Over the past 24 hours, the nation has been treated to a blitz of fawning headlines and breathless commentary about how, thanks to Narendra Modi's "out of the box thinking" and "unconventional diplomacy", a US President would be attending the R-Day celebrations for the first time.
In its excitement to play up the event ("unprecedented", "momentous", "unthinkable") the media has not allowed facts to come in the way resulting in a deluge of half-baked theories, absurd analysis and disputed claims.
Thus, we are told, that India owes it to "Modiplomacy" that it will have the privilege of hosting Obama twice (his first visit was in 2010). But it has been reported that a second visit was always on the cards. Only dates were to be decided. That visit will now happen on 26 January.
What is surprising (or perhaps it isn't in a climate where it has become de rigueur to hail anything Modi does) that even otherwise sober and knowledgeable commentators have gone over the top in attempting to build up an event which ultimately is simply a ceremonial. Yes, a grand ceremonial with a lot of symbolism. But stripped of its official trappings the R-Day parade is still only pageantry.
Obama will breeze in with his entourage, admire the scenery, soak in the sights and sound of Rajpath, impart some stardust to the show, say a few nice things and breeze out. Big deal.
Up in Washington they must be rather amused at all the fuss we are making. If I were an American I would be tut-tutting poor Indians getting into such a state over the flying visit of a lame-duck president whose authority doesn't run in his own country. What we are witnessing is a giant PR gimmick dressed up as great diplomacy.
Obama “gracing’’ the R-Day parade is not going to make a jot of difference to long-term India-US relations. Such occasions never do (they are not meant to) beyond generating momentary goodwill. And the Foreign Office knows this.
In 1958, at the height of the famous, albeit short- lived, "Hindi-Chini bhai, bhai" phase, China was the guest of honour represented by one of its most high-ranking Generals Ye Jianying who later rose to become his country's nominal head of state. Yet, a fat lot of good it did to Sino-Indian relations. Barely four years later, the two countries went to war whose fallout is still being felt.
Pakistani leaders "graced" the occasion not once but twice –in 1955 and 1965. Yes, 1965: in January it was all "Pehle Aap, Pehle Aap" at India Gate; by the summer all the bonhomie had evaporated and they were at war.
History lessons anyone?
This is not to trash Modi's initiative but to warn against any great expectations on the back the sort of hype being dished out. Before going further, here's a quick flavour of the obsequeous media coverage so far:
"Modi's Diplomatic coup", thundered The Times of India adding for good measure that as coups went this was his "biggest" yet.
And, then, this gem which sounds like straight from one of those background briefings that journalists regurgitate when short on analysis : "While India's foreign policy under Modi has been acknowledged even by Modi's critics as a high-point of the new NDA government (really?) , Obama's acceptance (of Modi's invite) is nothing short of crowning glory for Modi. The PM was clearly undeterred by the noises made recently about the R-Day parade having outlived its utility."
Obama's presence to revive the R-Day parade's "utility"? Give us a break, for heaven’s sake.
The Indian Express called it a "watershed" moment in "Modiplomacy". Its distinguished and US-leaning strategic affairs columnist C Raja Mohan saw it as a "long-awaited moment of transformation in India's relations with America and an extraordinary shift in Delhi's worldview".
Ashok Malik went for a cricketing terminology to describe Modi's "ambitious and bold" move. Modi, he blogged on NDTV, could have postponed the invitation to later in his term and "gone for a 'safer' option in January 2015. In eschewing gradualism, in hooking the ball in the first over itself, he has shown ambition and gumption".
Experts are falling over each other to project it as the biggest thing to happen in the recent history of Indian diplomacy. It is as though in one master stroke Modi -- the latter day Chanakya-- has dramatically reset the wheels of foreign policy allegedly blighted by short-sighted and wrong-headed approach of successive governments, including Atal Behari Vajpayee's NDA administration.
By inviting Obama, Modi is claimed to have swept away all the old cobwebs and liberated Indian foreign policy from the stifling "straight jacket" of non-alignment and "anti-Americanism" in which it had been imprisoned.
The claim is a self-serving distortion of facts. Non-alignment died a natural death a long time ago without any help from Modi; and as for anti-Americanism it is more pronounced in sections of the Sangh Parivar than in the Congress. It was Manmohan Singh who described America as India's “natural” ally; and it was the BJP which sought to put brakes on the India-US nuclear deal he signed.
It is amazing how the media has so unquestioningly swallowed claims that fly in the face of such recent history. Frankly, some of the commentary has been embarrassingly poor partly because of the demand for instant analysis, but mostly because nobody dares tell the emperor about his new clothes.
In the past six months, Indian diplomacy has come to centre around one man. And the showman par excellence that Modi is, he has reduced it to a series of attention-seeking stunts.
Style has replaced substance and showmanship has become a substitute for serious foreign policy. Diplomacy, reportedly increasingly outsourced to private advisers, has become a vehicle to project Modi's personal image as a "happening" leader always on the go in contrast to his dull and boring predecessor.
The Obama initiative is part of an approach more appropriate for a soap opera than serious diplomacy. Fun to watch while it lasts but then a depressing sense of nothingness sets in.
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