After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was re-elected Tuesday amid surprising blows to his party, both supporters and critics agree that his influence in the diaspora is an even more crucial part of his global image.
Some posit that losing its majority in Parliament under Modi — a polarizing leader who has become the face of both a modern, global India and a growing Hindu nationalist movement — indicates support might be waning for the seemingly bullet-proof Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). And with that, allies say, Modi will be looking to keep the diaspora invested.
“This movement gets so much of its support and so much of its energy from the diaspora,” said Modi critic and Washington D.C.-local Pranay Somayajula, 23, organizing and advocacy director for the nonprofit Hindus for Human Rights. “Now that they’re in a more defensive position, they’re going to be relying even more heavily on their support network.”
Some Indian Americans, like Somayajula, condemn Modi’s record on human rights and his treatment of minority groups, while others applaud what they see as India’s immense progress under his rule. A study by the Carnegie Endowment found that around 50% of Indian Americans approve of Modi, compared with 74% of Indians in India.
Modi and the BJP have spent years trying to drum up support in the U.S., and, in many ways, they’ve succeeded. They owe that reach in part to organizations like Overseas Friends of the BJP, a registered foreign agent that operates in 32 countries around the world. From White House visits to massive rallies, the way Modi has mobilized the diaspora has been more direct than any Indian leader before him.
Modi sees Indian Americans as his ambassadors abroad, allies said, and they can only expect those outreach efforts to increase.
“He saw this large Indian diaspora who are very prosperous,” Adapa Prasad, the president of the U.S. chapter of Overseas Friends, told NBC News. “They should be leveraged for the…
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