PM Narendra Modi turns on the sales pitch in US

WASHINGTON: "I am business-minded and I know that no businessman is a donor, he's not here for charity. A businessman has to make profits on his investment; he must get a return for his investment. I am in favour of that," Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a packed crowd of American corporate leaders in his last engagement in Washington DC before returning home, pledging to roll out the red carpet instead of entangling them in red tape, and urging them to make haste before the queue to invest in India got too long.

It was the kind of blunt talk that US CEOs loved, and the applause that followed was prolonged and genuine. It was also the kind of aggressive salesmanship that only a leader with a fresh mandate, political momentum, and handsome parliamentary majority could make. In candidly inviting Americans to come and make money while helping India's economy grow ("You will earn and my people will get employment,") Modi laid out a starkly different style from his professorial predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh, who was well-respected but whose government also frustrated business leaders with its foot-dragging and ambivalent messaging.

Unconstrained by the political handicaps his predecessor faced, Modi turned up the sales pitch, at one point telling the business leaders to hurry up and get in the queue before it got too long and they regretted waiting it out. The message evidently had already gotten home. Mastercard honcho Ajay Banga, the master of ceremonies at the US-India-Business Council event that hosted the Prime Minister's last engagement before he left for home, said the Council has identified upwards of $41 billion dollars slated for investment from members over the next two to three years, and that's based on a survey of only 20% of USIBC's membership.

How much of it comes in immediately depends on how soon the Modi government rolls out the red carpet it has promised. But beyond his NRI fanbase, if there is one constituency that is chuffed about the Modi's visit, it must be the business leaders - American and Indian and Indian-American. He met scores of them, and from all accounts, scored. "He gives out the message of being pro-business and at the same time pro-poor," observed Ajay Shriram, President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Chairman of the DCM group who tracked the visit closely. "Very few leaders can pull this off."

Indeed, if there was one narrative strand that Modi tugged at constantly, it was his humble origins as a tea-seller. Yet, at no point, did it appear to constrain him from projecting himself as a business-friendly leader. If anything, that background simplified his messaging in a way a distinguished economics professor was unable to. What they would each bring home in terms of growth is something only history will compare and record.