Prime Minister Narendra Modi should not have worn that suit with monogrammed pinstripes. In terms of semiotics, it sent the wrong message and provoked a needless controversy. It was also quite out of character.
For all his faults, Mr Modi leads a fairly simple and austere life. As anybody who has followed his career in Gujarat would attest, other than a notable frame of glasses he has rarely, if ever, worn anything that can be remotely described as costly. Indeed, Mr Modi has as many expensive tastes as Rahul Gandhi has good days in politics.
In Delhi, Mr Modi has more or less stuck to his template from Gandhinagar. His office is not overcrowded with hangers-on. He has not packed public institutions with family favourites and cronies. The latter was regrettably true even of his predecessor, the usually straitlaced Dr Manmohan Singh, whose patronage of a series of dodgy Punjabi associates and wheeler-dealers from Chandigarh was an open secret.
Given this context, Mr Modi’s monogrammed suit looked very out of place. After its initial appearance, it has been discarded as a bad call. This past week, the suit was auctioned in Surat for Rs 4.31 crore. The money will be used for the Ganga renewal mission. This should have ended the chapter but it hasn’t. Mr Modi’s critics are continuing to mock him and asking why somebody would want to spend so much on the suit.
The original price of the suit is unknown. Speculative figures have been bandied about. A gossip column in a London newspaper said its writer “imagines the final bill for such a suit would be approaching £10,000” or about Rs 10 lakh. This figure soon became the Gospel in India and was rattled off by Mr Gandhi in the midst of the Delhi election campaign.
It appears the suit was a gift given to Mr Modi by an Indian businessman-friend. As Prime Minister, and as chief minister, Mr Modi has received several gifts, as have others in similar positions. He has been remarkable in giving these away for charity, auctioning them off with the proceeds going to the education of girl children and now the Ganga mission. In this, he has not just been unusual, but he has also been unique. Nobody else in Indian politics has done this, unless one counts Mamata Banerjee auctioning her paintings to raise funds for Trinamul Congress election campaigns.
What do the rules say about gifts that Prime Ministers receive? A gift given by a foreign government or a foreign President or Prime Minister needs to be compulsorily deposited in the toshakhana (state repository) if it is valued at over Rs 6,000. If it is valued at less than Rs 6,000 there is no need and actually no provision to deposit it in the toshakhana because the state repository simply doesn’t have the space. If a gift given by a foreign government costs over Rs 6,000, the Prime Minister can buy it back from the toshakhana by paying the difference between the market price and the prescribed limit.
As such, if the Indian Premier receives a gift of a mobile phone that costs Rs 30,000, from his British counterpart, then s/he has to first deposit the phone in the toshakhana. Then s/he can buy it back by paying Rs 24,000 to the state exchequer. Gifts received from private individuals, whether Indian or foreign, are not required to be deposited in the toshakhana. Rightly or wrongly, they are seen as personal gifts and effects. This may or may not seem fair, but has been the practice in India, and in Delhi, since well before Mr Modi dreamt of becoming Prime Minister.
Obviously, many ministers and Prime Ministers have received gifts well in excess of a value of Rs 6,000. A fine bottle of Scotch can cost much more, so can a woollen suit (even one made by good old Raymond, let alone some Italian wool maker).
Delhi’s incestuous political culture ignores all this. The gifts that ministers receive are rarely the subject of news reports, and their acceptance and use by the individual in question is routinely overlooked. During the Diwali season, some politicians and civil servants get enough to stock a small luxury store. Mr Modi, since he became chief minister, has been assiduous and determined in not retaining gifts but having them transparently auctioned, with the money going to socially useful causes.
Is this not an example worthy of appreciation and emulation? Would it not be prudent to ask politicians and ministers, current and former, from all parties, whether what the Prime Minister has done with his stack of gifts (including the monogrammed suit) should become standard practice? These are very good questions. Like the proverbial dog that did not bark, the media is refusing to pose them.
Instead, the focus has been on the Surat diamond merchant who has paid Rs 4.31 crore for the auctioned suit. He is being described as a flatterer, attempting to please Mr Modi. It is also being asked why, if he wanted to donate Rs 4.31 crore to charity or for cleaning up of the Ganga, in the first place, did he need to do so in such a public manner. Couldn’t he have quietly written a cheque? Again, these are good questions — but if only those who asked them were consistent. It is very probable that the Surat businessman who bought the suit wants to hit the headlines and have his photograph flashed on television.
He would not be the only philanthropist or do-gooder to do so. This is a regrettable but common human failing. Recently, an IT tycoon and his family donated a large sum of money for a project to revive ancient Sanskrit texts at a leading American university. They too could have given the money anonymously but chose to — and were within their rights to choose to — announce the act of giving at a grand event in Delhi, attended by “the Great and the Good”. The IT tycoon and his family were applauded as stalwart benefactors of wisdom and scholarship; the Surat diamond tycoon is being pilloried as a stupid, sycophantic Gujarati. Why? There is a two-word reason: Narendra Modi.
The writer can be contacted at malikashok@gmail.com
