He stares at you from every other street corner in the capital. He hogs the front page of every newspaper. Turn on the idiot box and in no time at all he is telling you that what the country needs is minimum government and maximum governance. His voice echoes out of radio jingles. His followers are all over Facebook picking on those who do not seem sympathetic to his Hindu nationalist ideology.
Perhaps never before in the history of India has an individual been so publicised in the mass media as Narendra Modi and this is undoubtedly one of the unique features of the ongoing 16th general election.
True, we also see the beaming visage of the to-be-44-year-old “young” vice-president of the 129-year-old Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi, on banners. We usually see him in the midst of a group of young men and women from across different parts of the country, at least that’s what their attire and appearance signify.
Whereas the not-so-subtle sub-text of the advertisements for Mr Gandhi emphasise the “idea of India” in all its heterogeneity, as far as Mr Modi is concerned, the message is clear: he’s the towering, decisive personality who will not only just deliver the country from the clutches of the despicable Gandhi-Nehru family but also spur economic growth, create jobs and curb food inflation.
This is not the first time one person has been projected as being bigger than the party s/he represents. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, after Mr Gandhi’s grandmother split the Congress twice to isolate and marginalise the so-called syndicate or the old, conservative sections within the party, Indira Gandhi portrayed her political opponents as those who were opposed to her socialist, garibi hatao (banish poverty) policies.
She was spectacularly successful. With the war for the independence of Bangladesh still raging, she strode to power in March 1971. It is an unanswered question as to whether the former Prime Minister would have remained in her position for as long as she did had she not imposed the Emergency that lasted for 21 months between June 1975 and March 1977.
After Indira Gandhi dominated her party like a colossus — remember Dev Kanta Borooah’s infamous statement in 1974, “Indira is India, India is Indira” — few Indians have been projected as bigger than their respective organisations as Mr Modi.
In the past, it had often been argued that the only leader of the BJP who could have led the National Democratic Alliance coalition was Atal Behari Vajpayee, the first person to become Prime Minister of the country without ever having been a member of the Congress. At a time when Lal Krishna Advani was perceived as a “hard-liner” because of his active involvement in the Ram temple movement, it was Mr Vajpayee who was seen as the “accommodating” and “liberal” face of the Sangh Parivar. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had in the 1960s not just been impressed with Mr Vajpayee’s parliamentary interventions, he had even picked him out as a man who could one day hold the top job in the country — an insight that was truly prophetic.
Sanjaya Baru, whose book on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has generated considerable controversy of late, had written an editorial page article in the Indian Express on February 25, 2004, titled “Vajpayee’s Nehruism” in which he discovered a “Vajpayee revolution in Indian politics” and lauded him, stating: “The reason why Vajpayee looks so winnable today is that he has taken the BJP to the Nehruvian ‘middle’ by pursuing the economics and politics of ‘inclusivism’, recalling the Nehruvian dictum of ‘unity in diversity’.”
A few months later, Dr Baru was to become the media adviser to Dr Singh. But before that happened, it was widely reported that Mr Vajpayee was not in favour of the 14th general elections being held four months ahead of schedule, apparently at the behest of a large section in the BJP and the NDA, including Mr Advani. It will perhaps never be known if Mr Vajpayee’s reluctance to bring forward the election schedule was on account of him anticipating an electoral setback or whether he was of the opinion that his party’s “India Shining/Bharat Uday” campaign was not really working and could backfire on his government.
Before the 2004 elections, the BJP’s campaign manager, the late Pramod Mahajan, had worked overtime to advertise Mr Vajpayee. In 2004, there were not as many mobile phones as there are today, but cellphone owners would receive unsolicited calls to hear the familiar voice of Mr Vajpayee soliciting votes for his party. If these innovations did not work for the BJP then, the question remains as to whether the current advertising blitz in favour of Mr Modi will generate the kind of “wave” the BJP expects.
While the answer to this question will be known on May 16, what remains unprecedented is that on this occasion the principal Opposition party has evidently splurged much more on publicity than the Congress, which has headed the coalition in power for a decade. It is probably not the case that the Congress is short of funds. But is the party conserving its money, waiting for a better time in the future to spend? It is not merely through advertising, many media outlets have been publishing and/or broadcasting favourable articles or programmes in favour of
Mr Modi. Television anchors, who have built a reputation for grilling those they interview, became a little soft when it came to questioning him, especially on his role and the circumstances of the 2002 communal carnage in Gujarat.
Recently Rajat Sharma, who heads India TV, conducted an interview with Mr Modi on his popular programme Aap Ki Adalat which was considered by many to be rather deferential towards the person interviewed. Soon afterwards, the channel’s editorial director Qamar Waheed Naqvi put in his papers. While Mr Naqvi did not say anything on the record, Congress spokespersons claimed that his resignation indicated how journalists not favourably inclined towards the BJP were facing pressure.
Not just Mr Modi, many have argued that television channels have been “soft” on Mr Gandhi by not asking him particularly uncomfortable questions. Even Arnab Goswami, the feisty anchor of Times Now, did not put any questions relating to the different controversies relating to Robert Vadra, the brother-in-law of Mr Gandhi.
As for advertising, it goes without saying that it is difficult to sell a poor product.
The writer is an educator and commentator
