“Super King of Diplomacy,” learn the ticker positioned in daring on prime of 1 news channel. “Long live our friendship,” mentioned one other. A 3rd declared, “The Boss in America.”
Mainstream Indian news channels — in Hindi, English and a few regional languages — coated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reception in Washington with adulation, praising his diplomatic expertise for tens of millions of viewers earlier than a vital election yr for him.
The visuals from Washington performed into what Mr. Modi has already set as certainly one of his foremost marketing campaign themes: tying India’s rise as a significant financial energy along with his rise as a world statesman.
“The scale, the splendor, the warmth,” one headline enthused. Others, resembling “Modi’s breakthrough diplomacy” and “Watch history being made,” flooded Indians’ properties Thursday night as Mr. Modi walked the crimson carpet to fulfill President Biden and the primary woman, Jill Biden.
“Their body language reflected that they were incomplete without one another,” one news anchor mentioned as visuals of the 2 leaders shaking fingers performed on the display screen.
Mr. Modi has fastidiously crafted his relationship with conventional news shops, utilizing a mixture of incentives and stress techniques to get most of them on his aspect.
When uncomfortable points come up — a state election loss, an ethnic warfare leading to weeks of unrest and bloodshed in a northeastern state, a lethal three-way practice crash — they’re fast to deflect blame away from Mr. Modi.
And when a significant second just like the state go to to Washington comes, they’re pleased to hitch within the cheerleading — an element that, mixed with how Mr. Modi’s occasion has mastered social media to take his messages viral, helps clarify Mr. Modi’s expertise for shaping politics to his profit.
The protection of Mr. Modi’s go to to the United States is a political boon, setting the agenda in his favor earlier than he launches himself full-time into marketing campaign mode for parliamentary elections subsequent yr.
While many channels confirmed the White House dinner menu advert nauseam, calling it “dinner for friendship,” some others waxed eloquent concerning the significance of the items Mr. Modi had carried for the Bidens. One anchor declared of a army deal between the 2 nations: “The biggest defense deal. The hearts of enemies will burn!”
And when, at his news convention with Mr. Biden, Mr. Modi skirted a query on India’s grim human rights file and suppression of free speech, one Hindi-language news anchor got here to his rescue on her present, saying he had “very bravely” confronted the query.
Source: www.nytimes.com