Obama-Modi friendship is nothing but calculated political masterstroke, analysts say
Foreign leaders have played along with Indian PM’s efforts to put himself at centre of any diplomatic achievement
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 US 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.
Obama and Modi share a man-hug to show China and the world their bond is strong
It’s a friendship that will almost certainly be on display during Modi’s arrival 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 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 centre of any diplomatic achievement.