With eye on future, Modi set to address US lawmakers at Capitol Hill

For every high-profile visit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes to the United States, his supporters repeatedly stress on the fact that he had earlier been denied a visa by that very country over the Gujarat riots. The official welcome that he received as prime minister is cited as evidence of the claim that the United States has now accepted his popularity as a leader. However, as he gears up to address US lawmakers in Capitol Hill at Washington DC, the prickly issue of human rights in India has cropped up again.

Days ahead of Modi’s address, US lawmakers have raised the red flag on a number of issues, including extra-judicial killings, the government crackdown on civil society organisations and religious violence, as per a report by Washington Post . Recent statistics which indicate that India has the highest number of slaves were also a point of discussion. The lawmakers’ criticism is a stark contrast to the narrative of an emerging, aspirational India that Modi seeks to project in his speeches abroad.

Among his many foreign tours, Modi has arguably emphasised this narrative the most in his visits to the United States, which has a high number of expatriate Indians. When he visits the US next week, it will be his seventh meeting with the country’s president Barack Obama since he took as the Prime Minister. A report by Reuters quotes an expert from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as saying the personal relationship between the two leaders is ‘one of the unanticipated surprises of the last two years.’

In recent years, relations between India and the US do appear to have taken a turn for the better. An article on CNN points out that when Obama visited India’s Republic Day parade last year, he did not focus on Pakistan, indicating India’s emergence as a global player.

Yet, the power imbalance between the two countries remains visible. The Washington Post article mentioned above quotes a US diplomat as saying that it is ‘increasingly incumbent’ on India to secure the rule of law. However, the Indian ambassador to the US said, “We don’t believe any society has the right to preach to another society.”

Modi’s visit to the United States comes in the middle of hectic campaigning for the Presidential elections in that country. With relations between the two countries on the upswing, India will be following the developments closely. The visit is seen as an attempt to further improve bilateral relations just before the new US president takes over, as pointed out in a report by The Indian Express .

Historically, such speeches have been greatly influenced by the political context at that particular time. An article in The Indian Express points out while Jawaharlal Nehru’s address in 1949 was in the context of a policy of non-alignment and freedom from colonial rule, while Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s address at Capitol Hill was in the backdrop of India conducting nuclear tests.

However, with US elections round the corner, Modi may well have a keen eye on the future, and not just the past.