New Delhi: The White House announced that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi US President Joe Biden will be addressing a joint news conference on Thursday, and answer questions from journalists. A White House official told Reuters that this is a “big deal”, since Modi is infamous for refusing to take questions from the media in India.
The Indian prime minister has not held a single press conference in India in his nine years in power. In 2019, he attended one press conference, but did not take any questions.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the White House understands the press conference is a “big deal”. “We are just grateful that Prime Minister Modi is participating in a press event at the end of the visit,” he said. “We think that’s important and we’re glad he thinks that’s important too.”
The format of the press conference will include one question from an American journalist and one from an Indian one.
According to CNN, even this time, it was hard for the American organisers to get the Indian side to agree to a press briefing that includes questions. The Indian side had reportedly pushed for joint statements to be released instead.
“It was only on the eve of Modi’s visit that Indian officials agreed to a compromise: the leaders would hold a “one-and-one,” calling on one reporter from each side rather than the traditional “two-and-two,” during which each leader would call on two reporters from their press corps,” CNN reported.
The White House usually allows media questions to be addressed to the leaders during a foreign visit when the reporters are ushered in before or after the talks. While Modi has made at least five visits to the US, two presidents have travelled to India during the same period. Press questions have been asked at basically after two high level meetings between Modi and the US president.
When then US president Barack Obama visited India as chief guest of Republic Day in January 2015, one question each from Indian and US media were directed to the leaders at the joint press event.
The Associated Press asked Modi about the climate change agreement between China and US and whether the Paris CoP summit will produce any substantial result without commitment on reductions from India. For Obama, the American reporter lobbed questions on the situation in Yemen and Ukraine.The Indian reporter from ABP news only asked questions calling for “details” and the “friendship” between the two leaders.
Then, when the Indian PM was in New York in 2019, a select group of Indian reporters were ushered in before the start of bilateral talks between Modi and President Donald Trump. A couple of questions asked were all lobbed at Trump. After the third question on terrorism and Pakistan, Trump said, “Boy, you have great reporters. I wish I had reporters like this. You’re doing better than anybody I’ve ever heard. Where do you find these reporters? This is a great thing.”
The last time that Modi faced multiple questions from the media was during the joint press conference with UK prime minister David Cameron in November 2015. There were several questions about rising intolerance in India and on his record as Gujarat chief minister.
Incidentally, in a scheduled one hour interview with The Wall Street Journal before the latest US visit, Modi had refused to comment on questions on concerns about growing democratic backsliding.
Since every minute of a foreign leaders’ visit is carefully negotiated and choreographed ahead, no questions at any public event by Modi, even with another fellow democratic leader, is now standard. This was not the rule when other Indian PMs were on foreign visits.
This standard is now so well-known that even other countries are reportedly following it. A reporter from Politico tweeted that that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not take any questions at a joint press appearance with visiting Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday. “China in private asked for the “Indian treatment”, where Modi also did a press point without taking questions while in Berlin,” the journalist posted.
Lawmakers boycott Modi speech
Meanwhile, several Democrat members of the US Congress – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman – have said they will boycott Modi’s joint address to the US Congress on Thursday. Their statements came after two Muslim Congresswomen – Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – had said they would not attend Modi’s speech.
“A joint address is among the most prestigious invitations and honors the United States Congress can extend. We should not do so for individuals with deeply troubling human rights records – particularly for individuals whom our own State Department has concluded are engaged in systematic human rights abuses of religious minorities and caste-oppressed communities,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement, urging her colleagues who stand for “pluralism, tolerance and freedom of speech” to join her boycott.
Bush said Modi “has a shameful history of committing human rights abuses, undermining democracy, and targeting journalists”.
“Inviting someone like him to speak to Congress is unacceptable, and I will not be attending his speech,” Bowman said.
Omar, in her tweet, had earlier said, “Prime Minister Modi’s government has repressed religious minorities, emboldened violent Hindu nationalist groups, and targeted journalists/human rights advocates with impunity.”
Tlaib had said it is “shameful that Modi has been given a platform at our nation’s capital”.
As The Wire has reported, 75 Democratic lawmakers have urged US President Joe Biden to raise “areas of concern” on democratic backsliding with Modi during his state visit. Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont, has also tweeted separately on this, saying, “Modi’s government has cracked down on the press and civil society, jailed political opponents, and pushed an aggressive Hindu nationalism that leaves little space for India’s religious minorities. President Biden should raise these facts in his meeting with Modi.”