Minority Report | The importance of being earnest
The US President himself used Hindi expressions, stressing how delighted he was about 'chai pe charcha' with the Indian Prime Minister
One of the most poignant comments in US President Barack Obama’s trip to India this week was that his ascendancy was only possible in America and Narendra Modi’s victory possible only in India. When the homilies subside and Obama wings his way back via Riyadh, many of us will look beneath the hype for the real takeaways in the President’s three-day, hysteria-evoking trip. While Obama represents the gradual encroachment of liberalism into the bastions of conservative American politics, back here, Prime Minister Modi’s rise to the nation’s highest executive office is a hard knock on the politics of inheritance and legacy. That he is a right-wing politician is a delicate irony.
Interestingly, Modi’s economics, like his politics, move on to eclecticism. As does his personal manner. He crosses over boundaries, treads into hitherto locked terrain, experiments with what has, so far, been out of bounds for Prime Ministers, in protocol, language, dressing. He hugs warmly, pats the shoulder of the world’s most powerful political leader as often as decency will allow him, wears soft drapes with paisley patterns over his bandhgalas, chooses the colour pink in a multi-coloured Saurashtra headgear in Bandhini as the crown of his eye-catching headgear, preens and rustles up a seductive but informal aura. Key word: informal. Undoubtedly, the two “click" as The Indian Express termed it and Obama’s reciprocity is the equal other in this working equation.
So if the big takeaways of Obama’s trip have been sorting out the nuclear liability issue and crucial anti-terrorism stands, a lot that went by in terms of candour and chemistry and the willingness of the two leaders to drop the guard of formality without worrying about judgmental pontification is also something we should think about. Without saying it, they told us how clear gestures can change the texture of any relationship. For what is said can never be understood or communicated by the verbal alone.
There was an immediate ripple effect. If you were also watching Indian or global news television channels reporting the US President’s visit as the chief guest of the country’s 66th Republic Day, you could not have missed the vocabulary shifts in the media’s description of the exchange between the two leaders. The usual analytical and politically correct, highbrow language dropped its tailored primness, too. Indian TV anchors hosting “power tables in studios" leaned generously towards words like “warmth", “chemistry", “bonhomie", “breaking off protocol", “bear hug", even as the joint statement issued by the two leaders after their press conference included the word “friendship". Commentators joked about Modi’s garb and Obama’s wide smiles. The US President himself used Hindi expressions, stressing how delighted he was about chai pe charcha with his counterpart. It suddenly became okay for journalists to count the number of times the two politicians shook hands and laugh gamely about the way they shared smiles and comments. Modi referred to Obama as “Barack", even if it was just once, while the latter called him “Modi", jibing him fondly for sleeping less than him, expressing his desire to wear the Modi kurta and commenting on his style and toughness, having survived a crocodile attack in his young age. This is enjoyable banter global diplomacy can do with—just the kind of stuff to cement strong bilateral ties with. The kind we have never seen before.
“Chemistry" as a word has long stayed as the privilege of romantic chicklit novels, mushy Bollywood love sagas or reserved for the arduous passion evoked by adrenaline-addicted actors playing James Bond studs in films. But in politics, it has never had these connotations whatsoever, at least not in India. Certainly not to describe what appears to be a thought-through understanding between the leaders of America and India. In a different era, a British prime minister had called another Gujarati a “half-naked fakir" but that was neither a friendly jibe nor the verbal version of backslapping.
So while Obama and Modi’s newly minted politico-personal chemistry won’t alter protocol charters in global diplomacy, it may just incite inspiring thoughts on the importance of being upfront, unscripted, unabashed and more real. In politics, in professional communication and in interpersonal relationships. Indians are known for over-effusive warmth, a cultural symptom that is not always welcome to people in other parts of the world, but it may be time for us to learn how to “time" our non-verbal communication effectively, how and when to use it and when (and if) to break the boundaries of formality that may have no more use in our lives. That’s a straight chemistry lesson from the politics of Modi and Obama.
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