Biden vs. Sanders: Who leans towards India, who doesn’t?

WASHINGTON: With the Democratic presidential race turning into a two-horse fight between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, it is worth exploring where these two men stand when it comes to views on India.

In a study in contrast, former US vice-president Biden is known to be a consistent supporter of India while Sanders on the other hand has always been sharply critical of New Delhi’s policies.

Twelve years back, Biden, as a senator, had voted to approve the 2008 Nuclear Deal that had gone on to reshape India-US relations. Sanders had done diametrically the opposite - he voted against the civil nuclear agreement.

Biden, in fact, had played a key role in the eventual passage of the bill as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

His support for New Delhi was evident even in his criticism of India’s nuclear tests in 1998. Biden called India’s move a “grave miscalculation”, but at a senate hearing he had said, “India is not a rogue state. It is not a Libya, a North Korea, or an Iraq. It is the world’s largest democracy and it is a country with which we share much in common.”

Biden’s support for India is capped by his successful visit to India as US vice-president in 2013, when he was accompanied by second lady Jill Biden. Before setting off, he had posted an aspirational target of $500 billion of bilateral trade - nearly the same as the value of trade between the US and its largest trading partner China.

And, while in India, he talked about the Bidens of India - a family line started here by a “greatgreat-great grandfather” who had come to India as an army officer with the East India Company and had married an Indian woman before settling down.

Sanders, on the other hand, has built himself a bulging portfolio of remarks that are critical of India. In August, he called for the lifting of restrictions in Kashmir and called on the US to back a UN-driven resolution of the India-Pakistan dispute.

More recently, he has slammed US President Donald Trump for being dismissive of the protests over India’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.

Sanders has also slammed the recent India-US defence deal, arguing that they should instead work together on combating climate change.