Subtle message for Donald Trump in PM Narendra Modi's huddle with CEOs

WASHINGTON: Tread softly, or you tread on my... turf. Paraphrasing salutary advice by the poet Yeats may well be India's guiding principle as Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarks on his first visit to Washington DC in a Donald Trump Presidency.

Just days after President Trump met with top US CEOs at the White House to discuss a government overhaul, Modi is holding an identical meeting on Sunday with American honchos just a stone's throw away in Willard Hotel. The hotel originated the term lobbying (because President Ulysses Grant was accosted in the lobby here when he took a break from the White House), and by 'hanging out' rather conspicuously together here, Modi and the CEOs are quietly lobbying the Trump administration to go easy on the nationalistic rhetoric that has put a hex on global business.

The guest list for the meeting, expected to discuss investment, trade, and visa issues, is similar to the Trump meeting attendees: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Cisco CEO John Chambers, among others, will exchange thoughts with Modi. But what is striking in the Modi list is the number of CEOs of Indian-origin, several of whom also attended the Trump meeting. Among them: Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Adobe's Shantanu Narayen, and Mastercard's Ajay Banga. Google's Sundar Pichai and Deloitte Global CEO Punit Renjen, who were not at the Trump meeting, will also be at the Modi meeting.

The Indian side is trying to keep the event low key so as to not ruffle feather in the White House, where Trump's senior advisor Steve Bannon, who leads the nationalist brigade, is known to hold a bleak view of the rise of Asian-Americans in Silicon Valley. Most Silicon Valley CEOs and senior executives are liberal democrats, and the chasm between the Trump White House and the Bay Area/ California/ West Coast in general is vast.

The Modi jamboree is also hosting a relatively low-key community event at the Ritz-Carlton in Tyson's Corner, across the river from Washington DC in a Virginia suburb. The hotel's 14,000 sq feet ballroom can accommodate just 1500 people, a far cry from the more than 15,000 Indian-Americans who crowded into Madison Square Gardens in New York and the San Jose Center in Silicon Valley, two big events that set the template for Indian diaspora gatherings across the world.

Although the Greater Washington DC area, home to 150,000 people of Indian-origin, could easily host the event at a bigger venue such as the Washington Convention Center or bigger ballrooms in several DC hotels (including Trump International!), there appears to have been a conscious effort not to diss the President who is fond of boasting about the size of his rallies.

New Delhi has for years carped about how visits by the Indian Prime Minister to the US don't get adequate media coverage. For a change, Indian mandarins are quite happy with it. They may even be relieved that Prime Minister Modi has about two million less Twitter followers than President Trump: 31 million to 32.7 million.