Prime Minister Narendra Modi is never one to shy away from hailing his own greatness. He speaks of himself in the third person. He will often tell the world how he had some terrific idea that stumped even experts, such as ordering the Balakot air strike under cloud cover — ‘to evade radar’.
But that is nothing compared to his most recent claim to an exalted status. Modi has declared, repeatedly and apparently in deadly earnest, that his birth and presence on earth is not the result of a mere biological process, like the rest of us. He is “increasingly convinced”, he said, especially after his mother died, that he was sent down by the Almighty to fulfil some objective on Earth. How else could he explain the kind of energy he had? After saying this in one television interview to one fawning anchor, he has repeated it to others.
Modi doesn’t tell us, though, what the Almighty’s objectives are. Could they be ensuring that his business pals make more money than ever? That the Muslims of are turned into second class citizens? That India is turned into a Hindu rashtra, with all its antediluvian accompaniments?
In any normal situation, such repeated claims to divine ordination would invite men carrying white straitjackets, but he is after all the prime minister of a large country and that option is unavailable.
So, how should one read Modi’s repeated assertions of divinity? As an immaculate deception, given that elections are on and he needs to come up with something new to please the voters all the time? But the elections are almost over, so this couldn’t be just a vote-catching gimmick.
In recent days, Modi’s pronouncements have become more and more strange — he suddenly mentioned Adani and Ambani, as having sent tempos full of cash to Rahul Gandhi, then shut up about the subject after that, no doubt realising that this implied his industrialist friends had lots of black money to give to politicians. Or when he said he never used the word ‘Muslim’ while talking of “those with many children” and then, the very next day attacking Muslims.
But cynics would be wrong to dismiss Modi’s delusions of divine grandeur as mere election talk. Indeed, there have been many clues in the past 10 years that Modi has begun to think of himself as someone different, someone much above every other human, who has been blessed with power far beyond the ken of an ordinary human.
In his electoral life, ever since he became chief minister of Gujarat in 2001, Modi has never personally lost an election. He has always led his party to victory in the state and, from 2014, at the centre. He is the BJP’s mascot and it would not be wrong to say that the public comes to its rallies to see him. If he were to disappear from the stage, the BJP would likely crumble. No one in his party has the appeal to pull the crowds nor the heft to get his own colleagues together. Besides, no one in his own party can stand up to him and ask him questions — senior leaders are reduced to jelly in his presence. That kind of power can go to someone’s head.
Modi’s repeated visits to temples, taking part in elaborate pujas and all the attention of the television channels focussed on him, also indicate his growing God complex. The Constitution’s secular character and the fact that a prime minister should not be spending so much time away from his desk has not stopped him from presiding over religious rituals.
Way back in May 2019, he got himself photographed meditating in a cave in Kedarnath and how often has he said that he left home after marriage to roam about the mountains. No facts are available, but plainly, his repeated assertions that he is a ‘fakeer’, a mere mendicant, should tell us all something; that Narendra Modi’s recent statements are the culmination of an elaborate, lifelong image building exercise. And that even if his party loses on June 4, he is not going away till he finishes his Godly work.
