The Washington Post last week ran an analysis with an interesting pitch: Modi’s speech in Nepal shows India is paying more attention to its neighbours. It called the gesture “an unambiguous shift in New Delhi’s diplomatic priorities, long obsessed with wooing the West.”

If the centrepiece of his predecessor Manmohan Singh’s 10-year rule was the landmark civil nuclear agreement with the United States and the strategic alignment between the two democracies, will Modi’s ‘neighours first’ approach become the most important aspect of the new Indian government’s foreign policy?

Modi’s first bilateral visit was to Bhutan, which was followed by one to Nepal. In between, he visited Brazil to attend a multilateral BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) gathering that announced the formation of a bank of global significance, a first clear sign that the emerging economies are looking towards the emergence of a new world order independent of Western interests and capital.

In a banquet speech in Kathmandu, Modi noted that he was happy to have visited Nepal so early in his premiership, indicating more than once in his two-day stay that immediate neighbourhood features high up in his foreign policy priorities.

Is Modi a game changer?

During her Kathmandu visit, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj adopted a style that marked a sharp departure from that of her predecessors. Salman Khurshid had been accused of highhandedness when he invited Nepal’s top political leaders to Dwarika’s Hotel in Battisputali to meet him. Swaraj, in contrast, called on Nepali leaders herself. During her Nepal visit, she insisted: “India is not the big brother, it is just an elder brother.” The fact that her visit to Nepal was her second since she took office in May lent credence to her assertion (her first outing was to Bangladesh—also in the immediate neighbourhood).

Modi is not only the first Indian PM to visit Nepal in 17 years, he is the only visiting leader, Indian or otherwise, who made an effort to address us in Nepali. His speech in the Constituent Assembly had much more than a smattering of Nepali phrases as some foreign visitors offer as icebreaker.

Indeed, many lawmakers later acknowledged that they had begun to assume that Modi was going to deliver his entire speech in Nepali. That’s the kind of astuteness people have come to associate with Modi.

Even more noteworthy were Modi’s references to the cultural and linguistic similarities that bind Nepal and India together. Leaders from no other country would be able to mythologise the Buddha, Sita and Pashupatinath with such a high level of comfort.    

Modi’s visit established his credentials as an excellent political communicator. Clearly, the opening remarks he made in Parliament immediately had millions of Nepalis watching him live on television warm up to him. Yes, as the euphoria over the visit gradually dies down some people have suggested that it was not very difficult for the Hindi-speaking leader to deliver his speech in Nepali and that the brouhaha surrounding the first-ever speech (or the opening sentences) delivered in Nepali by a foreign leader was highly exaggerated.

To this writer at least, such accusations sound similar to dismissals of Columbus when he returned to Europe after discovering America. ‘That’s not a big deal. America was there and someone was going to discover it anyway’, said the cynics.

With his use of the Nepali language, his explanation of the challenges and the rewards of constitution making, the brilliant use of the CA as a stage to talk to millions of Nepalis watching him on TV, the Modi speech soon became one of the most talked about events in Nepal in recent memory. Those who had missed the speech caught him on the evening news; and still others watched him on YouTube.

By the evening of the day of his arrival, Modi mania had attained a new height. The roads lining up to the Hyatt Regency, where he first attended the reception hosted by Indian Ambassador Ranjit Rae, to the Soaltee Hotel, where Prime Minister Koirala hosted a banquet in his honour, were packed with new admirers. At 7.30pm, as this columnist drove for the banquet, thousands of Nepalis were waiting patiently for the Modi motorcade.

There were a huge number of men, women and children who had posted themselves on the pavements as far back from Tripureshwor (a 2km stretch) to see the new rockstar who had descended on Kathmandu.

A friend said her office driver had asked her why our own leaders could not speak with such candour; a shopkeeper asserted Modi was the best speaker he had listened to; a young nursing student insisted the Indian Prime Minister had offered a vision for a new Nepal that our own leaders had failed to articulate.   

In the seemingly seamless speech delivered in simple Hindi, you could deconstruct potent messages. His vision for Nepal, or HIT, became an instant hit. ‘H’ stood for highways; ‘I’ for information highways, and ‘T’ for trans-ways, which meant transmission lines and overall hydropower development. But Modi drew the longest and loudest applause when he said that the Buddha was born in Nepal, putting to rest perceived Indian ambivalence on the highly touchy issue.

The 40-minute speech had several other facets that strongly resonated with Nepalis. When he talked about how making a telephone call to the US was far cheaper than calling from India to Nepal, tens of thousands who call and receive calls from their near and dear ones—migrant workers, students and those travelling to India—could relate.

Early days for Modi

No visit to Nepal has excited the Nepali public in recent times as much as Modi’s. Here was a man who was willing to trump up his Hindu credentials and it was clear that his theatrical and oratorical skills were unparalleled. But the man is clearly more than a great orator. Under him, India has negotiated hard to get the first presidency of the soon-to-be-constituted BRICS’ New Development Bank—an alternative to the existing World Bank and International Monetary Fund, dominated by the US—which will be headquartered in Shanghai. When US Secretary of State John Kerry visited New Delhi just before Modi travelled to Nepal, the BJP government took strong positions on a world trade pact and American snooping.

Closer home, however, Modi has demonstrated far more  flexibility. He said that he was open to reviewing the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Nepal and gave every impression that he wanted to conduct the business of foreign policy at the political level, wresting it from the bureaucrats and security agencies. While visiting Indian leaders to Kathmandu would talk at length about their security concerns, the joint communiqué on the Modi visit mentions them only in passing.

With all the opportunities Modi’s arrival in Delhi has created, caution is advised. When the last Indian Prime Minister IK Gujral visited Kathmandu in 1997, he created a mountain of expectations. But, 17 years on, the political relations between Nepal and India have remained dominated by age-old suspicions.

As for Modi, the promises he made and the hopes he rekindled during his visit have indicated that bilateral ties could see a major transformation. Should it again go the Gujral way, it would be most unfortunate. Strangers at least have a future but estranged friends find it difficult to overcome their prickly past.