Why Modi's US Trip Wasn't All That It Was Made Out To Be

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is back from the US, and to read some of the encomia showered on him, view the breathless coverage on Indian media, and listen to the over-the-top pronouncements of government and BJP spokesmen, it would seem that this second trip to America was nothing short of the Second Coming. Mr Modi did well enough, but it was not the triumphal progress it is being made out to be, and a healthy corrective perspective is in order.

First, a lot of what made headlines in India - from the Strategic and Commercial Dialogue conducted before his arrival, to the four-second wave to Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif - passed under the radar in the United States. That was because Mr Modi had to compete for media attention with President Xi of China, who was on a charm offensive complete with knowing references to American writers and TV shows, and then with Pope Francis, who conducted an extraordinary Papal visit at the same time, cutting a swathe through American hearts and minds. The Pope was received with an adulation commonly only bestowed on rock-stars and newly-elected Presidents, and enjoyed gushing 24/7 news coverage. The Indian PM was inevitably eclipsed, and there's no shame in that. It's just that no one in India, following our news reporting, was aware of it.

The UN phase of his visit was largely routine as well. It was good that he spoke (albeit in very familiar terms echoed by a number of his predecessors) of India's commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and of India's stellar record in peace-keeping, as well as underscored the increasingly forlorn-looking Indian case for a permanent seat on the Security Council. But in all this he was doing no more than other PMs before him had done, and that many around him from other countries were doing as well. There was nothing exceptional here, and it also largely passed unnoticed in the world media.

The real triumph for Mr Modi was his California visit. Mr Modi not only made the first Prime Ministerial visit to Silicon Valley but met with the CEOs of top cutting-edge tech firms like Adobe, Facebook, Google and Tesla, pitching "Digital India" to a receptive audience where "StartUp India" and "StandUp India" went down well with the familiar "Make in India". His carefully pre-scripted Town Hall with Mark Zuckerberg, the announcement that Google would bring broadband to 500 Indian railway stations, and the Prime Minister's manifest interest in innovation and tech entrepreneurship undoubtedly made a positive impact.

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But to acknowledge this is not to tell the whole story. You didn't have to listen to the liberal protestors of the #ModiFail campaign or read the petition signed by Indian Studies academics to know that Mr Modi's sales pitch battled a strong counter-narrative of his government's own making. While Mr Modi was smooth-talking in California, his government had shut down the internet in Kashmir for three days, repeating a similar action in Gujarat the previous week. The Modi government has also made more requests to Facebook to take down or delete "offensive" material than any other government on earth. This instinctive illiberalism does not go well with "Digital India". Sure, China has banned Facebook and Twitter altogether, but India is a democracy, and will be held to different standards.

Mr Modi is a highly effective salesman for India, and there is no denying the energy and dynamism he has brought to taking India's message abroad. But every good salesman is only as effective as his product allows him to be, and this is where Mr Modi's sales pitch falls short of reality. It's not just the openness of "Digital India" versus the trigger-fingers of the BJP government's censors. It's also the lack of substance behind his other claims. Bill Gates waxes eloquent on how important it is for Mr Modi to expand health care spending in India, but Mr Modi doesn't admit he has slashed the UPA's health budget by nearly 20%. Mr Modi releases a carefully-calibrated tear at the mention of his mother, but doesn't acknowledge his government has gutted the budget of the Women and Child Development Ministry. Mr Modi talks about the importance of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, but fails to concede that while its publicity budget has gone up five-fold, his government allocates less money to sanitation than UPA's had done (with considerably less fanfare).

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In an article widely cited and re-circulated by Mr Modi's fans, The Economist sees three advantages that Mr Modi has in America over his putative rival, President Xi. As a politician who has risen through a democratic system, Mr Modi has the skills getting elected requires, including, the magazine says, a willingness to flaunt emotions in public, to hug President Obama, to weep with Mark Zuckerberg.... But even our PM's harshest critics in India would concede his flair for the theatrical. No debate there. Second, The Economist speaks of the enthusiastic support of the large and influential Indian-American community. But that would be true for any Indian leader: it has been exploited by Indian Prime Ministers from Narasimha Rao to Manmohan Singh, and the only difference is one of style and flamboyance, not tangible support, which is rock solid for Mr Modi but would be as well for any other New Delhi leader. Third, says The Economist, "the more China appears a threat to American interests, the more important India appears as a counterbalance." But that's the last thing India wants to be. Our foreign policy has its own bilateral imperatives when it comes to China. Serving as a counterbalance to Beijing to please Washington is certainly not in India's interests, or our plans.

So, to use an unfortunate Americanism (in the face of the culinary bigotry the BJP has unleashed at home): where's the beef? The bottom line of Mr Modi's immersion in Indo-US relations, once we get past the theatrics, is surprisingly thin. The US is already the largest investor in India, but there's been no significant uptick. As for trade, as US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker has repeatedly pointed out, India is still only the 11th largest trading partner and the 18th largest export market for the U.S. Mr Modi's speeches about improving the ease of doing business in India are straining credulity, since India has actually slipped in this 2015 report to an embarrassing 142nd out of 189 countries in the World Bank's rankings. And on defence and strategic issues, while India has awarded a $2.5 billion helicopter contract to Boeing, it's far from clear what Washington is giving us in return.

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On the whole, a mixed report card, then. India needs Mr Modi to keep trying - and when it comes to the reality at home, as opposed to the sales-pitch abroad, we need him to do very much better.

(Dr Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He has written 15 books, including, most recently, India Shastra: Reflections On the Nation in Our Time.)

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