India’s choice of the man of the year was inevitable, where the elite, the crowd and the media converged on one choice: Narendra Modi. What is missing is the need for a critique of a different kind — to demystify him

Year endings, like year beginnings, are predictable in terms of rituals. People want to celebrate the ending of the year and the media want to ensure that such endings are memorable spectacles. Each year needs a memorial to itself. The year should be full of turmoil and must appear to be like a race ending in a staggering triumph. The victor is the hero, the man of the year. It’s a combination of a mythical figure, part Greek legend, part Olympic winner. In 2014, the man of the year is inevitable. Demographically and symbolically, the elite and the crowd have converged on one choice. In fact there is no other; 2014 offers us the inevitability of Narendra Modi.

To me, as a spectator, as a critic, as a citizen, it’s not the choice that matters. Mr. Modi dominates all, but the logic of the argument goes deeper. While one reads leading magazines and major columnists, one senses the rhetoric around Mr. Modi that puzzles, intrigues, and finally disturbs.

Identifying with power



Mr. Modi’s rise has been laudatory. He is a self-made man obsessed with power. The contrast, by now latent, is an almost forgotten Rahul Gandhi. Rahul is adolescent, casual, a man who inherited power only to squander it. He was a second-rate man showered with the first-rate opportunities. Mr. Modi represents the reverse, through success stories. So far, so good — it is the later parts of the arguments that make you wonder whether the Modi projected is real and believable. One realises that propaganda must seal the gap between the real and the victor. And one senses that these journalists have a literary style which is impressive.

“The media and the middle class were tired of a diffident India … It wanted a winner; a stalwart who would understand and transform India from civilisation to a modern empire ”

All these writers have a tremendous need to be close to power. They are enamoured with the possibility of power. The ruler and the regime is someone they need to identify with. By now the narrative has moved a second step. It is no longer about the absenteeism of Rahul-Manmohan but about the assertive presence of their new leader. The semiotic alters and the photographs mark a different time; the man is no longer an aspirant and is presented as a leader among other leaders. He is not carping about history but making it. He is presented as a statesman changing the world; a focussed reformer who doesn’t want to be distracted or diverted by trivia, those little sour grape stories about educational snafus and conversion narratives is at the Olympus of policy. He evokes leadership. His body language is muted. Appearing at home in the corridors of power he walks with Mr. Putin, Mr. Obama, as one among equals. He is ritually correct and precise. Mr. Modi has realised that politics is a costume ball and is immaculately dressed for it. He knows he cannot wear either dull khadi or a predictable western suit but has to convey unity in diversity, blending the ethnic, the national, the swadeshi and the global to stir expectations. India seems to have found the leader it is looking for. In playing statesman, he has skilfully discarded his older self, his noisier incarnations. He has not abandoned them but outsourced them to Mohan Bhagwat, Amit Shah and to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He can keep eyes on them.

The Indian dream



As a presence, he conveys a blend, at one level he appears unique but he also suggests shades of Nehru, Patel, Vajpayee, Malaviya, and by invoking all, has combined the nostalgia for all of them. He is projected as a man of all seasons and sensitivities.

The media and the middle class were tired of a diffident India, and with an India that was a perpetual also-ran in international politics. It wanted a winner; a stalwart who would understand and transform India from civilisation to a modern empire. He is emperor Modi of an India that always wanted to be acknowledged by the rest of the world. Gradually, one realises that all these writings are catering to a psychological deficit. He is not the individual Modi but the collective Rorschach of a people. He is the projection of the Indian dream and the media is merely spelling out the dream’s performance, not as his achievement in policies but as rhetorical acts of the imagined that he seems so desperate for. Mr. Modi is the man of the year because every man as Mr. Modi is man of the year.

Style dominates content and in fact style in its density is presented as the equivalent of content. This is no one-act play but it is an India that has projected its epic self on the global stage. Our elite realises that the old catechism of Non-alignment and third world-ism is the voice of the weak. What one is looking for is a new machismo. Not the brutal bully boy machismo of the streets but a muscular disciplined machismo which speaks a managerial, ethnocratic and nationalist idiom which both small town aspirant and diaspora understand. The diaspora is a major part of India and the global age and represents the Indian success story abroad. It is easier to be patriotic in New Jersey and New York as the Indian flag flutters proudly and makes them feel glad to be Indians in America. The Madison Square Garden meeting was a performance and fulfils the diasporic need of the American senators paying court to their leader.

As one studies the photo of Mr. Modi, one realises that his icon ideal and image are a collective fantasy of India as a decisive, modern crowd, and respected nation. Mr. Modi is the mirror in which the middle class, tired of the Congress’s indifference, salutes itself. India feels global and contemporary as Mr. Modi jokes with Mr. Obama or shows Mr. Xi Jinping around.

A need to demystify



One also realises that grandeur is the perfect moment for sanitisation. Mr. Modi is cleaned of his past. In fact his past is now enacted by characters around him. Let us be clear; even if Mr. Modi wishes to do something and the wish list is genuine, he is hampered by two sets of forces. First, his past is alive in the present in the shape of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. They would like to leave their own stamp on history. Second, governance involves more than one man’s leadership. A cleanliness drive itself is mere whitewash when it comes to reforming governance.

We have a crowned king and have decided that the king can do no wrong. In many ways, he is the new Sardar who has already been granted his place in history; unlike the old Sardar, he will need no compensatory statue. He represents the new idea of agency in Indian history as India exorcised itself of its current past. The media, as high hybrids of change, have performed the ritual role brilliantly. Mr. Modi is the new immaculate conception.

To reduce this celebration of Mr. Modi to corporate heights or media manipulation will not do. The media is only playing its current fantasies and anxieties and brewing a feasible story. One needs a critique of a different kind and ethnography of everyday governance to demystify Mr. Modi. In fact this critique will constitute the major act of dissent in the coming year. Without it, India is well on its way to becoming a new fantasy of power with no sense of limits. Celebrating the man of the year promises to be the beginning of a coming tragedy. A touch of criticism can make the future more hopeful.

(Shiv Visvanathan is a professor at Jindal School of Government and Public Policy.)