(Monicka Vadera is a Jewelry designer, animal lover, amatuer chef and writes likes she loves from her heart! You can follow her on twitter on @mvadera)
So the big debates on television have begun on how the Prime Minister has performed over the past one year since assuming the most powerful office in our country.
Whatever one's opinion of his domestic governance is, no one can deny that Modi ji has been a spectacular showman when travelling abroad.
If we were to buy into the perception that journalist who follow him to various countries attempt to create, one would imagine, Modi ji is the first Prime Minister to visit most countries and never before has an Indian leader been given a grand welcome like how our current PM seems to be getting.
From selfies to the Social Media, it seems 'rockstar Modi' can do no wrong. Scores of people waiting in foreign lands to catch a glimpse of our humble 'chaiwala' now in designer 'suit boot', shades and pocket squares, that would do Beckham proud. Countries laying out the Red Carpet to welcome him and if we were to believe his supporters on twitter, that is not because he is the Indian PM, but cause he is Narendra Modi! It's another matter that before he moved into 7 Race Course Road, the very same countries denied him a visa for his terrible record on human rights, but here he is today, selling to the world, the greatest apostle of peace, Mohan 'Lal' Gandhi, or like most of us know him by his correct name Mohan Das Gandhi.
Anyway so now back to our Prime Minister and his groundbreaking initiatives to bring in foreign investments and even foreign tourists in India.
On his visit to Australia, Modi ji announced at the Allphones Arena a "Visa on Arrival" for Australian citizens. The governments most vociferous spokespersons, some of the leading news editors and industrialist, went to town praising Modi ji on this initiative. Personally I was very excited about this whole Visa on Arrival bit from Australia, cause all that Kate one of my best friends from Sydney had to do, was board a flight, arrive at the Delhi Airport, pay her visa charges and head to my home. Simple and sweet. Well so imagine Kate's surprise, when she called up her airline to book her ticket to India, she was informed, there was nothing of that sort in India. She needed to apply online for her visa atleast 4 days in advance and if she did not make an advance application and landed up in India, hoping to get one on arrival, she would be deported back. Not only was the nomenclature 'Visa on Arrival' misleading, but it also ended up making India look terrible in front of the very same tourists, the PM wanted should come and experience our land.
Supporters of Modi ji will argue, that he is a man of big ideas, hence we need to over look these minor inconsistencies! After all, he is supreme head of the world's largest democracy and he showed China the 'power' of an elected leader, who can over-rule all the security establishments of the country, his own defense and home ministries and offer the Chinese e-visa facilities and an opportunity to invest in our strategic assets, even as they continue to issue our citizens staple visas. In authoritarian regimes like China, the President and Premier need to take their party and the PLA (their army) along, but democracy is beautiful, it gives our tough PM the mandate to do as he feels right and even the Chinese media showing, India's map minus the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir while he was in China is hardly going to deter him from his goals.
Infact Modi ji's supporters call him a decisive leader. Perhaps his experience in his home state of Gujarat, where he was accused by the Supreme Court of fiddling his thumb like a "Modern-Day Nero" has made him more alert and now whenever tragedy strikes, he is there to the rescue, just like 'Rambo.'
So when a devastating earthquake shook and destroyed our sister nation Nepal, Modi ji was the first one of the blocks to send help. From our disaster management teams, to aid, to even our armed forces were sent to Nepal, to help in the rescue and relief operations and the PM made sure everyone knew about it. The entire 'coverage' of India's assistance in Nepal was packaged in such a way that to a lay person like myself it appeared, that India was on high alert, waiting for the earthquake to strike Nepal and as soon as the inevitable happend, our rescue teams took off. The PM also said, that the Nepalese PM, only learnt of the earthquake from Modi ji's tweets and thank heavens for that or the Nepal PM, Mr Koirala would never have known, his country was struck by a natural disaster. Strangely Mr Koirala denied this and said he is not even on twitter.
Coming back to Nepal and the rescue operations, along with all the relief material, also went India's pack of journalists, who appeared to be there for 'earthquake tourism' asking a mother who just lost her little child, how she felt, glorifing Modi ji, taking up fights on behalf of Nepal, a country grieving, over food and help that Pakistan sent. The people of Nepal, who in their time of pain, could not understand, how 'free press' from a big neighbour works, in order to shower praises on their own 'supreme leader', took to twitter to vent their anger and fustration by trending #GoBackIndianMedia, completely destroying the good will that our proffesional rescue teams had created. But then again, in these modern times, it's not about helping your neighbour but 'marketing' how you helped them that's more important. To bad if you don't get that. Rescue and PR go hand in hand.
So let's raise a toast to our Prime Minister completing one year in office. Some would say he is a showman and it's now time for him to turn into a Staestman, but we can speak about that another day. Till then in Modi ji's own words ' May the force be with you' sir, and before any of you comment that he used lines from Star Wars instead of X- Men, yes we all know Hugh Jackman was with him, you really don't want him to be saying, 'I can't feel my legs' in the middle of Central Park, New York!
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