Indian PM Modi’s US Visit

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a visit to US in the September end. His visit was for attending the UN General assembly, and for the official meeting with the US President. He spoke in Hindi at the UN General Assembly and at the Time Square in New York, too. He would have been better understood if he were to speak in English. He called for the reform of UN but he failed in doing so in his home country. His speaking in Hindi elsewhere divides India not unites. His Hindu inclination would alienate the non-Hindus. His non-actions to the massacre of the Muslims in Gujarat continue to haunt the victims.

Prime Minister Modi spoke in Hindi at the UN General Assembly. No matter which language you speak it is for conveying your message to other people. So, speaking in the language most of the people understand is better for the leader of the Modi’s stature to convey the message to the audience. He missed it not speaking in English: one of the official languages of India. It also alienated the non-Hindi-speaking population of India.

He repeated the same mistake while speaking at the Time Square in New York. He spoke in Hindi to almost 20,000 Indian Americans at the Time Square. Certainly, it pleased the Hindi-speaking Indians but alienated the non-Hindi-speaking. More than a half of the Indian population don’t speak or understand Hindi. I am sure that non-Hindi speaking Indians did not understand Mr. Modi at the Time Square. Then what’s the use of speaking in Hindi?

He presented a Hindu holy book called ‘Gita’ to US President Barack Obama, according to the BBC news. Whether President Obama would have time to read it or not that is different question but Mr. Modi wants to sell his Hinduism to the US President.

Making religion as a political tool has been the nasty thing in the past and the present, too. The world has been going through the atrocities of the Islamic fundamentalists. The so-called Islamists have beheaded the captured western reporters and aid workers. That has been the bravery shown by the Islamists to the world. They would pay heavy prices for such inhuman behavior.

Mr. Modi knows very well the Indian history of why two pieces split away from India and became East and West Pakistan in 1947, and then East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1972. Thus, a single India became three nations including India. Mahatma Gandhi contributed considerably to make Pakistan. He chanted Hindu hymns at his political headquarters in his campaign to free India from the British rule. It alienated the Muslims. The result was a new nation called Pakistan. The Pakistani politicians particularly Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did a great job in creating a Bangladesh. He refused to turn over the power to the legitimately and popularly elected Awami Leader Sheikh Mujabir Rahman in 1971. It gave birth to Bangladesh in 1972. Thus, Mahatma Gandhi fathered three nations.

Speaking in Hindi and inclining to the Hinduism, Mr. Modi is trying to impose both the language and the religion on the Indian people. Non-Hindi-speaking people did not want the imposition of Hindi in their states. Muslims don’t want the Hindu domination. So, Modi is surely alienating non-Hindi-speaking Indian Hindus, and Muslims in general and Indian Muslims in particular. It is hard to predict now what would be the result of such behavior of the politician of such high caliber of Modi whether it would be like Mahatma Gandhi carving a number of nations out of India.

Muslims have not forgotten Modi’s non-actions against the murderers of Muslims in Gujarat when he was a chief minister of that state in 2002. When he was speaking to his supporters at the Time Square, some people have rallied at Madison Square demanding to bring Modi to justice for not protecting the Muslims from massacres. As a chief minister, Modi was to protect the lives and the property of the citizens otherwise he was to be prosecuted for not doing his job.

Sikhs have not forgotten the golden temple atrocities in Punjab, India. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered to flush out the fighters for Khalistan taking shelter in the golden temple, and then the massacre of Sikhs aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh securities in New Delhi, India.

Modi is a Hindu fanatic. US President Obama hosted a dinner in honor of Indian Prime Minister Modi on Monday, September 29, 2014. Modi pretended to be fasting following the Hindu festival called ‘navaratri’ means nine days. He sipped only warm water at the dinner. He did not want to touch any dish on the table as the foods are contaminated with beef. Fanatic Hindus don’t eat beef for unknown reasons.

At the UN, he spoke of the need for reforming the UN to keep it relevant in the 21^st century. He has done nothing to reform India that continues to lag tremendously behind the developing countries not to mention the developed ones. India has continued to rule by the laws enacted by the British two hundreds or more years ago. Consequently, the judiciary was so slow recently, the court has given the ruling on the corruption case against Jayalalitha: one of the Indian leaders after 18 years. The administration is even slower. It does not move without having a rent. It has been so because of the Indian laws that have been irrelevant even in the 20^th century.

Mr. Modi met with eleven CEOs of the large US companies on September 30, 2014. He said that he had good interaction with them. He was anticipating their positive actions means they coming to India to invest. He also promised them to create an environment conducive to private investment in India.

He had been the prime minister of India for more than four months. He had done nothing to open India for the fast economic development. Before Modi taking the oath of office, the value of dollar in term of the Indian currency came down to 58 Indian currency per dollar anticipating Modi would introduce an investment friendly business policy. As Modi sat on the anticipated liberalization of the economy, the value of Indian currency has gradually eroded. Currently, 66 Indian currency can buy only one US dollar. Theoretically, the cheap Indian currency should have increased the export of the Indian goods and services heating up the economy. That has not been the case. Rather businesspersons have been pulling dollars out of India believing Modi would no more make India favorable for doing business. This has caused the fall of the value of Indian currency.

Even though the Indian economy has been growing and it has been said to be the third largest Asian economy but it is nowhere near the largest economy and the second largest economy in the world. Its economic growth has been not enough to lift the 800 million people from the poverty, and not enough to provide the electricity to the 400 million people that have been living without electricity. Even those having electricity connections have not enjoyed the full supply of power for 24 hours. They frequently don’t have the power when they need the most because of the power outage.

Indian entrepreneurs and businesspersons don’t want foreign companies to compete with them. They blocked the government’s decision on allowing the American retail chain called ‘Wal-Mart’ to do business in India. They believed that their businesses would dry up if Wal-Mart were to be doing business in India. Similarly, Indian media people blocked the government from allowing foreign media working in India. They feared competing with foreign companies in India.

India has successfully launched the spacecraft called ‘Mangalayan’, and put it on the orbit of the Mars for probing it. It is a great technological achievement of India apparently for less than the tenth of the cost of the American same sort of vehicle orbiting the Mars. Modi said that India did it almost impossible thing to do. He also said that India had a large pool of technical and scientific human power. These are only a few bright spots of India but it has many black spots that need to be whitened.

October 1, 2014