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By addressing the Indo-American audience with such visionary jargons, Modi has created an inclusive environment for people who are living outside India to contribute back home, says Sriram Balasubramanian
The speech that Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered on September 28 at the MadisonSquareGarden in New York was historic in nature. The speech brought to the fore the core elements of the Modi magic that has captured the wild imagination of Indians across the world.
The impromptu extempore was a vision statement for the non-resident Indians and a statement of unity for Indians across the world. I believe it also represents the pinnacle of his global appeal and represents his strategic astuteness in using foreign policy as his core priorities.
As always, the marketing strategy has been ingenious and it was executed with elan as part of his ongoing tour to the United States. For the first time in Independent India, Indians were in a sense of awe with their leader in such a global platform. Needless to say, all the US events by the Government of India were planned in a way that it catered to the prime time audience in India.
All of the meetings reached out to a wide range of people across age groups. Be it attending a rock concert, be it speaking with business leaders, be it speaking at the United Nations General Assembly with government officials or walking in the streets of New York to reach out to his followers; the Narendra Modi show was planned to the T and has revolutionised not just Indian politics but also how global leaders address a global audience such as the one in the US.
At the heart of this strategy, has been an ‘outside-in’ approach that the Modi government has adopted. While the previous governments have used foreign policy as a rather monotonous government activity, Modi has brilliantly used it as a core agenda in his larger governance style.
This conscious attempt began with inviting the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation leaders for his swearing-in and visiting countries such as Bhutan as part of his maiden travels in the region. By boosting the idea of an Asian century, Modi effectively lured the likes of the SAARC countries to play a bigger role in cooperating with India. More importantly, using his brilliant equation with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he ensured that Japan was lured into the Asian axis story and brought in almost $55 billion in investment over the next few years.
The personal charm and the social connect that Modi has with the people of India has magnified his outreach activities and created a wave of support for his style of functioning. By ensuring that his foreign visits are well advertised, he has ensured that he has created a cosmopolitan image with India’s youth; an image that is very important in him being relevant to the minds of young India.
Moreover, he has been astute enough to co-relate global visits such as this to domestic agendas that are of importance to him. An example has been the agreement that he signed with a Japanese city to boost the infrastructure of Varanasi and make it a world famous city as promised. Needless to say, even though it is so early in his term, his visit to the US had to be the most important one.
In the visit to the US thus far, Modi has elevated himself to the level of global statesman. By addressing the Indo-American audience with such visionary jargons, Modi has created an inclusive environment for people who are living outside India to contribute back home. His war pitch for the NRIs to contribute back to save the Ganga has provided a crucial emotional pitch; a pitch that no other former leader since India’s Independence has made.
This pitch has created an enormous amount of good will from the NRI community, which has been also the backbone of his online brigade; and he is shrewd enough to understand that it will drill down to the Indian audience living in India. Addressing a plethora of issues including India’s recent Mars mission, Modi has reinforced a sense of pride with the Indians abroad and back home in India.
This pride is an output of brilliant vision, extraordinary planning and astute use of his global trips to raise his pedestal back home in India.
The unique attempt by Modi in using foreign policy as a core strategy to drive his agenda is a very innovative signal. A shrewd Modi is well aware that messages emanating from abroad have a much wider impact and it could provide the buffer time that his government seeks to recover from the mess that the United Progressive Alliance has left behind.
Considering that in the digital age, the honeymoon time for incoming governments has shrunk much more compared to the previous governments, it is important that the mindspace of young India is occupied by positive vibes across the borders. As such the usage of foreign policy as one his core strategies is a masterstroke by Modi.
It has been decades, if not ever, that Indians have felt such positive vibe about their leader in a global platform. At the core of this image building exercise, has been the attempt to use maximum leverage in foreign policy to occupy the mind space of Indians across the board. Given the enormous popularity that Modi seems to be gaining, this indeed has been a masterstroke thus far in his term.
Sriram Balasubramanian is a writer and journalist.