Should Modi have refrained from fighting political battles on foreign soil?

Put yourself in this situation. You are a top Indian politician.

You have fought for two terms against a government that you regard as immoral and a disgrace to the nation.  You are not embarrassed to say this openly. And in all your speeches you make sure that your opponents get it in their necks.

 

Then, you go abroad. You address gatherings of people who know something about India. They are familiar with your record. They know what you have been saying back home. So they ask you questions about your political rivals and about what these rivals have done to India.

 

   How do you reply? What do you say in your speeches and interactions? Do you suddenly abandon all the positions you took when you were on Indian soil? Do you change your tone? Do you sing a different song, entirely? Do you say “I am sorry but I am in a foreign country so I won’t talk about Indian politics”?

 

   You could, I guess, say all these things. Or you could simply be honest.

 

   I remind you of all this because shortly after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, he went abroad and spoke about Indian politics on foreign soil. Of course he had the option then of keeping his mouth shut. Or of saying ‘no comment’ or even, “I don’t want to say anything about my political opponents because that would amount to attacking Indians in a foreign country.”

 

   As you may remember, Modi did none of these things. He went for the jugular of his Congress rivals.

 

   In his first year or so as Prime Minister Modi declared in Germany that he would clean up the “mess left behind” by his Congress opponents. In Canada he said that India’s image was one of ‘scams’.  But he would change it so that India was regarded as a ‘skilled nation.’

 

   Not content with badmouthing his political opponents in Europe and North America, the Prime Minister took his show on the road to the Middle East. In Oman, he said that India’s image had suffered due to a long list of scams in the Congress government and he was working hard to change the ‘style of misgovernance’.

 

   Like some rock star who performs his greatest hits around the world, the Prime Minister has managed to sing the same songs, attacking his predecessors and political rivals, wherever he goes. In Seoul he said there was a time when “people used to wonder that what sin had they committed in their past lives which resulted in their taking birth in India.”

 

   In Shanghai, Modi told the Indian community “earlier you were ashamed of India but today” (i.e. once he became Prime Minister) “you are feeling proud of the country.” In Canada, he said of Manmohan Singh’s government “Jisko gandagi karani thi, gandagi karke chale gaye.” (Those who had created filth have done so and left). That government’s mission, he said, was ‘Scam India.”

 

   All these attacks on his political rivals were accompanied by a certain amount of self-congratulation. In his first appearance at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 2014, right after he had been elected, he told NRIs, “you may not have voted in 2014 but when the results were coming in, you celebrated.”

 

   He is still at it. Speaking in Copenhagen this year, he said that his launch of Digital India had transformed India which had earlier been one of the most backward nations in this respect. And though he had faced criticism and scepticism from his opponents, he had pulled this off.

 

"Why should we expect the Prime Minister of India to turn into a different person the moment he leaves India?"

   And on and on the speeches go. They are packed with his greatest hits and the same jabs at his political opponents. He may now be the only man in Indian history to have attacked his political rivals in over 50 different countries. (Or more: he has made 79 trips as Prime Minister and visited 70 countries.)

 

   Has Modi done something wrong? Should he have refrained from fighting political battles on foreign soil? Is the office of Prime Minister of India such that, when he travels, he must leave domestic political battles behind?

 

   Well maybe. Or maybe not. What’s clear though is that Modi does not believe that he has done anything wrong. He has headlined nearly as many venues as Taylor Swift and like her, has played the same tunes again and again to cheering crowds.

 

   Frankly, I am coming around to the view that he is probably right to say the things he says. Why should we expect the Prime Minister of India to turn into a different person the moment he leaves India? If these are his views — and in the age of the internet, these views are no secret, all around the world — why should he run shy of expressing them?

 

   And many in the audiences that turn out to hear him, especially during his Indian community receptions, are fans who want to hear him rip into the Congress. Why would he deny them that pleasure after a decade in office?

 

   After all, even now, when their idols are in their 80s, people still go to see the Rolling Stones and expect them to play (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, which, I guess, reflects the sentiments the Prime Minister is offering his fans. It’s become an old song now. But it gets the crowd going.

 

   All of which leads us, inexorably, to Rahul Gandhi. The BJP’s position is that Rahul is not worthy of having his name spoken in the same breath as Narendra Modi. But there is no denying that in this respect at least, Rahul is following in Modi’s footsteps.

 

   Throughout his interactions in the US this week, he has been tearing into the Modi government. Unlike the Prime Minister he is not using terms like creators of ‘gandagi’ or promoters of ‘scams’ to describe what is going on in India but he is not pulling his punches either. He has gone for the RSS saying that it seeks to divide communities and that, according to its thinking, “certain religions are inferior to other religions.”

 

   Some of his statements have been direct attacks on the BJP government, i.e. “it tried to create an environment of fear. Various agencies, media, income tax department tried to spread fear”. And some have been personal jibes at the Prime Minister, “I can tell you that the idea of Prime Minister Modi’s 56 inch chest, direct communication with God. That’s all gone. “

 

   When Narendra Modi attacked the Congress in his speeches abroad, Congress leaders reacted with anger. Anand Sharma said then “this is his characteristic style, the Prime Minister continues to insult history and India’s achievements since Independence”.

 

   The BJP’s leaders and spokespeople are now saying more or less exactly what Anand Sharma and others had said. Just as Rahul is following Modi’s lead, BJP spokespeople are parroting what Congress leaders have said. Only this time, the roles are reversed.

 

   Rahul’s remarks on the RSS’s attempts to divide communities and how Sikhs in India were under threat when it came to retaining their religious identity have also come in for sustained attack from the BJP. Who is he to talk about Sikhs, they say, when the Congress participated in an anti Sikh pogrom 40 years ago?

 

   None of this seems likely to shut Rahul up just as none of the Congress criticisms have made any difference to the tone of the Prime Minister’s remarks for more than a decade.

 

   But at least one rule now seems firmly established: no matter where in the world they are speaking, India's political leaders will say the same sort of things about each other as they do when they are back in India.

 

   Is this such a bad thing? I don’t know. Certainly neither Rahul nor Modi think it’s so bad.