From cut to hugs: Obama and Modi’s unlikely friendly relationship

NEW DELHI: initially look, they could seem unlikely friends or allies. One may be a right nationalist and long-time international castaway, whereas the opposite is AN unembarrassed liberal and altruist peace laureate.

But as Barack Obama and Narendra Modi clasped one another during a bear hug on Sunday, the United States and Indian leaders highlighted a bond that observers say stems partly from their humble backgrounds and mutual outsider standing.

“They defied the circumstances of their origins, rising to the highest of the column,” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri wrote within the geographical region Times.

“They square measure each rebels with a cause. “It’s but a year since the Obama administration concluded its cold-shouldering of Modi, United Nations agency had been a castaway in Washington and different Western capitals for quite a decade.

The United States was the last Western power to finish Modi’s isolation that stemmed from AN eruption of communal violence in Gujarat, the state on India’s West Coast that Modi ruled till his election win last might.

With relations already off in late 2013 by the arrest ANd search of an Indian diplomat in the big apple, Time magazine expected last year “the atmosphere may before long become even additional tense” with Modi in power.

But not solely has Modi shunned readjustment bitterness, his 1st meeting with Obama at the White House in Sep went much better than several had hoped.

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“I assume they affected up a really sensible chemistry,” the White House’s Deputy National Security adviser mountain Rhodes told reporters, recalling however the combine had had a protracted discussion over dinner.

Weeks then ice-breaker, the 2 governments resolved a row over food subsidies that had been obstruction a world trade agreement, underlining the sense that the combine may do business along.

While Obama enjoyed the corporate of Modi’s precursor Manmohan Singh, it absolutely was ne’er clear whether or not the mild premier or Congress party president Sonia Gandhi referred to as the shots.

US officers say Obama has savoured managing a pacesetter United Nations agency, due to his thumping election majority, will get things done.

Mutual appreciation society
Obama’s prime diplomat, Secretary of State John Kerry, hailed Modi as “a visionary prime minister” once he created AN advance visit to India.

As he issued his invite to Obama, Modi aforesaid on Twitter that he was going “to have a fan over”.

While there’s very little doubt that diplomatic imperatives and a mutual need to counterbalance China’s rise part explains their need to seek out basis, observers say it goes additional than that.

Both men entered workplace beneath an enormous weight of expectation, with grand plans to deliver radical reform that will underline the sense of a daring break from the established order.

“In their 1st oral communication once Prime Minister Modi’s election, i feel they noted some similarities in terms of however their campaigns quite modified the means during which politics was experienced in their individual countries,” aforesaid Rhodes.

While Obama’s precursor St. George W. Bush was the son of a president, Modi’s main election rival was Rahul Gandhi, whose father and grandparent had each been Indian prime ministers.

And because the son of a tea merchant, Modi’s back story carried echoes of Obama’s sacred rise to become the primary black United States president.

In AN interview revealed on the eve of his arrival in Old Delhi, Obama aforesaid Modi’s “remarkable biography… may be a reflection of the determination of the Indian folks to succeed”.

“They each return from similar origins. One represents the dream and therefore the different represents the Indian dream,” K.G Suresh, senior fellow at the Delhi-based Vivekananda International Foundation think-tank, told AFP.

“Both represent a definite vision, theme and direction of wherever they need to require their country. “While Obama might return from the left people politics and Modi from the correct of India’s political spectrum, Suresh aforesaid they shared basic common goals.

“Modi is aware of that for the Brobdingnagian socio-economic changes together with his bold build in India campaign, he wants yankee investments and technology, in sectors like defence, energy, nuclear and national security,” Suresh aforesaid.

“President Obama clearly needs to revive (the) yankee economy, produce jobs and for him India may be a nice market that gives him a chance to fulfil the aspirations of his own folks.

“And America definitely wants AN rising India as a key partner within the Asia-Pacific, notably within the lightweight of China’s emergence. “China’s President Xi Jinping did get an invitation from Modi before Obama, and even shared dinner along with his host on the Indian premier’s sixty fourth birthday.

But in line with Indian newspaper reports, Obama can get even additional favoured treatment by changing into the primary leader to be diverted to AN intimate dinner at Modi’s home.

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