I do not have to list Modi’s and his government’s failures. Even his staunchest supporters, once the heat reaches them (and it has been reaching everyone recently), agree that at least prima facie, it looks like he has failed in his primary duties as the leader of this nation.
Why then, does it still look like none of this disappointment will translate into a vote against Modi? Why does he, despite all his failures and failing, still look invincible?
Note: For those who think he has lost any mindshare of his voters, kindly get out of your social echo chambers and take a look at the real world.
Part of the problem is of course, well known. The large majority of Modi’s votes come from those that think that without his ‘keeping a check’ on Muslims (both politically and socially) and without his aggressive campaign (using all organs of the state) against what his voters and followers term as ‘leftist violence’, they (the Indian Hindus) will be diminished to become second class citizens in their country, and be treated much like how they currently treat minorities, women, Dalits, and everyone they think as ‘alien’ in ways difficult for the sane, rational mind to fathom.
But there is another reason, and I think Modi has cleverly, using his costumes, facial hair, PR, photo sessions, and other cosmetic changes, along with shrewd use of semantics, managed to manipulate the common folk into buying this very well curated and created illusion: That he is indeed divine, or at least as close to it as is possible. Hinduism has a convenient out for this in the form of an avataar, which is simply a God (given that Hinduism is pantheistic) who has taken birth as a human on Earth for a specific period of time, and during that time, will behave more or less like a human, with human follies and human failings, as well as being mortal (of course, at the time of their choosing).
Wait. Before you jump on me for reaching, think about how a believer’s faith works: it gets strong if their God purportedly answers prayers and brings joy to their life, but it actually gets stronger if their God does not, and brings sorrow and pain. A smart politician that he is (or whoever his handlers are), this peculiarity of faith must not have escaped him while building his carefully cultivated image. He has furthered this by never (rarely, earlier on, but even rarer now) allowing himself in a position where he is not fully in control of his image, whether by refusing interviews and press conferences or by being selective about where he is seen, who sees him, and what he is seen doing/saying. He hasn’t succeeded all the time, but he has got where he wanted to, more or less.
And just like a believer in God would claim that whatever is happening is God’s will and that God works in mysterious ways, a Modi bhakt (even this word, which liberals started using as a pejorative has been coopted and assimilated by him, with his blind followers accepting with pride that this word applies to them, taking the sting out of its powers to mock) would say, “मोदीजी ने किया होगा तो कुछ सोच-समझ कर ही किया होगा।”, meaning that if Modi has said or done something (or asked us to do something), surely there has been some thought from his brilliant, all-knowing mind that he must have applied to this, something that escapes mere mortals like us, and is in fact not meant for us to comprehend.
He isn’t there yet. But like Trump, who memorably (and rightly, it turned out though this theory was never put to test in a literal fashion) claimed in 2016 that he “…could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and…wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”, Modi can legitimately claim that he could be responsible for making people sick, spreading the sickness through specific acts of commission and omission, presiding over deaths literally by asphyxiation, and have funeral pyres burning on public roads in small towns and large cities because the crematorium steel frames have melted due to excessive use, and STILL not lose voters. Because from where he stands today, his voters are no longer free-willed citizens of a secular democratic republic. They are believers in the cult of Modi.
Beat that, RaGa. Or Rama, for that matter.
