Even before becoming the Prime Minister, and ever since, Modi has scaled newer peaks of popularity, both at home and abroad
Member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh Tapir Gao, speaking in Parliament on April 1, described Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi as an avatar of God who is taking the country in the right direction. Gao said that Modi’s work for tea plantation workers in West Bengal and Assam is “like an avatar of Bhagwan”. Ladakh’s MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal hailed the PM as a yug purush (man of the era) for realising BJP ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s dream. Mookerjee had opposed the special status to Jammu & Kashmir.
An ordinary mortal, I am unable to either corroborate or contradict these opinions. All I can do is to quote from the Gita. Chapter 4 of the Bhagwad Gita, delivered by Krishna to Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, states: “Whenever and wherever there is a decline of the practice of dharma, O Bharat (Arjuna), and a predominant rise of adharma (evil) — I incarnate Myself. To deliver the pious and annihilate the evildoers, as well as to re-establish dharma, I appear, era after era.”
From the time I first met Modi by chance at the Vadodara airport in 1991 and had a 15-minute chat, I feel I met someone extraordinary. He was then the general secretary of the Gujarat BJP — the party had yet to come to power in the State. We remained in touch after that and until he became the PM, when I realised that he had flown to another planet and I had remained where I was.
In his first term as the Gujarat Chief Minister, his name and fame had spread across the State to West Bengal and as far as Assam. The Bengali elite, which generally looked down on the BJP as communal, invited Modi to the Calcutta Club for a seminar on the Uniform Civil Code. Years later, in 2006, at Mumbai’s Shanmukhananda Hall, Modi addressed a packed audience, speaking about his introduction of new technologies for agriculture in Gujarat. He revealed that earlier, at a party rally in Guwahati, he had been interrupted by the audience who said they would rather hear about how he was tackling infiltrators from Bangladesh. Modi told the Mumbai audience to tumultuous applause that his reply was that in Assam, people were oppressed by Bangladeshis but, in Gujarat, it was the Bangladeshis who felt oppressed by Modi.
In 2013, Modi was chosen as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate by the RSS without consulting the party’s bigwigs; the ambitions of the latter would come in his way. It had never happened before. This was the measure of his popularity having spread throughout the country while he was busy with Gujarat. I was flabbergasted when I saw him on television as the PM for an exclusive lunch with Queen Elizabeth II at the Buckingham Palace and, on the same visit, addressing the British Parliament. Such honour has not been showered on any Indian leader — not even Jawaharlal Nehru. Soon thereafter, Modi addressed the US Congress, which only PV Narasimha Rao had done before. All this for a man who only until a few years ago had been denied a visa by Washington, with London being hesitant. This denotes that Modi has a rare charisma that travels electronically, not merely electrically.
The flash of his charisma has not halted here. As the PM, he made friends with President Barack Obama. The next American President, Donald Trump, went gaga over him, sumptuously demonstrated at the ‘Howdy Modi’ rally at Houston, Texas, in September 2020. Earlier, Modi had commanded a similar performance in London, when then British PM David Cameron was present and delighted.
Modi’s charisma has not been circumscribed by the borders and shores of India. The country has risen in the eyes and minds of the world. A telling example is India’s response to the latest round of Chinese revanchism, particularly the Galwan incident on the Ladakh border, wherein China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stealthily intruded and killed 20 Indian soldiers. Not only did the Indian Army hit back to inflict 40 or more casualties on the Chinese, it also occupied several strategic peaks along the Ladakh border, signalling its intent to escalate the conflict. More importantly, Modi did not issue mere protests from Delhi, as the previous PMs had done, but landed in Ladakh at our Army’s forward base, barely miles from where the PLA is stationed across the Line of Actual Control, sounding India’s determination to roll back any Chinese adventurism. Beijing is now talking about the benefits of bonhomie and peace with India.
Pakistan remained a bogey until Modi came to power. Educated Indians would generally caution why New Delhi couldn’t be too tough with Pakistan because of the 20 crore Muslims in India! Without harming a single hair of any Indian, Modi has silenced Islamabad to the extent that General Bajwa, Pakistan’s de facto ruler, has started singing paeans of peace.
Prior to Modi, the behaviour of India’s political class made our people equate themselves with Pakistan. India’s image in the world alternated between that of a cat and a rat. Modi has made the world believe that India is truly a lion. Readers may assess what this gentleman truly is — a human being, a superhuman or an avatar.
(The writer is a well-known columnist and an author. The views expressed are personal.)
