Why Pannu ‘murder plot’ will not damage India-US ties

The authorities claim that an Indian government official was behind a blatant murder-for-hire plan against a U.S. citizen. This development appears to have the potential to destabilise the recently established but brittle U.S.-Indian cooperation.

However, the nations seem prepared to try to look past the murder attempt described in an American indictment made public on Wednesday. These nations are all hungry for an ally to balance off a rising China.

The unidentified Indian officer, whose duties include security and intelligence, and 52-year-old Indian national Nikhil Gupta allegedly planned this summer to assassinate a resident of New York City who supported the creation of a sovereign Sikh state in northern India, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

On June 22, as President Joe Biden was hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state visit to the White House, they were texting an undercover DEA agent about the planned assassination.

According to a senior administration official, U.S. authorities asked that India conduct an investigation after learning about the plot in late July. During a September conference, Biden brought up the matter with Modi and sent his director of the CIA to New Delhi, explaining to him “the potential repercussions for our bilateral relationship were similar threats to persist,” the official said.

This month, Biden’s secretaries of state and defence are in Delhi, continuing the high-level conversations and promises of deeper cooperation. The United States issued a restrained comment when information about the plot surfaced this week.

Even as the Biden administration pursues “an ambitious agenda to expand our cooperation” with India, a senior U.S. government official labelled the murder plot a “serious matter” and stated Washington expects India to cease such efforts.

According to foreign policy analysts, the U.S. response shows a determination to prevent the issue from harming the relationship as a whole.

“It seems that the Biden administration is attempting to isolate this matter from the remainder of the strategic alliance,” stated Lisa Curtis, a former National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia at the White House.

As the United States attempts to isolate Moscow over its invasion of its territory, Biden has prioritised fostering ties with India in an effort to undermine China’s ambitions in the region and pull India away from Russia.

Compared to a comparable instance in Canada last year, the New York assassination plot has transpired significantly differently thus far.

In September, Canada declared that “credible” claims had been made connecting Indian operatives to the June suburban Vancouver murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, another prominent Sikh separatist leader.

Canada’s claim was sharply rejected by India, leading to a diplomatic spat in which both countries expelled their diplomats and New Delhi threatened to sabotage trade negotiations.

India, on the other hand, gave an accommodative response to the US accusation on Wednesday, stating that it was looking into the matter and taking it seriously.

The Biden administration’s approach to Modi was not without controversy, as some contended that the Indian leader was an untrustworthy partner due to his authoritarian tendencies and Hindu nationalism.

Activists blame Modi for the religious riots that killed over a thousand people in Gujarat, his home state, in 2002. The majority of the victims were Muslims. A U.S. regulation that forbids entrance for foreigners who have committed “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” led to Modi’s 2005 visa rejection.

Despite taking office in 2014, Modi’s June summit was his first state visit to the United States. The connection between Biden and Modi, who were seated next to each other in the White House, is “built on mutual trust, candour, and respect.”

According to the published timetable of the purported conspiracy, the Biden Administration would have been aware of it well in advance of a number of noteworthy high-level contacts, according to Richard Rossow, an expert on India at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“So, based on its own merits this issue is not enough to derail ties even if it generated some underlying level of tension,” he stated.

The Biden administration “has bent backwards to avoid a public spat with Delhi,” according to Ashley Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but U.S. officials would be troubled by the issues of sovereignty involved in an attack on a citizen of the United States.

“I think the bilateral relationship will survive this fiasco,” he stated. “But it will reinforce the qualms of many who believe that the claims about shared values between the U.S. and India are simply mythology.”