Ramblings: On Modi’s Art of Event Management and The Wave
What are the defining characteristics of a great leader? A charismatic personality, the ability to appeal to the masses and mobilise them swiftly into action for achieving a common objective, the strength to make sacrifices unflinchingly and look beyond personal desires, the charm to persuade people into ignoring their present sufferings and look forward towards a merrier future. Perhaps a perception of trustworthiness and selflessness is also crucial in this regard and of late, a heightened sense of patriotism and nationalism has become indispensable in being adjudicated as a great leader. Last, but not the least, a person who can skilfully portray to the public that he/she has nothing to hide and nothing to lose, becomes by default a great candidate to be chosen as a leader.
There can be a very wide variety of answers to the question I have put above and you may or may not find yourself in agreement with the characteristics that I have listed as an answer. However, the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi, has single-handedly added a new qualification to these criteria — that of the art of event management. Be it his infamous and draconian 8 P.M. announcements, or his grand events like the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Kem Cho Trump, his event management game is completely on point. In this time of an unprecedented health crisis too, Mr. Modi has been keeping himself busy by organising resplendent mass-scale activities like the much-anticipated Janata Curfew, which culminated with the hysterical clapping and banging of utensils. This was followed up a couple of days later by an even more enigmatic activity, the lighting up of diyas. There can be no denying that these activities are meticulously thought of down to the very last detail, something which should have also been done before imposing a complete lockdown. It’s quite clear that the Prime Minister is attempting to keep all the eye-balls fixed on these optics and prevent them from discovering the colossal mess that has been made all over the place.
These diversionary tactics are continuing even at this stage of the pandemic. The second phase of the lockdown has also done little to help contain the spread of the virus as it has still not been backed up by the implementation of large-scale testing. An extension is inevitable, yet it will destroy the economy into a million pieces and we will all be left looking for the missing pieces in the jigsaw. It’s at this time that our dear leader has come up with another opulent exercise, involving the Armed Forces, to draw the focus away from the failure of the strategy adopted by the Government. Once again, while we will all have our eyes fixed upon the flypast and the showering of petals on hospitals, this fiasco too will fly past unnoticed.
The supposition that these events are being organised to honour the frontline workers involved in the battle against the virus is nothing but a grave travesty. The fact is that the administration has failed horribly in procuring Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) kits for healthcare workers and the sheer number of doctors and nurses being infected with the virus shows how much the government cares about their well-being. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been left playing the game of cat and mouse with the private enterprises who had been contracted with the task of securing adequate testing kits. Instead of making a war-like effort to perform large-scale screening of people at the very beginning to contain the spread, Mr. Modi rather saw an opportunity to enhance his image by focusing on the optics.
The government simply does not give a hoot about the people who are suffering all forms of distress on account of the lockdown. The already crumbling economy is facing a severe slowdown and the government is literally having to beg from its own citizens to fund the fight against the allied force of the virus, starvation and poverty ravaging the nation, through a fund ironically named, PM-CARES (another lame attempt at bolstering his image through the optics). If he did actually care, the Prime Minister would not be indulging in the redevelopment of the Central Vista at an extravagant cost of Rs. 20,000 crores, which could have been utilised to fill the coffers of the State Governments, as they are the ones shepherding the battle.
There is no one who can deny the credentials of Mr. Modi as an event manager of the highest calibre. He forms a formidable team along with Mr. Amit Shah, the Minister of Home Affairs whose talent is routinely on display at the time of elections. But the pertinent question to be asked now is whether, in this time of crisis, we need an event manager or a leader who has the guts to tackle the situation up front? It needs no reminding that Mr. Modi has not conducted a single press briefing or taken a single question from any journalist on the subject of the pandemic, rather he has gone into hiding and appears only on his own terms. We do not need a work from home Prime Minister right now, that too one who is hell-bent on building a new home for himself. We need a Prime Minister who can take matters into his/her own hands and not leave it for the bureaucracy to handle at their whims and fancies.
The German dictator Adolf Hitler also had a very charismatic personality and marshalled the general public to spring to action promptly and deploy his plan of action at the click of his fingers. So persuasive did the words coming out of his mouth sound that he was able to manufacture an artificial hatred in the minds of his followers against the Jew population. It was so facile for him to tap into the minds of innocent, unexpecting persons and organise the Nazi party for executing the genocide of millions of Jews. His followers were convinced that Jews were socially undesirable and that they would be a good riddance for they were the cause of all problems in Germany. In fact, this extermination of Jews from Europe became an institutionalised process and this event is now referred to as The Holocaust. The genocide was given effect through brutal and torturous means such as pogroms, concentration camps and mass shootings.
Doesn’t this story of the persecution of Jews by the Nazis on account of their religious, ethnic and racial identities ring a bell? Since coming to power for a second term at the Centre, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has moved aggressively to amend the citizenship laws of the country. When seen in the context of the National Register of Citizens, it becomes evident that the amendments have been constructed with great craftsmanship, so as to deny the Muslim populace their right of citizenship.
The Home Minister has made the government’s intentions to launch a pan-India NRC exercise quite clear and the only plausible conclusion that follows is that the government is on a mission to outlaw Muslims and establish a Hindu nation. In fact, just as the Jews were regarded as a menace to German society, the Muslims in India have been described as “termites” by none other than the Home Minister, Mr. Shah. This indoctrination of hatred against Muslims into the minds of unsuspecting Hindus began long ago with the activities of the RSS shakhas, inspired by the ideals of Hindutva laid down by Savarkar and now this hatred has become institutionalised. It might seem far-fetched at this moment to equate the detention centres being constructed in Assam with the concentration camps at Auschwitz, but this reality does not lie too far away.
Incidentally, all of these themes were explored in a short movie titled ‘The Wave’ (1981), based on a real-life experiment conducted by a teacher, referred to as The Third Wave experiment. After showing students a documentary on The Holocaust, their teacher is unable to field questions on how the German people fell into such a trap and allowed these events to occur. The teacher begins an experiment in class by introducing the students to a movement called The Wave. He instils discipline into them and issues exclusive membership cards to them. The students respond enthusiastically and the movement soon spreads beyond the confines of the classroom.
The members of the movement enforce its tenets quite zealously and report dissenting behaviour of others. The members bully outsiders to the movement in a bid to show their superiority and when one of the students writes an essay exposing The Wave, she is treated with hostility and violence. Realising that the experiment has started going out of control, the teacher gathers the members of the movement to show them a telecast of the nationwide leader of the movement addressing the students. The telecast turns out to be a film of Adolf Hitler leading a rally of the Nazi party, thus demonstrating to the students how easy it is to lose their individuality and become a part of the community beliefs.
In India, a similar movement has taken shape with the youth falling prey to it just like in the movie. The leadership of “icons” like Mr. Modi has resulted in an army of blinded followers who have placed their full faith in the good-natured intentions of Mr. Modi to such an extent that they are ready to turn a blind eye to all forms of atrocities being committed by the government. This Bhakt army bullies and trolls those who disagree and dissent from their generally accepted notions and promote the institutionalisation of hatred against Muslims in India.
As Voltaire puts it, “those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
