Memo to Narendra Modi: Deliver the keynote anyway. Via YouTube.

Chief Minister Modi,

Your office's website says, "Good Governance is Good Politics". It is now time for good smart ahead-of-the-curve politics. So you can get to applying your guiding motto to the rest of India. After the general election of 2014 that is.

So you won't be speaking at Wharton India Economic Forum. Good riddance. Please deliver the keynote anyway. Do it via YouTube. Or Google+. Or facebook. But, do it. Better yet, do it on one of the days of the Wharton Forum. Wharton may not be, but the internet is your friend. Do it for those of us who want to listen to what you may have had to say. Wharton may not have. But the rest of us do.

You have been presented with an opportunity here to kick start your, and your party's, campaign for 2014's general elections. You and your party may not, and likely will not, get another opportunity like this one in run up to the general elections next year. There is only an upside to exploiting this situation.

You talked to your party cadre at Talkatora Stadium a few weeks back. The videos of your speech that day have been put on the internet. They have gotten thousands of hits. Imagine the viewership that a live speech from you via YouTube or something such would garner. You literally will have the ear of millions of Indians and Indian expatriates. It is bound to go viral. Indian media will ofcourse go bonkers. The world media will not be behind. You will have set a precedent.

Your keynote address to Wharton would definitely have focused more on your vision for economic growth and development of Gujarat. And how you must envision extrapolating, adapting and applying that model and thought process to the rest of India. But, that keynote probably would not have allowed you to talk about issues that really matter to most Indians.

Furthermore, there are still a few more state assembly elections that are pending for this year. All of them before the general election next year. After your speech, you can hit the campaign trail in right earnest. And go to those states to help motivate your party cadre there, and help them turn in the vote.

All this in an effort to begin to organize the party better before the general election, so it can be ready when the time comes. Once the mud slinging, the free for all, of the general election campaign commences, you will not get a chance to do something such. To be able to talk to so many people without the mind numbing "background noise". So lets set the tone for your and your party's campaign. And lets do it right now.

It'd seem that your party is uncertain about it's leadership and the direction that it is going in, if not about its very existence and its future. So you also have an opportunity here to bring your party, and possibly other potential coalition partners, together. That is before the die is set in the form of your party's agenda for the general election. Lets not wait for things to happen. Lets make them happen.

If you are still not convinced, may be this will help: You have a chance here, to take the fight to the other camp. A chance to throw the first punch. A chance to kick them in the balls. A chance to bite their ear. So they don't know what hit them. And while they try to recover, hit the road for the campaign. With your speech you'd already have grabbed them from the scruff of their neck. Now you will be able to drag them through hell. The whole dynamic of the general election will change. You will be able to channel the popular opinion, and possibly the vote too, if not dictate the issues that should be debated in the run up to the election.

If that hasn't persuaded you, may be this will: Wharton, Wharton India Economic Forum, and others who did not want to hear what you had to say - both in the US and India, have shot themselves in the foot. That is for sure. Why not poke a finger in that wound, and then twist it some. Just for the fun of it. Lets see them squirm a little bit. Those politically correct self important jackasses.

If nothing else, then do it just for the fun of it. Indian politics is getting too predictable. And boring. A handful of families have been governing us since independence. It is time to show them that the rest of us are not there to slave. We the people made them. They are there to serve us. Its not the other way around. They better get their act together. Or be ready to face the consequences.

Here's hoping that we get to hear you speak on either March 22 or March 23. Preferably March 23. For reasons that, hopefully, are obvious.

Jai Hind.

Prof. Loomba, you missed the point too, and here is why

Prof. Loomba,

I sincerely hope you get to read this and respond. If only to make your position clearer yet so the rest of us can understand it better.

In your responses to NYTimes blogger Niharika Mandhana's questions[1], you seem to have missed the point of inviting Narendra Modi, as controversial and as detestable as his actions - or some would argue a lack of actions, in 2002 and since may have been.

In one of your responses to Niharika's questions you ask, "Why did the organizers change their mind? Was it only because of us?" They just were not able to articulately defend their decision to invite Narendra Modi. Which is especially sad, given that Wharton is a highly regarded institution that purportedly produces the business leaders of future. I'd go so far as to say that members of Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF), the organizers and student body of Wharton at large, got suckered, may be even bullied into rescinding their invitation to Narendra Modi.

Wharton, and UPenn, are institutions of higher learning and intellectual advancement after all. WIEF-2013 provided precisely the kind of forum where Narendra Modi could and should have been questioned about his role and thought process, during the violent riots that followed Godhra Train Carriage Burning Incident, and since. You, and the other petitioners, lost out an incredible opportunity to hold Narendra Modi's feet to the fire.

Once again, Wharton is a business school after all. Narendra Modi is arguably the most progressive of all the state Chief Ministers in India, especially when it comes to pushing the agenda of rapid economic growth and development. The b-school students should have cried hoarse upon even learning of the petition that you and your colleagues initiated. May be even counter-protested the protest that you and your colleagues led. How else are they going to be able to hear the competing arguments about various policy decisions that are being made by both the federal and various state governments in India? Now, the line up of speakers is so one sided in favor of the ruling coalition led by Congress that Sonia Gandhi and her coterie would be laughing their behinds off. This year's forum increasingly looks like an exercise where India's ruling combine will be stroking their own ego, without so much of a whiff of a counter argument.

I found your use of Amartya Sen's name and the "quote" from him that you "quoted", particularly disingenuous and facetious. Amartya Sen, in his book Argumentative Indian, was effusive in his praise for the Mughal Emperor Akbar: "Akbar's overarching thesis that 'the pursuit of reason' ... is the way to address difficult problems of social harmony included a robust celebration of reasoned dialogues." That was Amartya Sen's analysis of Indian tradition of argument and debate, using an example from 16th century India. 500 years later, in the 21st century, the petition that you and your colleagues penned, took as backward. Didn't it? And it would seem that you, and the rest of you at UPenn and Wharton, purportedly the progressive thinkers, just shredded the incredible heritage of "the pursuit of reason ... with reasoned dialogue" together with the principles that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and flushed it down the toilet bowl full of shit that is political correctness.

Go Quakers!

Sincere Regards,
- aman

[1] http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/a-conversation-with-ania-loomba-professor-at-university-of-pennsylvania/