Prime Minister Modi has made no direct reference to the ban on him, but he is showing his host country his power base he has in the US despite his decade-long absence. "You have given me a lot of love. This kind of love has never been given to any Indian leader, ever," Modi told an adoring crowd at the Madison Square Garden last night, his words seemingly aimed at Washington, where successive administration ostracized him and was deeply respectful of his predecessors, Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Atal Behari Vajpayee.
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PIO cardholders to get lifelong Indian visa, PM announces at Madison Square
Some 40 American lawmakers and politicians of various hues were on hand to witness (and carry home to Washington and their constituencies) the raucous and adoring reception Modi received in New York City, from the moment he alighted at the New York Palace hotel to the gala at Madison Square Garden. With a median annual income of $88,000 (national average $54,000) Indian-Americans are by far the wealthiest ethnic group in the United States (more than white native-born Americans or even Jewish-Americans), and their political lolly is as important to American pols as their skills and the positive mood and image they can generate is to India.
Which is why Modi is almost falling over his fasting self to please this constituency, announcing everything from visa on arrival (to US citizens) to life-long visa to those with the PIO/OCI card (which will soon be merged). The logistics and timeline for this is yet to be laid out, but officials of the home ministry and internal security apparatus tasked with keeping the next David Coleman Headley out of India are already tearing their hair out at how to construct the filters while fulfilling Modi's sweeping promises. Mercifully for the Election Commission and others, it does not for now include the right to vote and the dual citizenship some PIOs have long sought.
The background to Modi's deep affection for Indians in America goes back to his visits to this country in the early 1990s, as first reported in this newspaper. The story goes that during his very first visit to America, Modi bought a Delta Airlines ticket that in those days allowed unlimited month-long flying within the continental United States (there had to be an empty seat on the flight and you were the last to board). That is how he travelled extensively across the country (29 states) going from California to Texas to Florida, often taking a red eye to save on boarding and lodging.
In many places, he stayed with friends, mostly Gujarati (the Gujarati columnist emeritus Kanti Bhatt once told this correspondent in the 1990s that he could have a free meal and bed in any town in America simply by looking up the phone book for Patels and Shahs). Modi did pretty much the same, often arriving with only a thela (sling bag) with one spare set of clothes. Some of those hosts, like Indiana physician Dr Bharat Barai and his wife Dr Panna Barai, are now key frontpersons of Modi's overseas fan club that has also expanded vastly because of its disappointment with the previous political dispensation, and its hopes in this one.
This is the constituency (which turned up in strength at Madison Square Gardens) that Modi is now rewarding with "Visa...whenever you want to come" announcement, although it will mean huge challenges for the security bureaucracy at a time they and their counterparts are facing growing threats. But the Prime Minister also sees it as a opportunity to bump up tourism, one of the world's largest foreign exchange earners, hoping to see Americans stream into India and travel the same way he trawled across the United States. "Terrorism divides, tourism unites!" he said during remarks at the Indian Ambassador S Jaishankar's reception to him, asking Indians in America to each send at least five American families to India for holidays.
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