[An intimate dinner is
planned with Mr. Obama on Monday (though Mr. Modi’s aides have let it be known
that he is fasting for a Hindu festival called Navratri), as well as lunch on
Tuesday at the State Department and tea with Speaker John A. Boehner. His itinerary
also includes a meeting with Hillary Rodham Clinton.]
 |
|
Over
19,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York chanted and roared
for
Narendra Modi, who was elected in May. Some wore white Modi T-shirts
over their
clothes. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
|
Mr. Modi addressed a
wildly enthusiastic audience that was largely made up of Indian-Americans, and
played skillfully to their sentiments. He reminded the crowd of the taunts they
had heard for years that India was a land of snake charmers, and he offered
lavish praise for their success in the United States.
His remarks were directed
equally at the folks back home, where Mr. Modi won a sweeping electoral victory
in May, and at American officials and investors he is wooing.
“I tell them, ‘My
friends, I came here selling tea,’ ” he said, and paused, as the audience
leapt to its feet and clapped. “I’m a small man. My mind is busy doing small
things.”
Mr. Modi is visiting at a
time when India and the United States are each seeking big things from the
other. Theirs was supposed to be what Mr. Obama once called the defining
“partnership” of the 21st century. The relationship has withered since then,
though, and both Washington and Delhi are trying urgently now to repair it,
showering each other with the diplomatic equivalent of Champagne and roses
during Mr. Modi’s five-day visit to America.
He has met with two
mayors and three governors, and more than two dozen members of Congress
attended his event at the Garden. He is scheduled to meet on Monday with 11
chief executives from companies like Boeing, Google and Goldman Sachs, and then
to speak at the Council on Foreign Relations.
An intimate dinner is
planned with Mr. Obama on Monday (though Mr. Modi’s aides have let it be known
that he is fasting for a Hindu festival called Navratri), as well as lunch on
Tuesday at the State Department and tea with Speaker John A. Boehner. His
itinerary also includes a meeting with Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mr. Modi is here to sell
a new New India, with himself as the man who can be trusted to deliver on its
promise. But it remains to be seen whether he is willing or able to bridge
India’s wide differences with the United States on tax policy, climate change,
outsourcing, intellectual property rights and other issues. Nor has India
proved to be a trusted partner (India avoids the word “ally”) on American
foreign policy priorities, including the conflict in Syria.
R. Nicholas Burns, who
was a top State Department official in the administration of George W. Bush,
put the question this way: “Can we reset, reboot, revive — use your word — this
relationship? We have to.”
An administration
official cast Mr. Modi’s visit as a chance to “reinvigorate” relations.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official said the new government in
Delhi offered a fresh chance, not least because Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata
Party won enough seats in Parliament to govern alone, without coalition
partners. “We think this will be a pivotal moment and an opportunity for us to
define how we can work together,” the official said.
Mr. Modi seems eager to
establish something of a brain trust among influential Indian-Americans. He met
Saturday evening with a dozen of them, including venture capitalists,
technology executives, a college president and a former aide to Mrs. Clinton.
“You guys have achieved a
lot here,” the prime minister told the group, according to one of the
attendees. “I want to duplicate your success. What do we do to duplicate that
success?”
On Sunday evening, he
spoke to 700 Indian-Americans at a dinner at the Pierre Hotel. He said he did
not need their dollars; he wanted every Indian-American to send five non-Indian
friends to visit the country. Tourism, he said, can generate income for
cabbies, auto-rickshaw drivers — “even tea sellers.”
Mr. Modi is keen to
attract business deals that will create jobs in India, one of his main campaign
promises in a nation where every month a million people turn 18 and join the
labor force. For their part, American officials and executives want Mr. Modi to
remove many of the obstacles that foreign companies face in doing business in
India.
“The biggest thing the
prime minister can do is to re-establish trust,” said Ajay Banga, chief
executive of MasterCard, who has championed the cause of American business in
India.
Stephen Ezell of the
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said that Mr. Modi seemed to
be the most business-friendly prime minister in India’s recent history, but
that he had yet to take action on matters like trade policy and taxes. “If he
is truly going to deliver on that vision, then he is going to have to make some
very difficult decisions,” Mr. Ezell said.
Mr. Modi received
resounding applause on Sunday for a promise to clear away red tape facing new
businesses.
The stated purpose of Mr.
Modi’s trip was to address the United Nations General Assembly, but every stop
he has made in New York has been tailored to send messages to specific
audiences. One of his first was at the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan,
signaling India’s commitment to combating extremist groups. He has not said whether
India supports the American-led airstrikes against insurgents in Iraq and
Syria, but that issue is certain to come up in his meetings in Washington,
administration officials have said.
India has not taken a
side in the war in Syria, and it continues to do business with Iran. But in
steps that American officials have noted, Mr. Modi has improved ties with
Japan, cautioned China against expansionism and signaled that he can be trusted
as a friend to the United States in fighting terrorism. He met with the Israeli
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on the sidelines of the General Assembly.
Both publicly and
privately, Mr. Modi has listed his own priorities for India: building toilets,
expanding Internet broadband access in the countryside, training young people
for work and cleaning up the Ganges, a holy river in Hindu scripture.
“He is projecting an
image of India that we haven’t seen in a while — that is, an India as a global
player,” said Vishakha Desai, a former president of the Asia Society, who
attended the Madison Square Garden speech on Sunday.
Mr. Modi’s emphasis on
prosperity and cleanliness appealed to Rohit Sehgal of Secaucus, N.J. He said
he hoped the changes Mr. Modi was promising would get his daughter’s generation
to stop complaining about the roads and the garbage in India. “I want my
daughter to want to go back to her country,” he said.
Not everyone was
impressed. Outside the arena, a small group of protesters held banners
denouncing Mr. Modi, who was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002 when sectarian
rioting racked the state. He could not get a visa to visit the United States
for nearly 10 years because of accusations that he had done too little to stop
the violence.
Rekha Malhotra, 43, a
popular disc jockey who was among the protesters, said she had turned down
passes that she had been offered to see Mr. Modi speak. “I said thanks but no
thanks — I’ll be outside,” she explained.
Sherry Hundal, 46, said
she had come from Denville, N.J., to raise her voice against the prime
minister. “I’m glad to be on the right side of history,” she said.
@ The New York Times
@ The New York Times
