Democracy and Reality

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We are covering Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S., the implosion of the missing submersible and the N.B.A. draft.

By David Leonhardt

India is arguably the most important swing nation in global politics. It is influential enough to shift the balance of power, and its allegiances are neither obvious nor consistent.

India is both the world’s most populous country and the only country among the top 10 economies that has not clearly chosen a side in what President Biden calls the struggle between democracy and autocracy. On the one hand, India is skeptical of a Western-led world and has helped to finance Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by continuing to buy Russian oil. On the other hand, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, arrived in Washington yesterday trumpeting his nation’s closeness to the U.S.

Modi’s visit, complete with an address to Congress and a state dinner at the White House yesterday, has caused understandable discomfort among some Americans. (Several liberal Democrats refused to attend his speech to Congress.) In addition to working with Putin, Modi is a Hindu nationalist whose party has cracked down on political opponents and inflamed anti-Muslim bigotry. At a White House news conference with Biden yesterday, Modi brushed aside reporters’ questions about these issues.

Were the Biden administration to choose its international friends based only on their commitment to freedom and democracy, Modi’s India would be a strange nation to celebrate with White House pomp. But the reality is that the U.S. can’t have everything that it wants in foreign policy. It faces unavoidable trade-offs.

If the U.S. embraced only those countries with purer democratic records, it would not be able to create a very powerful global alliance. The U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Japan and South Korea are not strong enough to dominate the world as they once could. They need allies in the global South and the Middle East. And India isn’t merely the biggest of these countries; it is also among the most democratic, despite Modi’s flirtation with autocratic methods and India’s historical closeness with Russia.

There is an irony to the situation, but it’s one that Biden and other U.S. leaders can’t simply wish away with lofty rhetoric. An alliance made up only of liberal democracies would probably weaken global democracy: It would alienate many countries in Asia and Africa and lead them to establish stronger ties with China and Russia.

“Primly rejecting cooperation with India because its ideology and democracy do not conform to Western ideals would only empower China,” the editors of The Economist recently wrote. “It would also show that America has failed to adapt to the multipolar world that lies ahead.”

Finding the balance between effectiveness and morality in foreign policy is not easy. Modi’s critics are smart to use his Washington visit as an opportunity to highlight his dangerous Hindu supremacy. In the long run, the cause of democracy would benefit from a less xenophobic, less authoritarian India, just as the cause would also benefit from a U.S. where the Republican Party was fully committed to democracy and pluralism.

(The Times editorial board has urged the Biden administration to push Modi on these issues during this week’s meetings. And Maya Jasanoff, a historian, writes in an Opinion essay: “Modi has presided over the nation’s broadest assault on democracy, civil society and minority rights in at least 40 years.”)

However much the U.S. does push Modi, it has never been powerful enough to build an effective global alliance while also insisting that all of its members be American-style democracies. In today’s multipolar world, the U.S. certainly cannot do so. The trade-offs can often be unpleasant, but they are inescapable.

Democracy is much more likely to thrive in the coming decades if India and the U.S. are imperfect allies rather than antagonists.

Biden avoided publicly discussing Modi’s crackdown on human rights.

The state dinner featured meatless delicacies (Modi is a vegetarian), ginger ale (neither leader drinks alcohol) and a mix of political adversaries and Biden family members.

Modi and other top Indian officials are single, contributing to a perception that they are less corrupt because they don’t need to steal for their families.

The five people aboard the missing submersible are dead. Searchers found pieces of it on the ocean floor, the U.S. Coast Guard said, concluding it had imploded.

James Cameron, the director of “Titanic” and a deep-sea explorer himself, said the implosion must have been “like 10 cases of dynamite going off.”

The Supreme Court ruled against the Navajo Nation over access to Colorado River water.

Representative George Santos’s father and aunt paid for his bail on fraud and other charges. He had tried to keep the names secret.

In the year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, dozens of clinics have closed or halted abortions, and some have moved state.

New polling shows growing public support for legal abortion.

More than 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained by the West are entering the fight.

Progress has been slow for Ukraine early in its counteroffensive.

A Chinese firm sent $2 million worth of ammunition powder to Russia last year.

A Moscow court denied an appeal by the American reporter Evan Gershkovich to end his pretrial detention. Russia arrested him 12 weeks ago.

The chemical giant 3M reached a $10 billion settlement with cities and towns over claims it contaminated drinking water.

The part of Interstate 95 that collapsed this month in Philadelphia is scheduled to reopen today, earlier than expected.

The occupied West Bank has seen an escalation of violence in recent days, involving Palestinian militants, Israeli security forces and extremist Jewish settlers.

Texas’ record-setting heat wave continues this weekend and is expected to spread through nearby states.

After threats over his coverage of climate change, a TV meteorologist in Iowa said he was quitting.

“I’m up for a cage match if he is”: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg seemed to have agreed to a fight.

Muslims know what it’s like to be the scapegoats in the culture wars. They should know better than to pile on against L.G.B.T.Q. people, Wajahat Ali writes.

Here are columns by David Brooks on the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Jamelle Bouie on Donald Trump’s management style and Farhad Manjoo on conspiracy theorists.

Coming of age: In Martinique, young people gather in parking lots for “cabrage” — a sort of rodeo on wheels.

Bored of her aesthetic: The influencer who became too influential.

Modern Love: She stood by her husband’s grave while his bones were exhumed.

Lives Lived: Teresa Taylor drummed for the Texas acid-punk band Butthole Surfers and became an emblem of Generation X aimlessness through the 1990 film “Slacker.” Taylor died at 60.

N.B.A. draft: The San Antonio Spurs selected Victor Wembanyama No. 1 overall last night, starting the N.B.A. career of a highly anticipated prospect, The Times reports. And Amen and Ausar Thompson became the only brothers to be drafted in the top 10, The Athletic writes.

A new home: The Wizards sent their acquisition Chris Paul to the Warriors, who are pairing former rivals and going all-in on a title next season, The Athletic reports.

A Times obituary: Bob Brown was one of the N.F.L.’s most intimidating offensive tackles in the 1960s and 1970s, but had to wait decades to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He died at 81.

Art in the park: The artist Sheila Pepe uses crochet, which she learned from her mother, to create in three dimensions. Her first outdoor installation opens next week in Manhattan and features brightly colored strands of crocheted shoelaces, paracord, rope and garden hose stretching between tall posts. “My favorite thing is crocheting 20 feet in the air,” she says.

Queen Latifah, Renée Fleming and Billy Crystal will be among this year’s Kennedy Center honorees.

An exhibit of prints by Hokusai shows how he influenced artists as diverse as the Impressionists and Roy Lichtenstein, The Times’s Jason Farago writes.

Bake an old-fashioned 7Up cake.

Watch “I’m a Virgo,” a comedy starring Jharrel Jerome as a 13-foot teenager.

Simplify the work of pitting cherries.

Focus with the help of brown noise.

Take our news quiz.

Here are today’s Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday’s pangram was biotech.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. What are your favorite lesser-known hip-hop lyrics? Times journalists want to know.

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David Leonhardt writes The Morning, The Times’s flagship daily newsletter. He has previously been an Op-Ed columnist, Washington bureau chief, co-host of “The Argument” podcast, founding editor of The Upshot section and a staff writer for The Times Magazine. In 2011, he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. More about David Leonhardt

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