BRICS: PM Modi turns in a star performance on global stage

His handshakes have been found to be firm, his outfits including an unusual scarf/ stole/ angavastram have been widely noticed and his idea of a BRICS university made it to the final Fortaleza Declaration, the historical document marking the setting up of the New Development Bank, the coinage itself borrowed incidentally from Modi’s bank of ideas too. [caption id=“attachment_1620889” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] The road to BRICS was a little rocky. There were a series of organisation and scheduling gaffes by the team of bureaucrats that now forms Team Modi, including a missed dinner date with German Chancellor Angela Merkel who was away in Brazil watching her national side lift the FIFAWorld Cup when Modi landed in Berlin for a previously publicised meeting. But once he arrived in Brazil, the new Indian Prime Minister clearly left a mark on the world stage with his distinct style and poise. A report in The Indian Express notes how Modi has seized the opportunity offered by the BRICS summit to make his presence felt outside India. Not only did the negotiations on the bank formation go as India wanted, including the decision to pick an Indian as its first president and equal shareholding for all the BRICS member nations, but Modi’s body language left a lasting impact on negotiators from all the contingents. “Sources said Modi’s body language was confident. “His handshakes are firm,” said a government official. After his bilateral meeting with Putin, which was immediately followed by the signing of the Fortaleza Declaration, a beaming Modi walked out of the convention centre, seeming satisfied at the outcome of the Summit,” the report said. It added that Modi also seems to have done his homework ahead of every major meeting. Not unlike his election campaign speeches – when he would often speak in the local language and tweak his pitch to mirror local concerns – Modi apparently floored his foreign counterparts with his carefully tailored comments at every bilateral meeting. It was reported earlier that when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin for a hurriedly rescheduled 40-minute meeting on Tuesday – after Monday’s scheduled meeting was deferred – Modi spoke about his visit to Astrakhan in Russia when he was Gujarat chief minister (Astrakhan and Ahmedabad are ‘sister-cities’ ). The Indian Express reports that when he met Xi Jinping too, Modi had armed himself with information on the Chinese president’s resume, and career trajectory before before he became China’s leader. “Such preparation helps break the ice,” an official was quoted as saying. Given that negotiations on the bank were delayed mainly by differences between India and China, an ice-breaker would have been critical during the bilateral meeting. Modi also used the BRICS summit as an opportunity to raise one of India’s biggest concerns on the world stage. Terrorism in any form, including in cyber-space, is against humanity, Modi said, calling for a “zero tolerance” attitude. He also won some brownie points for linking the new hyper-linked world order with the ancient Indian concept of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam. Back home, the Vaidik-Hafiz Saeed meeting dominated the airwaves, possibly at the expense of some coverage of Modi’s moment in the global spotlight.  In the immediate aftermath of his election victory, Modi was compared to Thatcher and to Nixon, but when he actually was on the world stage the TV channels were busy elsewhere. In June, he had gone from pariah to fashion icon with his truncated tunic or the Modi kurta according to Time magazine, but his natty style statements at BRICS went mostly unreported. Nevertheless, whether he got his due back home or not, Modi certainly had no cause to complain in Brazil whose president Dilma Rousseff received Modi with full military honours at the Brazilian presidential palace. She hosted the Indian prime minister for breakfast in Brasilia on on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. A reception with military honours is usually reserved for bilateral visits only, which this was not. PTI called it a “special gesture”. Modi in return praised the president for a well organised summit and then went on to recall that Gujarat, his home state, shared a close relationship with Brazil in terms of economic cooperation. Both leaders recalled the historical and cultural ties between the two countries, despite the distance, including the Gir cows that were brought to Brazil from India, the textiles and the fruits that came from India to Brazil since the 18th and 19th centuries. When Modi returns tonight, he will have taken a giant step forward in honing his unique foreign policy style, the first inklings of which were revealed when he invited the SAARC leaders for his swearing-in on 26 May, itself an unprecedented step. It’s clear that Modi wants to engage with the world aggressively on key global and economic issues. At the BRICS summit, he has proven himself as exactly the right man for that globally high-profile job.