MODI SARKAR SPLENDID ARTICLE Narendra Modi’s American Fan on his US Visit - BY BRYON MORRIGAN The ISRO Mars orbiter has shown the world that Bharat is not the backwards society that many in the West have come to associate with India. “O Lord! May our ears listen to nothing but auspicious words, may our eyes see nothing but auspicious things, may we have healthy bodies and be blessed with long life.” - Rig Veda Auspiciousness is the word of the day, and the mood of millions as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States draws near. The ISRO Mars orbiter has shown the world that Bharat is not the backwards society that many in the West have come to associate with India. For many Americans, India is simply nothing but dirty streets filled with the shacks where poor people seek handouts and defecate in the street. It is the place where Indiana Jones was offered monkey brains for dinner. It is the place where American jobs are outsourced to people with “comical” accents. It is the place where American convenience store owners come from. And now, it’s also the place that sent a spaceship to Mars at a cost of approximately one-tenth of what the American counterpart cost. It’s a mission that began many moons before PM Modi took office, so it is not possible that he arranged it to coincide with his visit to the US. A day ago, President Obama launched an attack on the Islamic Supremacist terror group known as “Islamic State” or ISIL. As I predicted in a previous column, the militants got their first taste of the overwhelming air power capabilities of the USA, where precision bombing can be undertaken by unmanned drones “piloted” by American soldiers, via joystick, safely out of harm’s way, thousands of miles from the cutthroats’ blades. Surely, PM Modi played no part in the orchestration of this attack. The Hindu festival of Navratri is also beginning, and as everyone knows, it culminates with the overwhelming victory of good over evil. Well, it is certainly possible that PM Modi coordinated his visit with this religiously auspicious day. He is, after all, a pious man. So while PM Modi certainly could have planned at least some aspects of the trip to coincide with auspicious circumstances, much of it has been ordained by forces beyond his control. And yet, it seems as if the “planets have aligned”, as the saying goes. What I would not give to be a fly on the wall in those private meetings between PM Modi and President Obama! This is not the happy, smiling, “sahib” of certain previous Indian rulers, groveling before the West. This is the leader of the largest democracy that the Earth has ever known, and he carries himself with the dignity and statesmanship that such a position entails. I do not foresee any prostrating before the American President, nor does Obama seem to me to be the kind of President who would insist upon that kind of relationship with India. President Obama has many significant opportunities to pursue in regards to India, and PM Modi holds all the cards. For example, a strong Indian economy can be a counter to China’s amoral powerhouse, and with America’s relations with Russia at their most strained in decades, a strong US-Indian partnership would be beneficial to both parties, but particularly to the USA. America’s most important “allies” in Asia have never been exactly “partnerships”. Israel is really a one-sided affair, as while America is important to Israeli interests…that alliance has never really accomplished much for the USA, apart from attracting the ire of Islamic terrorists. And Pakistan, well…is anyone still fooled by the idea of a US-Pakistani alliance? They certainly were “helpful” in the war against Osama bin Laden, weren’t they? India also holds the key to the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement which, while sounding confusing to the foreign policy layman, is another key economic issue that PM Modi can use to garner favourable terms for India. Is it not about time that Bharat was key to the world’s economy? Frankly, in American public opinion, Pakistan is generally viewed as they are, an Islamic Supremacist state that is really only a few steps behind the Islamic State in most respects, while India is distrusted on economic grounds, as the “unwashed masses” of the American middle and lower classes still harbour resentment over the perception that American workers are losing their jobs to Indian outsourcing. Hopefully, PM Modi can work on that. I have faith that the Prime Minister will negotiate expertly with President Obama in private, but it remains to be seen how well he will come across to the American public. In general, the American media, both Left and Right, has been rather enthusiastic about the Prime Minister’s visit. I have only seen a few scattered references to tiny protests by a couple groups planned for Madison Square Garden, and unless the media goes out of its way to give these groups airtime, they will be dwarfed by the tens of thousands of Indian-Americans who snapped up all of the tickets to the event like he was a rock star on his first tour of the USA. Now one of the biggest “wild cards” is going to be the Republican Party, and how they, and their media allies, approach the PM Modi visit. On the one hand, they have been waging a scorched-earth policy with the President, doing everything that they can to derail any accomplishment that looks favourable for his administration. In addition, the middle and lower class workers who view India as the bandit that steals American jobs and gives them to “polytheist idol worshipers”, make up a significant amount of the Republicans’ base constituency of uneducated Christian Supremacists. On the other hand, they are also shrewd businessmen, and would be foolish to allow these “common man” concerns to get in the way of the financial interests of the other half of their constituency: Big Business. In either case, the entire affair has the synchronicity of a Hollywood blockbuster, with all of the plot points and stories coming together for the Third Act. Personally, this is one story I have been waiting a long time to watch unfold. Let us all pray for a happy ending. FOR MORE niticentral/2014/09/25/narendra-modis-american-fan-us-visit-239258.html
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 19:50:53 +0000