Hundreds of Indians living in China gathered at Shanghai's World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center to hear a town hall-style speech by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 16. The event was held at the end of Modi's first visit to China since he took office last May.
For some Indians, especially those who have lived away from their home country for long, a part of the excitement is around Modi's life story: A tea seller's son who rose to become India's top leader. To others, it's his pro-reform image that they hope will get foreign investments to India.
As crowds awaited his arrival inside a large hall, where Bollywood tunes played on speakers, they stood next to their rows of seats to catch a glimpse of Modi when he would walk in. A troupe of folk musicians from western India's Rajasthan province entertained guests with their full-throated songs, some on demand from the audience.
A few Indian students studying in China came wearing T-shirts with Modi's photos printed on them. Indian Association, the expatriate entity that organized Modi's address, said 1,900 Indian students were present at the venue. Other Indians, largely professionals, came from parts of the Chinese mainland and from Hong Kong.
Official estimates currently place about 45,000 Indians on the mainland.
Leena Kollangunta, a second-year Indian medical student from Jiangsu University in eastern China, told me ahead of Modi's speech to the Indian diaspora that Modi should work toward "getting more seats for Indians in China and for Chinese in India", referring to what she called the scope for medical studies in both countries.
During Modi's three-day tour, India and China signed a slew of cooperation agreements in education, space and ocean research, the railways and entertainment, among other fields. In his speech at the forum later that day, Modi described as significant his stops at Tsinghua and Fudan universities in Beijing and Shanghai, where he met with Chinese youth.
S L Rajan, an auto industry executive from Southwest China's Chengdu city, told me at the community event that he expected Modi to make a difference to relations between India and China. "His approach is different," Rajan, an ethnic Indian from Singapore, said, seemingly alluding to Modi's personal charisma.
Bianca Kong, a Hong Kong native, who studies Indian spiritualism and has traveled to India several times, was there on invitation from her Indian friends, she said.
The few other Chinese at the almost all-Indian affair were local journalists covering it and public security officials managing the crowd.
Many Indian traders from Yiwu, the world hub of small commodities, were seated behind the VIP enclosure, amid a bunch of students who chanted "Modi, Modi" intermittently. Arif Lokhandwala, a businessman from India's financial capital Mumbai, said India could learn from China's infrastructure-building experience.
Arab and Indian traders had helped develop Yiwu, he added, while telling me that he has lived in the East China city for more than a year now and can speak Mandarin.
When the prime minister arrived onstage, the national anthems of India and China were played, and then Modi said he was surprised to see so many Indians in China. Modi asked his fellow countrymen and women to help change Chinese perceptions about India, by convincing Chinese people to visit India. It is the demand of the times that Indians understand China and its people and Chinese understand India and its people, Modi said, speaking in Hindi.
After Modi's nearly hourlong speech had ended, I spoke with more members of the Indian community to understand where commercial ties between the two countries are headed.
Earlier in the week, Mao Hongtao, a former executive of a Chinese company wrote in a Global Times opinion piece, "... five main problematic areas when doing business in India: visa applications, business registration, payment, taxation and general efficiency".
According to Madhav Sharma, the Shanghai-based chief representative for the Confederation of Indian Industry in China, it can be challenging for foreign companies to deal with local market conditions and policies in emerging economies.
He cited Haier and Xiaomi as examples of Chinese companies doing well in India.
"Keeping a long-term view in mind, successful foreign companies have either invested in India, set up joint ventures or collaborations or even taken the M&A route," he told me. His organization is among India's biggest business lobby groups.
