Global Courant
His grip on the levers of national power secure, his grip on India’s domestic imagination tightened, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increasingly focused on advancing himself on a new horizon: the world stage.
With a packed diplomatic calendar, including India’s hosting of the Group of 20 summit later this year, Mr Modi is building an image to enter his re-election campaign as a leader who can win respect and investment for his vast nation. Mr Modi’s state visit to Washington, which ends Friday, may be the biggest prize yet in that quest.
“It’s not just about getting a fairer bargain abroad,” said Ashok Malik, a former government adviser who is the India chairman at the Asia Group, a consulting firm. “It’s also that ‘my investments in key foreign policy relationships actually help to build the Indian economy and thereby create opportunities for Indians at home and strengthen India in general.'”
Domestically, Modi’s Hindu Nationalist Party has continued to sideline institutions that were once key checks on the government. It has continued to defame the country’s 200 million Muslims, just as Mr Modi used an extraordinarily rare press conference in Washington to claim that no one was being discriminated against in India.
But abroad, world leaders eager to woo a rising India have offered little resistance. And many times they have given Mr Modi invaluable information campaign shaping the perception of him among many Indian voters who are ecstatic about the affirmed importance of their country.
When Modi traveled to Australia last month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called him “in charge” in front of a Sydney arena packed with about 20,000 people. Mr Modi then returned to New Delhi before a large crowd gathered for his welcome at 6am, telling supporters that the big welcome for him abroad was about India, not him.
On Friday, as Mr Modi was finishing his meetings in the United States before arriving in Egypt for another grand greeting, his political party and the broad swath of the broadcast media that favored him enjoyed the welcome he received. had received from President Biden and other American leaders.
The Washington red carpet played perfectly on one of Mr Modi’s talents: he can build a media campaign out of just about anything and establish himself as the only leader who can expand India’s economy and propel a nation to new heights. heights can lead.
As opposition leaders held their largest gathering yet at home, hoping to find a formula to unite to challenge the prime minister in elections early next year, Modi reached out to the world.
Social media was flooded with montage videos, set to regal background music, of Mr Modi making a grand entrance to the House of Representatives before addressing a joint session of Congress. The speech, after which several lawmakers asked for Mr Modi’s signature, made him one of the few world leaders to have addressed that body twice.
Another video online tracked the number of times Mr Modi received applause or standing ovations during his speech. A third cut of dramatic imagery of Mr Modi that contrasts him with the dynastic leaders who came before him, and advances a constant narrative that he represents an undermining of the ancient elite that long ruled India.
“History teaches us that powerful people come from powerful places. History was wrong,” a deep voice says in the video. “Powerful people make places powerful.”
Modi’s next big chance to act as world statesman comes in September, when India welcomes the Group of 20 Leaders, a summit he has framed to his backers as his way of bringing the world to India.
His government has turned promotion of the meeting into a roadshow, hosting hundreds of G20 events, so many that foreign diplomats in New Delhi are quietly complaining of travel fatigue. Cities and towns across India are decked out with billboards displaying the G20 logo – cleverly incorporating the lotus, a symbol of both India and its Bharatiya Janata party – and photographs of Mr Modi.
In promoting the G20 presidency, Mr Modi often described India, the world’s most populous nation, as the “mother of democracy”. Abroad, however, he has pursued a form of transactional diplomacy, based not on putting democratic values into practice, but on what best serves Indian economic and security interests and what takes India to the next level in the world.
The image of “an emerging India, a new India seen more seriously abroad” helps Modi politically, Malik said. But Mr Modi is also investing heavily in US relations with a view to how they can help an Indian economy struggling to create enough jobs for its huge young population and battling an aggressive China next door.
“Tackling China is not just about soldiers and weapons at the border, it’s also about building economic alternatives to what China offers,” Mr Malik said.
The list of agreements between the United States and India, announced at the end of a bilateral meeting at the White House, was long and included defense, aerospace and a wide range of technology cooperation.
In particular, defense cooperation — including deals on India’s production of General Electric jet engines and the purchase of Predator military drones — received a major boost following a history of reluctance and bureaucratic hurdles on both sides.
Dr. Tara Kartha, a former senior Indian Security Council official who dealt with the US on defense matters, said the aircraft engine deal was “an affirmation of confidence” that would take the military partnership beyond the smaller steps of the past two decades.
“Each country tries to get around its bureaucratic constraints,” she said. “Until bureaucracy can catch up, there will be frustrations.”
Opinions about Mr Modi’s diplomatic efforts were divided among ordinary Indians on the streets of New Delhi.
Vijay Yadav, a 26-year-old taxi driver, said Modi’s outreach abroad failed to explain how India’s economy struggled to create enough jobs.
“I saw a news feed on Instagram constantly promoting Mr Modi’s trip to America as if there had been no other Indian leader before,” he said. “First, he must work to solve the problems of his own compatriots before he goes abroad to establish himself as a hero.”
Nidhi Garg, 41, who inherited a fruit and vegetable shop from her father, said her heart swelled every time she saw Mr Modi represent India abroad.
“Today, everywhere you look, the name of our nation is used,” she said. “The first thing anyone thinks of when they mention the word India is that they immediately associate it with Prime Minister Modi.”
Suhasini Raj contributed reporting.
