"It is because of your genetics!" roared Chief Minister Modi with his right arm outstretched upward in a salute to his cheering and adoring audience. My cousin and I had just arrived in the Fort Lauderdale convention hall in March 2005 to witness Modi's televised address to the predominantly Gujarati audience at the Asian American Hotel Owners Association national convention. Modi could not attend in person, having been banned by the US State Department for his 2002 role in genocidal riots by Hindus against Muslims in his home state. His reference was to why the assembled Gujarati audience excelled in America's lodging industry, having become its dominant cultural force in just five decades. It wasn't their training or culture, it was their blood and genes. Genetics makes ethnic cleansing quite easy and clean.
While his message remains the same, what a difference this time around. Standing on the red carpet greeted by the President of the same United States that had once denied him a visa, Modi proclaimed how democracy was in India's DNA and how respect for human rights was built into India's cultural fabric. Of course, Modi is mistaken, as he had been in 2002, and as he is governing with an iron saffron fist in his own country, pushing aside the very freedoms and liberties that have made India the world's largest democracy. But who is counting? President Biden -- who fist pumped Prince MBS, on whose order an American Washington Post journalist was dismembered at a Saudi embassy -- isn't. Words over deeds, form over function.
Welcome, Prime Minister Modi. You'll find yourself home here.
