{"id":18417,"date":"2024-11-23T00:49:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-23T00:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18417"},"modified":"2024-11-23T00:49:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-23T00:49:44","slug":"opinion-prime-minister-modi-outdid-himself-then-overdid-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18417","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Prime Minister Modi outdid himself, then overdid too"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last Updated on Friday, 22 November 2024, 18:31 by Denis Chabrol<\/a><\/p>\n

by GHK Lall<\/strong><\/p>\n

Guyanese are sure going to have fond memories of Indian Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi\u2019s visit here.\u00a0 It was from India to Guyana with love.\u00a0 The love was a little too much at times, too targeted, too narrowly isolated.\u00a0 In the euphoria of Modi-ji\u2019s official visit, Guyanese looked the other way, rushed past some of what he said, some of the areas he touched.\u00a0 On the positive side, PM Modi outdid himself.\u00a0 Relative to the negative, he overdid it.\u00a0 I thought he was a little on the cavalier side, should have known better, or been coached and steered into calmer waters by his own people here.\u00a0 Official representatives in Guyana.<\/p>\n

The first time I read the Indian Prime Minister\u2019s words, I had to blink and read again.\u00a0 I blinked once more.\u00a0 No!\u00a0 He is not saying that, didn\u2019t say so.\u00a0 I read that President Ali and VP Jagdeo are \u2018ambassadors to Indo-Guyanese.\u2019\u00a0 In a sensitively poised society like Guyana, Mr. Modi should have been better informed, better guided.\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 There is no doubt that both great Guyanese sons are seen by many here as superb \u2018ambassadors\u2019 for them.\u00a0 But if there ever was a wedge issue and a posture that is sure to drive a wedge between the two major races in Guyanese, then that was it.<\/p>\n

Who is the ambassador for African Guyanese if not bhais Ali and Jagdeo?\u00a0 They cannot be seen as lesser ambassadors, or ambassadors unworthy of such mention.\u00a0 Regardless of actions that stand in the record and counter what I place in the public domain.\u00a0 I think that His Excellency, the Indian ambassador drifted a little on whispering beforehand how racial polarization and racial differences fester in this country.\u00a0 Ambassadors to all Guyanese rings more resonantly, and it is my belief that some damage has been done, no matter the soft reactions.\u00a0 Further, since oil (lifts and linkages) featured so highly on Mr. Modi\u2019s wish list, it is challenging to accept at face value that he could have been so, shall I respectfully say, wrongfooted.\u00a0 Because on many occasions that Guyana\u2019s oil comes up in the global media, there are the accolades, and there are the cautions.\u00a0 The former includes the significance of oil for Guyanese; the latter repeatedly warns of that devil that makes life so unsettled in Guyana: ethnic tensions.<\/p>\n

In truth, PM Modi started out with his well-meaning verbal gesture (ambassadors), then dampened it, if not degraded his initial noble utterance by limiting their ambassadorship to \u201cIndo Guyanese.\u201d\u00a0 It is surprising that the local outcry has not been more pronounced.\u00a0 Frankly, there has been no pronouncement at all on where the prime minister slipped.\u00a0 For some vigilant Guyanese, it provides rich and expressive confirmation of what President Ali\u2019s One Guyana is truly about.\u00a0 Some may wonder if it was accidental or the exuberance of the moment, the great stir and flush of events.\u00a0 I wonder what the reaction would be if an African leader of stature were to pay an official visit here, and declare Mr. Aubrey Norton or Nigel Hughes to be worthy ambassadors for African Guyanese.\u00a0 Or worse still, if Prime Minister Brigadier (ret) Mark Phillips were to lead a State visit to India and laud Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi for being an ambassador, a hero, for Indian Hindus.<\/p>\n

Nothing is ever left alone in this country, especially those that hint at some imbalance, some construction, that favors one group over another.\u00a0 It could be the two primary ones, and to those, one could add the indigenous, mixed, and other minority ones.\u00a0 To highlight one and neglect the other is a call to a stream of the curses and clashes that accompany such (sometimes) innocent lapses in speech.\u00a0 Guyanese know so, because they live with it, what has been to their detriment.<\/p>\n

On another note, only slightly less eye-opening, it appeared to me as if PM Modi was campaigning for the PPP.\u00a0 All he needed was a red shirt and a red cap, along with a red cup to get his message across without saying a word.\u00a0 It was out in the open, and open for any kind of less than favorable interpretation.\u00a0 I am surprised that his words and actions occasionally lacked the nuance and restraint that I expected from a politician of Mr. Modi\u2019s success rate and longevity.\u00a0 Was he less about the premediated and more of the careless?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Then again, I could understand, look the other way, with one slip of the tongue.\u00a0 My challenge is how to react to his probable slip of the mask.\u00a0 Politicians are good with their timing.\u00a0 Mr. Modi was a little too good with his.\u00a0 They are also well-versed in working the angles.\u00a0 I say with more than usual confidence that Narendra Modi milked the angles with the flair of a geometry master.<\/p>\n

Ambassadors for Indo Guyanese in one toothy breath, then taking matters into mined and barbed wired territory of not-so-subtle campaigning for his political hosts.\u00a0 He should have stuck to energy, both fossil and renewables, which was why he came here in the first place.<\/p>\n

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Source: <\/em> politics.einnews.com\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Updated on Friday, 22 November 2024, 18:31 by Denis Chabrol by GHK Lall Guyanese are sure going to have fond memories of Indian Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi\u2019s visit here.\u00a0 It was from India to Guyana with love.\u00a0 The love was a little too much at times, too targeted, too narrowly isolated.\u00a0 In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}