Obama, Modi: No tight hug

In a get-to-know-you visit fraught with awkward undertones, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to repair a strained relationship between their nations on Tuesday, emerging with expressions of goodwill but little in the way of concrete deals.

At an Oval Office meeting and during a stroll around the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, Obama and Modi emphasised what they had in common as democratic leaders who overcame personal obstacles, campaigned as outsiders and embraced technology as a vital tool in politics and governing.

But their talks yielded no resolutions to thorny disputes over taxes, trade and civilian nuclear energy cooperation that have divided the United States and India in recent years. And there was little sign that human rights - a particularly sensitive topic for Modi, who has been accused of being complicit in deadly anti-Muslim riots - was a major item on the agenda.

“Human rights and the importance of inclusive governance were part of the discussions between the president and the prime minister today,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary told reporters. But a statement issued jointly by the US and India after the talks made no mention of the issue.

The White House has grappled with the perceptions of a visit meant to spotlight the president’s high hopes for working with Modi while not lavishing the full measure of White House pageantry on a leader who until recently was barred from entering the US because of the allegations of human rights abuses more than a decade ago.

Still, in a striking gesture that Modi later said gave their relationship a “new dimension,” the president left the White House to give the PM a personal tour of the King Memorial, recalling Obama’s own visit in 2010 to the one-time home in Mumbai of Mahatma Gandhi who was a model for the US civil rights leader.

At a luncheon at the State Department not long after, Modi was effusive in thanking Obama. Modi had been denied a visa to visit the US because of accusations that he failed to stop religious violence in Gujarat in 2002, when he was chief minister there, which took the lives of more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

On Thursday, while Modi was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, the human rights group American Justice Centre filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan against him on behalf of two survivors of the rioting, seeking a judgment that his conduct was tantamount to genocide.

The US officials have declined to comment on the case, except to say that sitting heads of government enjoy immunity from lawsuits in US courts. But human rights activists had pressed the Obama administration to get the president to raise the issue with Modi while he was in Washington.

If he did, it was in private. “The purpose of these meetings was to improve US-India relations, so we weren’t expecting Obama to give him the cold shoulder, but we were hoping there would be a little bit of measure in the red-carpet treatment, so we were surprised by the Martin Luther King side visit,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Tricky element

It was hardly the only tricky element of Modi’s visit. Their get-together began Monday night with a small dinner in the White House Blue Room that was a protocol nightmare: Modi was in the middle of a nine-day fast to observe the festival of Navratri, but insisted his hosts go ahead and eat. Modi sat in front of an empty plate and had warm water for dinner while Obama and the two leaders’ entourages ate avocados and goat cheese, crisped halibut and basmati rice, a pumpkin crème brûlée and a California chardonnay.

The 20-person dinner was a stark contrast to the lavish affair Obama threw for Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh, in November 2009, when more than 300 guests dined on arugula salad, curried prawns and pumpkin pie tart at an event whose bill came to more than $570,000.

This two-day meeting did produce some agreements, including the renewal of a 10-year defence co-operation framework, a pact to co-operate on maritime security and several clean-energy initiatives. And as Obama intensifies the US campaign against the Sunni militant group known as the Islamic State, the two agreed to improve their counterterrorism cooperation and intelligence sharing.

“We discussed the issues of trade, issues of making sure that maritime rules are observed, and we discussed how we can continue to work together on a whole host of issues like space exploration, scientific endeavour,” Obama said after a two-hour meeting with Modi in the Oval Office.

Modi, for his part, said he wanted to resolve disputes that had stalled the implementation of the American-India civilian nuclear agreement and stymied progress on trade. He said the two leaders had a “candid discussion” on trade.