Gokul Nandan

Revised column II
Modi at Madison Square: Full of Rhetoric and Indianness
On Sep. 28, 2014 Madison Square Garden in New York hosted Indian Prime Minister, Narendra
Modi, the newly-emerged rock star in Indian politics, for his speech addressing to Non-Resident
Indians (NRI) of the US.
With over 18,000 audiences, that include both Hindu and Muslim Indians, over three dozen of
US congressmen, glittering lights, heart-pounding DJ music, celebrity emcee - Miss America
2014 winner Nina Davuluri - and famed Indian musicians: Kabita Krisnamurthy and L.
Subhramaniam, the gala show, which was merely organized for a speech delivery, had no less
appeal than a rock concert.
However, was it rational that show-off?
Modi fever about his recent US visit kicked off one week ago, on Sept. 21, with his interview
with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, which was recorded back in March, 2014 in New Delhi, the capital
of India, after he was sworn in as a Prime Minister.
In that interview, Mr. Modi, about whom Mr. Zakaria tweeted on Sept. 20, I underestimated
Narendra Modi, illuminated the viewers about his eloquence, wittiness and rhetorical acumen as
an orator, passion of addressing Indianness, and conviction that his Indianness could help him be
projected as the new superman who could bring the development to India.
Culturally, Indianness is characterized by peoples exultation in pretentious display of greatness
of India.
Nothing different happened yesterday at Madison Square.
The audience got to notice his intellectual shrewdness when he started off his speech with an
anecdote of three sentences pointing out the technological development that the country of
largest democracy had been making over the years.
Indians, who used to play with snakes earlier, in the advent of 21st century they play with mouse
and move the world.
The entire square broke into cheers.
The world admits that 21st century belongs to India with respect to social development, Mr.
Modi added ecstatically.
However, before the interview was played on CNN on Sept. 21, Mr. Zakaria underlined that
Indias performance was substandard at global level in terms of annual growth. He said, India

does poorly on most measures of global competitiveness. It is 71st in the World Economic
Forum's report compared with China's 28th. It is 134th in the World Bank's doing business report
compared with China's 96th.
So one has to be a day-dreamer to accede to Mr. Modis claim that 21st century belongs to India.
Because Mr. Modi had an understanding of intellectual hollowness of the majority of Indian
people, who love to celebrate their provincial advancement rather than evaluating countrys
performance with respect to other developed countries, and their artlessness in cheering a lot for
little success, he didnt bother, at Madison Square, to underscore any specific example of India
touching the feet of being global leader of 21st century.
When he was asked by Mr. Zakaria about the development of India compared to that of China,
Mr. Modi failed to respond how India could step up, be saved from plunging into the nadir of
global development ranking, and compete with China. Instead, he uttered the rhetoric of
democracy that democracy is our commitment. It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot
compromise. Democracy is in our DNAI have seen the strength of democracy. And,
according to Mr. Modi, India can achieve anything by virtue of this power.
Legacy, heritage and strength of democracy are only some pillars that strengthen the ground for
the development of a country, and to make it happen we need concrete plan of action, which
lacked in both the interview and the Madison Square speech.
One of the key points of his speech was the potential of Indian youth that, he thinks, can steer the
course of Indias development. However, the sheer brilliance of Mr. Modis rhetorical style
diluted the significance of this message as he did not mention what kind of job opportunities he
would create so that the youth battalion could head back to India and would serve the people
with their knowledge they acquire in the US.
Same thing occurred with NRIs. He said that the role of people, especially NRIs, is instrumental
in making the development possible. But in his eulogized speech for them he didnt indicate how
they could become a part of the human resource system of India. Instead, he elatedly mentioned
that India was proud to be providing human resource to the rest of the world in form of NRIs.
The rhetoric of legacy, heritage and strength of democracy, though sounds utterly enshrined and
something-to-cherish, merely has any actual strength to upsurge the economic growth unless all
of these cultural pillars get incorporated in the process of development through proper
planification.
So, whatever Indians did on Sep. 28 at Madison Square was just a celebration of their
Indianness. And now Mr. Modi has to translate it into the reality, otherwise only disillusionment
awaits us, the Indians living outside India.