PM Modi's US Visit: Politics helps break the ice between Narendra Modi, Barack Obama

WASHINGTON, DC: It wasn’t surprising at all that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Barack Obama for the first time over dinner on Monday night, the conversation would quickly center around politics, after the initial exchange of pleasantries.

One of the first questions his host asked Modi was about the premier’s “vision” and how he is working on it. Both being political junkies, politics is perhaps the only subject they could have used to break the ice.

According to the external affairs ministry spokesperson, the “get-to-know-each-other” meeting was “extremely convivial.” All indications are that, at a personal level, the two leaders have started off quite well.

“I have every expectation that President Obama and Prime Minister Modi will hit it off because of the kind of people they are,” says Ashley Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace here. “They both love talking about their business, which is politics. Their temperate is also quite complimentary.”

Though both Modi and Obama are products of vastly different political ideologies — one an American liberal, the other a Hindu nationalist — the two leaders have a lot in common. For starters, both came to power selling hope and change. Both cut their political teeth at the grassroots level: Obama as a Chicago community organiser; Modi as an RSS “pracharak”. Both use technology and social media to advance their political goals in a way few of their contemporary politicians have been able to. Camaraderie between Indian and US leaders is nothing new. Obama has a warm personal relationship with Manmohan Singh.

His predecessor, George . Bush, had great working relationships with both Prime Ministers Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The question now is whether the good vibes generated in the meeting between Modi and Obama translate into an excellent working relationship between the two leaders.

Global India Newswire