In the absence of any specific bilateral agreements, the latest visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US may be termed as the one with more hype than substance.
But then, it was not a bilateral official visit; Modi was essentially there to attend the opening session of the UN and meetings with other heads of the government and states, including US President Donald Trump, on the sidelines were invariably for knowing each other’s positions and concerns, not concluding deals or agreements.
However, if anything concrete that Modi’s visit was marked with, it was the “soft power” of the Indian Diaspora, which the PM has been consistently using in India’s interactions with the rest of the world increasingly successfully.
During his 2014 US visit, Modi had attended an event hosted at Madison Square Garden in New York where there were 20,000 Indian-Americans and non-resident Indians.
Next year, again during his visit to attend the UN session officially, he travelled to the Silicon Valley on the West Coast where he not only met executives from Google, Apple and Facebook but also addressed 17,000 Indian-Americans.
And this time at Houston, famous for oil and gas, medical research, computer and aerospace, the rally of 50,000 Indian-Americans that he addressed was not only mammoth by American standards but also immensely symbolic for the projection of Indian soft power with the attendance of none other than President Trump with influential Senators and Congressmen.
If Modi has got a huge advantage in taking India’s relationship with the US to a higher level, that is mainly because of his immense popularity among the Indian-Americans, one of the most high-profile ethnic groups in America.
Numbering about 4.4 million, they are more proficient in English than the overall foreign-born population. They have attained the highest educational levels of all ethnic groups in the US.
In 2015, 77 per cent of Indian adults (aged 25 and above) had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 29 per cent of all immigrants and 31 per cent of native-born adults.
Notably, among college-educated Indian immigrants, more than half have an advanced degree. In fact, the percentage of the number of Indian-Americans who have a master’s, doctorate or other professional degrees is five times the national average in America.
What all this means is that these Indian-Americans, having best professional jobs in business, management, medicine and science (they get 73 per cent of best jobs, compared to the overall foreign- and native-born populations, at 31 per cent and 38 per cent, respectively), form a huge constituency for India which no American government or business can ignore, least of all Trump, the ace politician and businessman that he is.
And if this constituency happens to be in love with Modi, then no American President can overlook India. That explains whether it is Clinton or Bush, Obama or Trump, the Indo-US relationship is destined to progress, not otherwise.
The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had abolished the Ministry for Overseas Indian Affairs in 1947. He had advised Overseas Indian communities to fully identify with the country of their residence.
In contrast, Modi’s Diaspora policy may be summed up in terms of 3 C’s—‘connect’ with India, ‘celebrate’ their cultural heritage and ‘contribute’ to the development of the homeland. Time has changed indeed! prakasnanda@gmail.com