Right through his whirlwind tour of the U.S. West Coast, the first by an Indian Prime Minister since 1982, it seemed Narendra Modi could hardly put a foot wrong. The meeting with all the Silicon Valley technology companies that matter set the stage nicely for him to play the charming salesman representing a resurgent India in a digital age. This may be a narrative that critics, many of them back home, don’t want to buy. But whatever the political orientation, it would have been hard to miss the buzz generated when the elected head of the world’s largest democracy met the who’s who of new-age businesses, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Apple’s Tim Cook. Mr. Modi also participated in another highly anticipated event – a town hall meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. It’s remarkable that the only other leader who had participated in a town hall with Mr. Zuckerberg is President Barack Obama. There is little doubt that Mr. Modi is a master at creating a larger-than-life feel around his events. Amplifying that feel was the fact that a large number of Indians call Silicon Valley, the hub of technology innovation in the world, their home. Indians came in huge numbers to cheer Mr. Modi wherever he went. The Prime Minister, a skilled orator and one who has more than a feel for the digital world and its mores, obliged them gladly.
But what does all this translate to? To equate Mr. Modi’s efforts in Silicon Valley just to the initiatives promised by the big technology firms during this trip, as some have done, would be to miss the larger point. For the record, Google plans to enable Wi-Fi in 500 railway stations, Microsoft wants to make available low-cost broadband in five lakh villages, and chip manufacturer Qualcomm is launching a $150 million start-up fund in India. These efforts would involve tiny sums given their scale. But again, the point isn’t that. The point is to hard-sell India as an attractive investment destination, a country with skilled manpower, and a nation on the move. Mr. Modi looked more than convincing with that marketing message. Of course, it helped tremendously that India has one of the highest growth rates today in the world amid a sea of troubled economies. Also, the success of India’s diaspora is a selling point in itself. All this means that the big corporates of the world can ill afford to ignore India. But the question now is whether investors are seeing enough positive changes on the ground. Having successfully made the India pitch, Mr. Modi’s challenge will be to don a different hat and deliver on those promises.
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