Naming places after oneself, it is considered, is one of the perks of being an explorer. But in an era when geographical nomenclature of planet Earth is almost complete – at least for consequential territories and locations – this privilege vests with populist leaders with a propensity for self-love.
Statesmen-wannabes who fear their names will fade unless etched in stone either create new structures or renovate existing ones, to perpetuate their memories.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves the sound of his own name. Among contemporaries, he uses, in better measure, his own name during speeches.
During an electoral campaign while seeking another term as Gujarat chief minister, he permitted distribution of ‘Modi masks’ in thousands, enabling people to imagine themselves in his shoes.
Infamously in January 2015, months after becoming India’s prime minister, he wore a suit with his name monogrammed on the fabric. He wore it while ostensibly chit-chatting with the American president of the time, Barack Obama, that too in public glare, as if he wanted the world to notice his audacity. For supporters, the message conveyed was of his ‘arrival’ as an equal on the international arena.
After spewing venom for decades against medieval ‘invaders’ for demolishing old structures, reusing building material, and erecting new edifices to mark their dominance and hegemony, Modi did the same.
In February 2021, without prior declaration, the refurbished Motera or Sardar Patel Stadium was inaugurated by the Indian president, Ram Nath Kovind and renamed after the prime minister. It was declared the largest sports stadium in the world. It was one more in the strings of ‘firsts’ the prime minister has collected during his tenure.
It was rightly pointed out during the fracas triggered by the government’s controversial decision to get Modi to inaugurate the new Parliament Building, that it was an act of disrespect to the President’s office.
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But we forgot that getting Kovind to inaugurate the stadium named after the prime minister was the first sign of disregard for the First Citizen becoming the norm.
The phrase “catch them young” refers to the idea of starting to educate, teach or influence someone at an early age. ‘Indoctrinate’ too – this can be considered an addition in today’s India.
This is the rationale behind the decision to develop Modi’s first school, the elementary school called ‘Vadnagar Kumar Shala No 1’, in his hometown in Gujarat’s Mehsana district, as a model school called ‘Prerna’ or inspiration. “So that children get inspired by PM Modi’s life,” says a gushing VO artist reading out a handout.
Significantly, this is not a one-off programme. Instead, through the coming year, two high school students from more than 750 districts across India would be taken in batches of 30 students each to Vadnagar. They will spend a week in a hostel that is coming up.
The students would be trained on means to “live a very evolved life”, whatever that means. The coinage suggests that the school’s eternal First Student led a similar life from his time in primary school.
All pretences are dropped. A visit to Prerna, the school will ensure that children who visit the prime ministerial hometown become “catalysts of change”. Effectively, they are intended to act as disseminators of what is indoctrinated.
Significantly, the 1888 building built by the Gaekwad rulers was initially called Vernacular School and was handed over in 2018 to the Archaeological Survey of India for preservation and restoration. It is part of a mega project under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture to develop Vadnagar as a major tourist and historical site.
Government and BJP statements talk about the town being a ‘living city’ comparable to Varanasi. It is not difficult to comprehend the subliminal messaging behind this mention.
Not much has yet been mentioned about what will be lectured to the students; it is anyone’s guess if this would be publicity and propaganda, or information and knowledge that enable children to negotiate future challenges.
In the last ten years, since Modi emerged as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2013, the number of myths over his life have multiplied manifold. In the years before his emergence as the country’s all-powerful leader, narratives that contested the yarn spun by Modi’s spin doctors could still be picked up at Vadnagar.
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Despite the state machinery’s efforts to shield family members from prying journalists and writers, as I experienced, there were always an amiable former teacher or a classmate to be found in the small town.
A couple of gentle prods were sufficient for stories to come out on how Modi was individualistic to the core and never willing to share the spotlight with anyone else.
But by now, as evidenced in trends from 2014 onward, these tales would have been extracted from public utterances and replaced with the narrative that formed the core of the comic book – Bal Narendra, replete with his battles with crocodiles in the lake and Modi’s pitiable childhood when he peddled chai garam that his father prepared.
Unlike the stadium in Ahmedabad, the school that he went to has not been renamed after Modi.
It must be factored that the greatness of this eight-roomed school is solely because Modi went through its modest portals. It has been chosen as a tourist destination of the future not because it was the region’s best school.
Instead, it is billed as a motivating institute because despite its location and inadequate facility (no electricity in the 1950s and 1960s), Modi successfully carved a niche for himself and became what he is today.
Modi did not, it will be depicted, become ‘great’ because of the school. He became what he is today despite circumstances and hardships he encountered and weathered as a child. The school being showcased in this manner is just another instance of publicising Modi’s remarkableness. Almost suggesting that anything he stepped on turned into pure gold.
The school is not the central piece of the yarn that would be spun and presented to the disseminators of propaganda. Instead, the single showpiece is Modi.
Based on Modi’s “vision”, the launch of this “school of the future” is a significant watershed in the reinforcement of the Modi cult that has taken deep roots in India.
This 19-century building where Modi spent the early part of his schoolgoing years, during which it is claimed that he also began attending the Bal Shakhas of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and helping his father sell tea, is the first effort at creating political pilgrimages drawn from Modi’s life-spots.
Religion and politics will mix, although in this case Modi gets precedence over the gods and goddesses. A video camera in one of the available clips of a refurbished classroom pans the walls. On one of them, portraits of the Hindu goddess of learning, Saraswati, and Modi hang. But his portrait is bigger and placed diagonally above that of the goddess. The visual impact and message is inescapable.
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The conversion of the school into a political pilgrimage site is akin to locales that become places of worship, devotion and even meditation for the faithful, like in Sabarmati Ashram or even in the case of political leaders.
Soon, Vadnagar may become a halt on IRCTC’s Teerth Special trains that run regularly. Having included the Statue of Unity along with halts in the Jyotirlings, there is no knowing when the route will encompass Vadnagar too – the track’s already converted from metre to broad guage.
Vadnagar is certainly already a tourist destination of sorts and the ASI now claims that the town has a long history of more than 2,500 years. The state-of-the-art archaeological museum will exhibit objects that purportedly establish historical settlements in the town.
It is a different matter that in recent decades, archaeology is among the most politically motivated disciplines, and with little peer review now permitted, these claims must be taken with a pinch of salt.
Importantly, in early 1999 when I profiled Modi for the now defunct Sunday magazine, he spoke lovingly at length about Vadnagar (referring to it as his ‘village’).
Among all tales that now do the rounds, he mentioned only one: it was home to Tana-Riri, the two legendary sisters who — popular lore has it — sang Raag Malhar to provide relief to one of Emperor Akbar’s jewels — Mian Tansen — because he was feeling unbearable heat after a rendition of Raag Deepak for the Emperor.
This story has now been altered to make it more magical and daring. It is now said that the two sisters sang for Akbar’s pleasure against the wishes of their family and were done to death in punishment.
Folklores evolve. History becomes mythical to add spin. In time the story of Kumar Shala I of Vadnagar and its most prestigious student will be certainly given several more layers to make the latter larger than life.
The Vadnagar elementary school may well be the first of many sites that mushroom around the country. Every site with the remotest ‘Modi-connection’ may be in for a makeover.
The continuity of this new brand of tourist sites-cum political pilgrimages would depend solely on Modi and his party’s electoral dominance.
Modi has demonstrated that nothing is sacrosanct, permanent and irreversible. He should be the first one to keep his own message in mind when raising political pilgrimage sites to himself.
A NCR-based author and journalist, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay’s latest book is The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India. His other books include The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right and Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times. He tweets at @NilanjanUdwin.
