Question

summary of the essay "The Larger Picture" here

Answer 1

In this perfect picture, Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping, representatives of 2.5 billion people, look so relaxed as they sit on the verandah talking. It seems that they could be sitting on a bench by the Sabarmati riverfront gossiping. To an analyst of realpolitik, the photograph announces India’s acceptance as a global power. The message that comes across, loud and clear, is that for the two heads of government the picture alone was important, the location was not. It was a statement of state power. It needed to tell the world that the two leaders, and therefore the two countries, can, and will, do business with each other. For the purposes of the photograph, the verandah could be anywhere.......

But it was not anywhere. And that is where the problem of another reading comes. The verandah is that of the Mahatma’s home at Hriday Kunj. To complicate matters further, this is not just any home, say a place like Birla House in Delhi, but his home in the Sabarmati Ashram. Why is the fact of two state leaders, sitting casually on the verandah of Gandhiji’s home in Sabarmati Ashram, with their back to the home, worthy of such detailed analysis? Why does one want to give the photograph more semiotic content than it can apparently support?......

The answer lies in the importance that symbols have for any society. Symbols give a society a sense of worth and purpose, allowing it to distinguish the special from the ordinary, the valued from the worthless. Symbols play a significant part in the making of a culture....

hope it helps you plese follow me and mark me brilliant