Modi went, Modi saw, Modi did not conquer
Perhaps the Hindu's decision is the correct one: why write an edit when absolutely nothing has happened?
But everybody else wrote anyway, says DARIUS NAKHOONWALA. Pix: the Times of India edit on 18 May, 2015
You don’t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
Wonders, thank god, will never cease. The Hindu, which a few years ago used to sound like propagandist for China, hasn’t – to date anyway – written an edit on Narendra Modi’s visit to China. This column was delayed for those words of undying wisdom to appear. Alas, no luck. Yennasamacharam, swami?
The general consensus of the editorialists has been what everyone knew all along knew would be the outcome: zilch. Modi went, Modi saw, but Modi did not conquer. The Chinese didn’t give him the triumph he had been hoping for. Why would they, considering they regard his policies as a real problem?
The Indian Express listed all the failures of the visit in the first paragraph. Then it felt it had to say nice things. “The two governments are no longer afraid of publicly airing their differences and recognising the need to manage them. In the past, they tended to hide their real difficulties in soaring rhetoric on the virtues of Panchsheel or peaceful coexistence.” What rubbish is this? The edit then collapsed into more rubbish, which is unusual for the Express.
The Times of India was equally hard put. It gently pointed out that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried his best to impart a human face to the relationship during his China visit. It produced great optics and business deals, but little movement forward on contentious issues between India and China.”
It then listed all the dashed hopes of Mr Modi. “In the circumstances Modi tried a mix of wooing and cajoling…Perhaps this can only be a slow minuet which will yield results over time.”
The Telegraph said outright that “It is unrealistic to expect every diplomatic encounter to produce a breakthrough.” OK, then why write the remaining 377 words of the edit? Why say things like “It was unfair to expect that Narendra Modi's three-day visit to China would produce dramatic solutions…?” and “A better way to make the judgment is to see if Mr Modi continued with - and improved on - the efforts made by his predecessors…to stabilize and upgrade India-China relations…?”
The Economic Times had a strange suggestion. “China has resolved its boundary problem with Russia… It should, in principle, have no major problem in reaching accommodation with India as well. It is India that has to take a realistic view of the simple-enough proposition that give and take in a border negotiation will mean some ‘give’ and prepare the political ground to avoid collisions between reality and hyper-nationalist rhetoric.” True, but will China give?
The Business Standard was very tentative. “Narendra Modi’s visit to China has probably taken the relationship between India and China forward - but by how much, and how sustainably, remains open to question.” OK, right, enough said, let’s move on because the rest of the edit was not about the visit but about geo-politics in the 21st century!
Perhaps the Hindu’s decision is the correct one: why write an edit when absolutely nothing has happened?
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