PM in Singapore: For Modi, Diaspora’s Adulation Comes as Relief

NRIs’ support for Narendra Modi comes at a time when there is significant domestic disquiet, writes Ronojoy Sen.

It took a relatively long time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make an official visit to Singapore (he did go there briefly in March 2015 to attend Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral), a country for which he has professed admiration from his Gujarat days. But when he did, he had, as is his wont, a packed schedule.

A highlight of his first evening was the Singapore Lecture, which was first delivered in 1980 by the legendary economist Milton Friedman, and several visiting heads since, including most recently Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was while giving the Singapore Lecture in 1994 that Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao first announced India’s Look East policy. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002 and President A P J Abdul Kalam followed Rao in giving the lecture.

On Rao’s Footsteps

There was nothing in Modi’s speech, before a standing room audience of over 1,000 people at a premier hotel, to rival Rao’s bold announcement. The one thing of note in Modi’s speech, which was in some senses a formulation of India’s ‘Act East’ policy, was an allusion to the South China Sea dispute that has kept South East Asia occupied: “India will work with countries in the region and beyond, including the US and Russia, our East Asia Summit partners, to ensure that our commons – ocean, space and cyber – remain avenues of shared prosperity, not become new theatres of contests.”

The second day of Modi’s sojourn in Singapore was really the business end of the visit. India and Singapore signed nine bilateral agreements, including a joint declaration on a ‘strategic partnership’. Modi also addressed the Singapore Economic Convention where he claimed that India was the world’s “most open economy.”

He outlined steps taken to address regulatory and taxation concerns and said that India offers opportunities for investments, ranging from affordable housing to smart cities, railways to renewable energy. Importantly, he said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) would be a reality in 2016 even as finance minister Arun Jaitley was trying to reach out to the opposition parties before the winter session of Parliament.

The NRI Factor

• While much of what Modi said is all too-familiar, that did not matter much in Singapore
  
• Modi’s interaction with expats is a sort of a thanksgiving to NRIs who have been PM’s most committed supporters
  
• The diaspora and their adulation provide succour to Modi at a time when his fortunes have dipped somewhat in India
  
• Even as voters in India hold Modi to account on his electoral promises – as the Delhi and Bihar elections results show – the NRIs still stand by Modi
  

Too Much Rhetoric

In what has become de rigeur for Modi in countries with a significant Indian diaspora, his final stop was addressing a gathering of NRIs. Coming so soon after the Wembley show in the UK, the Singapore event was bound to suffer in comparison. And of course there was nothing in Singapore to compare with British PM David Cameron’s ringing endorsement at Wembley of Modi’s acche din aane wale hai (good times are coming) promise. But this did not dampen the enthusiasm of Singapore’s expatriate Indians, some 18,000 of whom turned up to hear Modi speak at the Expo convention centre.

Unlike the Singapore lecture, where Modi read in English from a prepared script, it was before the huge crowd of NRIs that Modi was in his elements. Whereas Modi spoke for less than 30 minutes at the Singapore lecture, for the NRIs Modi spared 75 minutes.

Speaking extempore in Hindi, Modi trotted out many of the slogans and schemes that are now sounding somewhat tired. The details, however, were incidental. While much of what Modi said is all too-familiar, beginning with the 2014 election campaign, to an Indian audience that did not matter much in Singapore.

Image-Boosting Exercise

As in Wembley or Madison Square Garden, Modi preached largely to an audience of converts. A pertinent question is why Modi is so keen on these town hall-style meetings as well as for being on the road. For the latter it is true, as analyst C Raja Mohan noted recently, foreign policy, unless it involves Pakistan, does not really impact domestic politics. However, as he also points out, Modi’s frequent foreign visits – which has become the subject of jokes in India – can boost his political image at a time of domestic disquiet.

For the interactions with NRIs, a couple of reasons can be offered. One, these meetings are a sort of a thanksgiving to the NRIs who have been the most committed supporters, materially as well as for technical expertise, of Modi. In New York, San Francisco and London, part of the agenda was to encourage Indians to invest in India. However, in Singapore, where NRIs are by and large working professionals, it was not so much investment that was Modi’s objective but sustaining the enthusiasm of the diaspora till the 2019 elections and beyond.

Two, the diaspora and their adulation provide succour to Modi at a time when his fortunes have dipped somewhat in India. As the Economist pointed out after the BJP’s Bihar debacle, “So long as he can count on their fervour – and overseas Indians have been crucial in underwriting his political rise – he may find a welcome distraction from the setback in Bihar.”

Thus, even as voters in India are holding Modi to account on his electoral promises – as the Delhi and Bihar elections results show – the NRIs are still sold on Modi. While Modi’s can-do image has an appeal for one section of NRIs, another section reveres him for his Hindu, right-wing leanings. Among other things, the Singapore trip was a validation of that.

(The writer is senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies and South Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore)