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gulf9 hours ago
It's a friendship between two powerful men that transcends politics, transcends diplomacy.
It certainly looked like genuine affection when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled President Barack Obama into a bear hug as he stepped off Air Force One last year. An intimacy seemed to envelope the two as they sat in the garden of an old royal palace, smiling and chatting.
There are the gushing comments: Modi "transcends the ancient and the modern," Obama wrote in Time magazine. "Barack and I have formed a bond, a friendship," Modi said.
It's a friendship that will almost certainly be on display when Modi arrives on Tuesday at the White House for his seventh meeting with the US president.
Except, well, maybe they aren't actually friends.
"It's politics. It's pure politics," said Mihir Sharma, a writer and editor with the Business Standard newspaper and a longtime follower of Modi's career.
It's a refrain heard repeatedly among India's political analysts, who see calculation instead of genuine affection, with an Indian leader carefully shaping the country's political narrative by putting himself at the center of any diplomatic achievement.
Foreign leaders have willingly played along, appearing with the prime minister in choreographed private moments, whether it's Modi taking a selfie in Shanghai with Chinese Premier Le Keqiang or pouring tea for Obama in New Delhi.
"The Americans have realised that one of the ways that you can get something out of Mr. Modi is to emphasize his personal charm," said Sharma. "It's in the interests of pretty much every country he visits to stress the warmth of the personal relationship between their leader and the Indian prime minister."
There is always theater in politics, of course, and all politicians understand the need to sometimes say one thing while believing something else. But Modi has carefully woven his personality into India's international standing, creating what former Indian national security adviser M.K. Narayanan has called a "personalised diplomacy."
In many ways, it's about respect.
India has long felt slighted by the global powers, seeing itself as a powerful, highly educated country that is all-too-often dismissed for its poverty, dirty streets and the lingering power of its caste system.
Friendships with world leaders, particularly one as powerful as Obama, proves to India - and its voters - that Modi can change that.
-Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Modi biographer said:
"He comes back from his visits (abroad) to say: 'I've been able to secure so much respect for India. When Modi publicly refers to Obama by his first name he's claiming the position that he's equal to the president of the United States."The respect is particularly sweet in Washington, where Modi wasn't even welcome until becoming prime minister in a landslide election victory in 2014.
"It's kind of a reverse colonialism that India suffers from. We don't feel we're important until we've gotten some kind of endorsement, especially from Western countries."
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