If the title sounds cheesy, it is just the after effect of
an oratorical masterpiece dealing in a lot of superlatives and rhetoric. As is
my ears still ringing with the ‘Modi, Modi, Modi’ chants of the crowd. And what
a crowd it was! A packed Madison Square Garden! Not since the heyday of Sachin
Tendulkar, have I witnessed a crowd whipped in such maniacal frenzy over an
individual. The dances and cultural performances which came before barely
registered - sometimes because, and mostly despite, the quality of the show on
offer. Try replacing Dravid or Sehwag with L Subramaniam, except that this
virtuoso performer was reduced to being a sidekick akin to Vikram Rathore or SS
Das. Although, rather strangely, the same crowd cheered louder for Swami
Vivekananda than for either Gandhi or Nehru. Twice.
The patriotic chants of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ or ‘Vande
Mataram’ would prove to be as misleading as those of ‘Indiiaaa, Indiiaaa’ when
the second wicket partnership is going great guns in a test match at the
Wankhede or Feroz Shah Kotla. You would be naïve to think the crowd was there
to watch a masterful performance from the rest of the Indian team. They are
there to witness their (demi)God bat. (Why else would crowds be so low on the
days when India is bowling or if Sachin had gotten out the previous evening?). In
much the same way, the crowds at Madison square were there to hear their beloved
Modi, not their Prime Minister.
As for his speech, imagine the Undertaker, at this very
venue, getting ready to execute the ‘Choke slam’ and the crowd baying for the
opponent’s blood. Now imagine the Undertaker executing a ‘Choke slam-a-minute’
for an hour and a half with the crowd also not wavering in its intensity. Now
you know how it felt. This is not to say that the crowd did not laugh. They
laughed readily at Modi’s jokes, both the old and the new. And they laughed
right in the middle of the American national anthem.
In sport, when someone performs really well against a
terrible opponent, or in a favorable environment, the defense is ‘you can only
play against what you’ve got’. That is the defense I am going to opt for Modi
today. He is an outstanding orator. A man with the ability to read not just the
pulse, but also the minds of the audience in front of him. He has charmed
millions and millions across the country, from diverse communities and
geographies. Twenty thousand NRIs reminiscing about home, and given a rare
opportunity to feel proud of their leader, were not going to be too hard to be
swayed. And he wasted no time in doing so. Starting by hiking the morale and
ego, by praising the historic role of NRIs in elevating India’s self-esteem and
positioning himself as just a common man out on a historic mission, he quickly
won the crowd over. They had possibly even toppled over for when he quickly
differentiated the NRIs as ‘you folks’
and him and the rest as ‘us Indians’, no pride bubble was pricked.
The most solid announcements he would make in a 90 minute
speech would be OCI-PIO merger, lifetime visa and visa-on-arrival. Most of
these were efforts started by the previous government. Modi, of course,
deserves the credit to have the conviction and determination to carry it
through. If only we were so generous of our praise of Manmohan Singh and UPA 1,
instead of deriding their achievements as NDA 1’s hangover.
He continued to
work the crowd, often lifting jokes from the internet to thunderous applause. He
got a louder cheer when he termed Gandhi as an NRI. Imagine the collective
delight of 20,000 Non-Resident Indians when he compared us with one of the
greatest that ever lived. If this was not a lesson in how to work a crowd,
nothing else is. And he would constantly refer to Gandhi, only so as to use him
as a pedestal to weave in his own story and ideas. No other leader would
deserve a mention. It was as if he wanted to position himself next to and,
maybe in the future, above Gandhi in the pantheon of Indian leaders. As if to drive home the point further, he would
later mention how no other leader in the last 15 years had gotten the kind of
love that he has gotten. A period of 15 years, which conveniently includes 5
years of a much loved, truly great leader from his own party.
A well deserved round of approval through applause came
when Modi veered on the subject of a ‘Clean India’. It takes guts for a Prime
Minister to shame his citizens into action on such a hygiene issue. But we
deserved the berating we got from the leader of our country. If this does not
push us into action, nothing will.
He also got a heavy round of applause when he spoke of
dismantling old laws. Almost all of them. One each day, so that he can sleep
peacefully. Eerie? Not if you believed
the crowd. If the decibel levels at MSG translated to similar approval levels
back home, it would appear that most Indians believed that we were being
tricked for 67 years with stupid laws and that we may even need a new
Constitution. Such seems to be the blatant disregard for many years of
development - four and a half of them under Vajpayee’s NDA. Vajpayee remains a
favorite PM for many of us, and one of the many positive side effects of this
election was his elevation in the eyes of the majority as a PM that the country
needed, but did not deserve given how the party was defeated in 2004. Speaking
of which, I am beginning to wonder how history and the Indians would have
judged Manmohan Singh if he had, retrospectively fortuitously, served only one
term? As a great leader who delivered more than 8% growth year on year,
completed the spectacular rise of telecom and one who stood his ground to get
his way on the nuclear deal, maybe?
I wonder how history will judge Modi as a PM, in 5 years’
time, and in all likelihood again in 10 years’ time. In the meanwhile, I will
wonder how you judged this article. And me.
