldest democracy and its largest remained essentially estranged. America’s initial indifference toward India was evident in President Harry Truman’s reaction when Chester Bowles asked to be the US ambassador. “I thought India was pretty jammed with poor people and cows wandering around the streets, witch doctors, and people sitting on hot coals and bathing in the Ganges,” Truman said, “but I did not realize that anybody thought it was important.”

America’s preference for alliances with anti-communist regimes led the US to establish relationships with a series of increasingly Islamist dictatorships in Pakistan. Meanwhile, India’s non-aligned democracy gravitated toward the secular Soviet Union. Non-alignment was not well-received in the US, where President Dwight Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, famously declared that “neutrality between good and evil is itself evil.”

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