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Modi & the ‘expat’ factor

If it becomes the template for Prime Minister Narendra Modi''s overseas visits from now on, then thank God for it.

Modi & the ‘expat’ factor

PM Narendra Modi interacts with Indian workers at the L&T residential complex in Riyadh. during his visit to Saudi Arabia. pti



Hasan Suroor

If it becomes the template for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's overseas visits from now on, then thank God for it. Three cheers for the PMO and the Ministry of External Affairs. But does it?
I'm referring to Mr Modi's engagement with Indian expats in Saudi Arabia during his visit to the desert kingdom over the weekend. It was a refreshingly sober  affair  in striking contrast to the vulgar raucousness of his previous interactions with NRIs in New York, London and, to a lesser degree, Toronto.
But it appears that this show of sobriety might have been a one-off prompted by considerations other than a desire to discourage Madison Square and Wembley Stadium style tamashas. Indian officials gave the game away saying the decision to keep the event low-key was taken after considering the “profile”  of  the local Indian community.
“We have looked at the profile of our community and accordingly we have structured a number of engagements with different community components (instead of one big event),” Mridul Kumar, joint secretary who looks after the Gulf region in the Ministry of External Affairs, was reported as saying.
Looked at the profile? Really? Are Indian citizens living abroad now going to be “profiled” to decide whether or not they qualify for access to their own Prime Minister and at what level? It may be pertinent here to point out that all Indian expats in Saudi Arabia remain Indian nationals (Saudis don't grant citizenship to foreigners), unlike a majority of Western NRIs, many of them shadowy figures, who are never profiled. Mr Kumar identified two categories of Indians in Saudi Arabia — construction workers and IT workers — and said rather than lumping them together it was decided to arrange two separate events.  Which in more culturally   aware societies would be read as a covert form of segregation, and a leader would be condemned for agreeing to segregated audiences chosen on the basis of their social and economic status. So, at one event, Mr Modi had tea and pakoras with a group of workers constructing the Riyadh metro and gave a patronising pep talk before telling them to download the Narendra Modi App so that he was always in their “pocket”.
“If you download the app, I will always be in your pocket…what else do you want?” he said with his characteristic flair for narcissism.
For his meeting with what The Indian Express described as “the Indian elite” for “a unique photo-op”, his minders chose an upscale hotel. We don't know what the “elite” had for snacks but from photographs  our “chai wallah” Prime Minister clearly looked more at home with this suited-booted gentry than with those metro workers in their sweaty shirt-sleeves and t-shirts. Indian diplomats who have served in Western countries where cultural sensitivities are taken more seriously were quick to point out that the decision to have such segregated meetings smacked of class bias. “By citing profile of the Indian community in Saudi Arabia and by not holding a big public meeting in Riyadh in the way previously organised for Mr Modi in London and New York, the MEA has made an honest admission that the government prefers upper middle class and rich Indians, and not working class Indians in the Gulf region for such events,” Satyabrata Pal, who served as India's Deputy High Commissioner in London and later as High Commissioner in Islamabad, told The Hindu. The criticism was echoed by another  retired diplomat with a long experience of hosting prime ministerial visits. Speaking on condition of anonymity he called it “poor judgment”. “I won't call it deliberate bias but certainly it doesn't look good. It sends out all sorts of wrong signals,” he said. But let's overlook the “class bias” bit for a moment and accept the official explanation that it was prompted only by logistics. Let's also accept that a major event was not considered because of the “restrictive nature of the government of Saudi Arabia”, as one official reportedly said.  For Saudis, like the Chinese, prefer to have control over things and frown upon large public assemblies, especially of excitable Asians. But even if conditions were ideal,  one is not sure Mr Modi would have been really keen on courting Saudi Arabia's Indian community the way he woos American, British and Canadian Indians. Reason? Although  three million-strong, it consists mostly of low and middle-income earners and — unlike their more affluent Western counterparts — lack any economic or political clout.
In other words, they don't constitute a “lobby” as American and European NRIs do,  and are therefore in no position to promote Indian interests at any level. Which makes them happily dispensable for New Delhi, particularly for a “pragmatic”  leader like Modi who must be wondering  “what's in it for me to waste my time on these guys”? Returning to the fashion for fawning “mega” receptions in which Mr Modi and his overseas supporters revel, it is time he stopped allowing his foreign visits to be turned into a circus. The scramble among his rich NRI fans to outdo each other to please him is descending into a farce. It really is, Mr Modi. On the eve of his UK visit last November, they boasted of  “out-Manhatting Manhattan”. “Just wait and see. If you thought Manhattan was a show-stopper, London would be a heart-stopper,” said a member of the UK Welcomes Modi,  while a bus dubbed the “Modi Express” and emblazoned with his  photograph drove around London announcing his visit in a  throwback to when rickshaws went about heralding the arrival of a circus in town. Manhattan was loud and vulgar. But for all its excesses, it could still be explained: it was Modi's first major foreign outing as Prime Minister, and to a country where he had been previously banned. So, a touch of defiant exuberance could  be excused. Besides, the mood in the country then was still one of huge optimism and the outside world despite widespread misgivings was inclined to indulge him because of his huge popular mandate.  Nearly two years on, the honeymoon is long over. With the domestic mood darkened by spurious divisive  controversies, the economy not exactly on a roll and questions being asked about Mr Modi's own leadership this is no time for showboating.   Riyadh may have turned out to be a quiet affair for all the wrong reasons but how about some sobriety in future for the right reasons for a change? As Prime Minister, he certainly deserves a warm and decent reception from the Indian diaspora as did his predecessors. But must it turn into a version of the Big Fat Indian Wedding? 

The writer is a London-based commentator.

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