Joe Biden and Narendra Modi are drawing their countries closer

No country except China has propped up Russia’s war economy as much as oil-thirsty India. And few big democracies have slid further in the rankings of democratic freedom. But you would not guess it from the rapturous welcome will receive in Washington next week. India’s prime minister has been afforded the honour of a state visit by President Joe Biden. The Americans hope to strike defence deals. Mr Modi will be one of the few foreign leaders, along with Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Volodymyr Zelensky, to address a joint session of Congress more than once. The praise gushed on Capitol Hill about the partnership makes no mention of Ukraine, democracy or grit in the gears of America’s new best friendship.As our Asia section explains, the global clout of the South Asian giant is rising fast. Its is the world’s fifth biggest. Its 18m-strong diaspora is thriving, from America to the Gulf. And India has become indispensable to America’s effort to assert itself in Asia and deter Chinese aggression. Yet though huge, capitalist, democratic and wary of China, India is also poor, populist and, as our interview with , its foreign minister, outlines, dismissive of the vestiges of the post-1945 Western order. The relationship is therefore a test case for the messy alliance of democracies emerging in a multipolar world. Can both sides gain the business and security benefits of co-operation even as they share fewer principles than they may care to admit?