US gears up for Modi visit
GUEST OF HONOUR From White House to National Press Club, everyone wants to host Modi when he comes to the US in Sept at Obama’s invitation on his way back from UNGA in New York
Everyone, including the US Congress, the National Press Club in DC and the Indian community, wants a piece of the Prime Minister when he arrives in September at the invitation of President Barack Obama.
WASHINGTON: The National Press Club in DC has hosted most Indian prime ministers, starting with Jawaharlal Nehru in 1949. And it now wants Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Actually, everyone wants Modi when he comes here end of September at the invitation of US president Barack Obama on his way back from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The White House gets him, of course.
US congress too seems keen. House foreign affairs committee chairman Ed Royce recently asked Speaker John Boehner to invite Modi to address a joint session. Leading Republican Senator John McCain has endorsed it saying US leaders need to do more in view of “recent history” — he meant denying Modi a visa to visit the US.
The Indian community is eager to give the prime minister a fitting reception — literally, considering a stadium if not the 843-acre Central Park in New York City itself.
Organisers of the annual Indian Independence Day parade in New York City — the largest outside India — have offered to host the PM, but haven’t heard from his office yet.
And now the National Press Club. “It’s been a tradition that most Indian prime ministers have come to the club for an interaction with reporters,” said club president Myron Belkind, adding, “it would be great to host him.” Belkind, former Associated Press bureau chief in India, sent the prime minister an invitation — c/o Indian embassy in DC — earlier this week just minutes before the US-Belgium soccer game.
If Modi agrees, he will become the first BJP prime minister to address a news conference at the press club. Nehru was the first prime minister to visit the club, in 1949 and in 1961.
Indira Gandhi was there thrice — 1966, 1971 and in 1982, just months before she was killed. Morarji Desai (1978), Rajiv Gandhi (1982) and Manmohan Sigh (2005) were the others. The first BJP prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, never went to the club, and chose a thinktank — the Asia Society — for his famous speech calling India and the US natural allies.
That’s the safer format if Modi doesn’t want to take questions. RECENT HISTORY There has been a major surge in interest in the Indian prime minister here, tracking closely his rise in India, specially after he was named the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
After denying him a visa in 2005, and leading a western boycott of his government in Gujarat, the US found itself falling behind others in repairing relations with him. When it finally made its first move with its then ambassador in India Nancy Powell quietly asking for an appointment to see him, Modi made her wait for weeks.
The US got the point. And it looked almost too eager to please, thereon. The day polling closed on May 12, president Obama congratulated Indians on the conclusion of the elections.
And, he added, the US looked forward to working “closely” with the next administration, which, all exit polls showed that day, would be BJP’s, headed by Modi. Obama called him within hours after the BJP appeared set for a historic victory on May 16. He congratulated him, of course, and invited him to DC, putting an end to the visa ban.
The conservative leaning Wall Street Journal said in an editorial the next day that ban should have gone long ago “since there is no evidence of his complicity in the (Gujarat) massacre”.
It’s gone now, and now the US is prepping up for the visit. KNOW THE PM Rick Rossow, head of the India chair at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has lost count of the events he has either hosted, moderated or participated in recent months here to unbundle and understand Prime Minister Modi.
He has never met the PM. But that’s no handicap in a town that knows so little of the man but must get up to speed in time for his visit as president Obama’s guest. Rarely a day passes here without a think-tank event on or about Modi. Even the Pakistanis got swept in — their ambassador stating his take on relations post Modi recently.
“I am personally puzzled by all the questioning and handwringing about ‘who he is’,” said Rossow. “He is a straightforward, pragmatic, media-savvy leader.” Sri Sri Ravishankar, the Art of Living preacher who endorsed Modi just days short of the closure of the elections, was a guest here at a conservative think tank recently. And guess the first audience question put to him: You know Modi well, the question went somewhat, so can you please speak about him, the man.
“He is a strong man with a soft heart,” Sri Sri said, adding, “And he means business.” He refused to elaborate, politely indicating that’s all the questioner was about to get out of him. THEY COULDN’T WAIT? At Washington’s urging, India is hosting the annual strategic dialogue for the second year running breaking the tradition of the two countries hosting it alternately, just so that senior US officials such as secretary of state John Kerry could meet Modi once before his visit in September.