Even as official circles and the Washington think tank circuit appeared to become increasingly galvanised by the impending visit to the U.S. of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, nowhere has the sense of explosive enthusiasm been more evident than among those organising and attending the “community reception” for Mr. Modi on September 28 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The organisers behind the large-scale interaction planned between Mr. Modi and the Indian American community here this week released a high-level data analysis of the nearly-30,000 registrants to the event, suggesting that it “has been oversubscribed by more than 10,000 people”.
The Indian American Community Foundation’s President, Bharat Barai, said that last minute requests to attend the event “are coming in at the rate of hundreds per day,” and given the “tremendous interest,” in the U.S.-India relationship, almost all of the states of India will be represented at the event with Gujaratis, Bengalis, Punjabis, Tamils, Telugus, Biharis, Keralites, and Kashmiris said to be attending.
Every single U.S. state appears to have sent registrants to attend the reception except, for reasons unknown, Montana and Wyoming, according to mapped data.
“The diaspora will be travelling from forty eight American states and five Canadian provinces to participate in the event,” said IACF spokesperson Anand Shah, adding that in terms of profile the attendees included “small business owners, community organisers, doctors, engineers, scientists, academics, writers, chefs, artists and performers along side entrepreneurs, media personalities, elected officials, lawyers, the young and the old, the traditional and the avant garde ”.
The statistics also suggest that men appear to significantly outstrip women in the proportion of registrants across age brackets and, for example, registrants aged 25-30 years formed the highest population of all age brackets, nearly 12 per cent or 3,600, and in this category more than 8 per cent were men and less than 4 per cent were women.
In the next two highest age groups too, 30-35 years of age and 35-40 years, the total number of registrants dropped to 11 per cent but the percentage of men still hovered around 11.
The registrants also flocked to the event largely from the U.S. east coast, however fanning out from there across to the Midwestern states including, principally, Illinois, but also further down south to states such as North and South Carolina, and all the way to the southernmost reaches of Florida.
Surprisingly few appeared to have registered from the West Coast, with the bulk of those applying for entry to the reception from that region hailing from California, and fewer from the north-western states of Oregon and Washington.
The charts supplied by the IACF show that at least 186 organisations are “represented,” in the event, although it was not clarified what levels of sponsorship each such organisation had agreed to.
