Speech therapy

Manmohan Singh's tone was apologetic and body language effete during his Red Fort address

There is a consensual wisdom on the world's greatest political speeches: Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address; Martin Luther King's immortal "I have a dream" speech, which became a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement (and which later found its way into every schoolchild's elocution Day repertoire - this writer included!); Winston Churchill's 1940 "Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat" speech, his first as Britain's prime minister which won for him a place in the list of the world's greatest orators; and of course, JF Kennedy's Inaugural Address in 1961 in which he bequeathed the world those famous words: "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

There are others, of course, and everyone has one's favourites: Charles de Gaulle's appeal to his countrymen to support the Resistance movement; Nikita Khrushchev's history-altering speech delivered in secret to Communist party workers in which he artfully dismantled Stalin's reputation; and of course Enoch Powell and Adolf Hitler's speeches, as effective as they were controversial. I mention the last two to emphasise that in the greatest speeches of the world, it is not what you say so much as how you say it.

The art of mesmerising a crowd, inspiring it to embrace new ideas and concepts and set aside its traditional way of thinking, lies not so much in what you say (though clever syntax can raise your speech from the merely inspirational to the all time great) but in a few practised, well-known devices and techniques. These include voice modulation, animated hand gestures and forceful body language.

By those yardsticks, how did the two Independence Day speeches that have convulsed the nation - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Red Fort address and Gujarat Chief Minister's Independence Day speech at a college in Bhuj - add up?

Once again I emphasise that the comparisons are made only on delivery and effect, not on what was said. In fact, watching the two replayed on YouTube with the volume on low might be an exercise worth undertaking to distance the listener from ideology and past bias.

Singh, who not even his worst opponents can deny is a man of honour and dignity, delivers his speech (his tenth from the same podium) in his customary singsong manner. His sentences end in an arch of trepidation, his tone is apologetic, his body language effete. When he enumerates the good news about vegetable prices and relief for the common man, one can't help thinking of a friendly neighbourhood grocer. Not once does he raise his arms (except at the end when he invokes the brought-for-the purpose schoolkids to chant "Jai Hind" with him).

Cut to Modi. Right from the time the camera picks him up, striding panther-like towards the podium, his face grim, his body language purposeful, his performance (and again I'm not going into what he says) is all about animation.

Animated in the way he tilts his head (Vajpayee-like) to achieve a mock pause; animated in the way he employs his arms (both raised in anguish, his right clutching the air to nail a point and the most forceful; his left pointing all the way to Pakistan when he says his words are heard there first and then in Delhi).

It is a masterful performance and though it is not Modi's finest speech, as far as outshining Singh's, it is hugely successful. When will the Congress' spinmasters, speechwriters and backroom boys understand the art of oratory?

On such points alone, the fate of nations can be decided.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com