Indian leaders in Chicago await PM Narendra Modi's visit next year

Convinced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would belatedly visit Chicago during his US visit, which begins on June 21, Indian community leaders in the midwest did not want to leave anything to chance. They booked three arenas in Illinois on different dates from June 17 to 25, hoping the PM would address thousands of Indian diaspora members, sending a message across the US and India that he remains popular even after half a dozen visits since 2014 to that country.

After New York, the Chicago metropolitan region has the largest concentration of the Indian diaspora, an estimated 171,000. Indian community lea­­ders have been keen to host the PM in Chicago and organise an event to match the pomp of Modi’s reception at New York’s Madison Square Garden in September 2014.

In 2015, while diaspora leaders suggested Chicago, the PM preferred San Jose over it to underline his Digital India initiative. According to sources, diaspora leaders were confident Modi would be in Chicago in 2019. However, US Pres­id­ent Donald Trump insisted the PM pick a Republican state, which Texas was then, instead of Illinois, a Democrat st­ate. This is how the “Howdy Modi” event in Houston in 2019, where Trump shared the dais with the PM, came about.

Hence, when Bharat Barai, who had hosted Modi on his first visit to the US in 1993 and has since been a key organiser behind his diaspora events in the US, first heard on January 31 that a state visit was in the works, the oncologist was sure Modi would finally be in Chicago in June 2023. Barai says the Indian community booked Chica­go’s United Center, with a capacity of 22,000, for June 17. Later, they were told the visit could take place between June 20 and 25 and proceeded to book Soldier Field, a football stadium that can seat 45,000 people, and the City of Illinois stadium.

However, with the Joe Biden administration busy with the state visit of the South Korean president till April 26, delaying confirming the PM’s itinerary, and South Block adding a stopover to Cairo, the window for Modi to fly down from Washington DC to Chicago and head to Egypt on June 24 grew smaller. The Indian community cancelled its bookings of the arenas.

With barely a month left to the visit when they received the final itinerary, the Indian community picked Ronald Reagen Center, a federal building, requ­est­ing Modi delay his departure from Washington DC by three hours to squ­eeze in the diaspora event on June 24.

“Modi ji continues to be extremely popular. People are phoning in with requests, and we tell them there is a space limitation. Hopefully, we can do a better programme in Chicago next year after the elections,” Barai told Business Standard from the US. To decide upon the invitees’ list, the team scoured lists of the PM’s previous events and contacted leaders of all linguistic and religious organisations of Indians in the US, asking them to attend along with 50 of their community workers.

Barai, who has lived in the US for 48 years, believes the visit would further streng­then bilateral relations, especially in the strategic sphere, as Ameri­cans recognise India’s importance in standing up to China. He said the PM’s state visit would have people in India ackno­wledge that “their prime minister is respected as the world’s most popular leader”.