Modi's Speech to US Congress: Can Global Applause Veil Lies, False Claims, and Ironies?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi lives of television, by television and for television. No matter where he is, on which platform he is speaking, and who are the others that either addressed the gathering before or will do so after him, Modi’s primary audience is always the domestic constituency, essentially supporters, also called, disparagingly, the Bhakt Brigade.

Modi gives much thought and spends much of his time and energy for this intended audience because it is one which perpetuates his tenure and will be called on to pass judgement on his performance in less than a year.

On the most important day of his first-ever state visit to the United States – a bilateral meeting with the American President followed by the (grudgingly agreed to) press conference at the White House, address to the joint session of the US Congress and the State Dinner – he may have wowed the American lawmakers (an ideologically aligned website counted 15 standing ovations and 79 applauses besides innumerable Modi-Modi slogans, autographs and selfies), but his primary audience was in India. The videos would be hereafter, forwarded till if not eternity, at least till the next parliamentary polls, to show ‘love’ and ‘admiration’ for Modi among Americans.

 To begin with, that which made news even before he spoke – that Modi would address a press conference. For several hours a day prior, this ‘news’ was more important than speculation on what he may say in his media statement. Eventually, it happened much after the majority of Indian TV news viewers retired for the day.

But the day broke with videos of the question posed by Wall Street Journal’s White House correspondent, Sabina Siddiqui asking pointedly: “What steps are you and your government willing to take to improve the rights of Muslims and other minorities in your country and to uphold free speech?”

Modi’s opening salvo reminded me of his interview with the BBC correspondent, Jill McGivering in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. Part of the partially proscribed Indian government BBC documentary, ‘India: The Modi Question’, his sound bite ended with Modi saying with chilling effect, that his only failure was to “not handle the media” better. He also chided McGivering for her ‘motivated’ source of information, specifically saying that he did not know where she got her information from (that violence against Muslims was continuing).

Somewhat similar but moderated with time and the presence of Joe Biden and the global media at the White House, his opening line in response to Siddiqui’s question was: “I am surprised that you are saying that ‘people say’ (“that your government has discriminated against religious minorities and sought to silence its critics”). People instead say that India is indeed a democracy.”

His answer was a tad surprising for a person who played the victim card for decades. For once he took the line that he had no critics who highlighted the weakening democratic quotient in India.

Quite like the ‘mother of democracy’ argument, the prime minister contended that “democracy is in our DNA.  Democracy is our spirit.  Democracy runs in our veins.  We live democracy.”

Indeed, we live its deficit and also do not practise it. Notice for instance the extent of bipartisan participation in the planning, execution and inauguration of the new Parliament Building.

Modi further claimed that “our ancestors have actually put words to this concept (democracy), and that is in the form of our Constitution.”

Modi also referred to what he called “India’s only Holy Book” in 2014 after being elected as leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s parliamentary party in his address at the joint session of the US Congress. Specifically, he mentioned it when speaking about last year’s celebrations to mark 75 years of independence.

He said that the celebration was not just of democracy, “but also of diversity. Not just of the Constitution, but also of its spirit of social empowerment. Not just of our competitive and cooperative federalism, but also of our essential unity and integrity.”

The word ‘chronology’ is part of the political lexicon in a particular way, after Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s use of the word during the debate on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in 2019.

Yes, we note the chronology. The Constitution is championed at the seat of American power months after it has faced consistent attacks from one of the highest in the land – Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Why, he even questioned the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Kesavananda Bharati case and said that there could be no basic structure of the Constitution which was beyond the powers of Parliament to amend. The apex court is not the guardian of the Constitution’s Basic Structure for Dhankhar.

Even Modi’s citation of federalism as a guiding principle of governance comes weeks after the Centre promulgated an Ordinance to ensure that the Supreme Court verdict on the powers of the Delhi government on key secretarial appointments was annulled. There could be no better evidence than this to demonstrate that the Centre cares little about federal practice.

There are oddities galore in the speech to the Congress. He compliments Americans for having “embraced people from around the world...throughout (your) history” and made them “equal partners.”

This certainly is not the case with his party and its affiliates. In fact, Modi next makes a thoroughly objectionable remark, that too inside the citadel of power on foreign soil: Last year, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of Independence Day, a period “after a thousand years of foreign rule in one form or another.” The statement, to say the least, reflects a communal approach to history.

Modi proudly declared that India has “22 two official languages and thousands of dialects”, yet leaders and cadre of the ruling party act like loose canons and fire fusillades at those who disagree with the supremacy of Hindi.

Likewise, “every hundred miles our cuisine changes,” yet people are regularly lynched merely on suspicion (no proof) of eating or trading in perfectly legal raw material.

Yes, when Modi visited the US first as prime minister in 2014, India was the “tenth largest economy in the world. Today, India is the fifth largest economy. And India will be the third-largest economy soon. We are not only growing bigger, but we are also growing faster.”

No disputing that. But economic disparity or inequality has increased several times in recent years. Sample this: A recent Oxfam report states economic inequality in India has deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Furthermore, India's top 30% owns over 90% of India’s wealth. Additionally, the top 10% own over 72% of the wealth, and the richest 5%, nearly 62%.

At times, it appeared that Modi was not addressing American lawmakers, but voters in India. He swiftly moved from one claim to another, mentioning only the headline point and not getting into the fine print: built forty million homes for shelter to over hundred and fifty million people, running a health insurance programme which provides free medical treatment for about five hundred million people, provided banking facilities to five hundred million people, the existence of eight hundred and fifty million smartphones and internet users and provided 2.2 billion doses of India made COVID vaccines, and that too free of cost.

There are a couple of issues that have to be borne in mind before accepting these claims and figures as the complete truth and this is the case with not just these programmes but all social welfare programmes that the BJP claims as its own. One, clarity is never in abundance when Modi or other leaders showcase these schemes as the Modi’s regime’s ‘achievements’ on whether they were started by this government or were those started by the previous Manmohan Singh government.

The second most important issue is that when these claims have been presented before a captive audience outside India, fact-checkers have found instances of exaggeration. For instance, in the claims made in June 2022 in Germany during the visit for the 48th G-7 summit. In February 2019 a similar case of exaggerated data was presented, this time however, not outside India but in Parliament when the officiating finance minister Piyush Goyal presented the interim budget. The figure cited for houses for the urban and rural poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana was significantly embellished from the actual figures. Consequently, the figures cited by Modi will have to be subjected to scrutiny before being accepted as his government’s actual achievement.

But there is more to come. And this is where irony dies. Modi proudly declares that “today, in modern India, women are leading us to a better future. India’s vision is not just of development which benefits women. It is of women-led development, where women lead the journey of progress.”

This claim, barely weeks after the agitation by women wrestlers, on an issue that endangered them because of their gender, appears little but hollow. Likewise, Modi’s assertion on the “humble tribal background” of President Draupadi Muru being evidence of non-discrimination of the most marginalised comes in the middle of violence in Manipur where the minority tribal Kukis face the brunt.

The three biggest crisis points in Modi’s India is rising discrimination and targeting of minorities – religious, ethnic, regional, linguistic and even intellectual (meaning those who disagree with official politics and policy), the erosion of autonomy of state institutions and the rising economic inequality.

Modi proclaimed with a straight face that India was “home to all faiths in the world, and we celebrate all of them. In India, diversity is a natural way of life.” Nothing could be farther than this.

Claims of a Prime Minister who dismisses a thousand years of Indian history as foreign rule makes no distinction between colonial rule and the medieval era, and who does not take into account that unlike in the medieval period, during colonial rule policy and politics were decided by British Parliament (and East India Company prior to 1857) and not rulers in India who governed in partnership with a large Hindu ruling class, have to be scrutinised minutely.

On such examination, Modi’s assertions at the press conference and in the Congress are little but a compendium of half-truths and disinformation.

At the same time that Modi was making his claims, an interview of former US President Barack Obama was telecast. His worry that there is a strong possibility of the country "at some point starts pulling apart" must be heeded and the prime minister’s assertion needs to be treated the way electoral claims are.

Mukhopadhyay is an NCR-based author and journalist. His latest book is "The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India". His other books include "The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right" and "Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times". He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin. The views expressed are personal.