The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has formed government in India following 2024 General Elections. The party’s leader Narendra Modi has adorned the office of the Prime Minister of the country for third consecutive time becoming the second leader in attaining this remarkable feat after the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru. While this time, it is a coalition government and the party failed to emerge as the single largest party in the Indian Parliament, the BJP secured the highest number of seats (240) wading through anti-incumbency tide. Modi’s popularity partly contributed to the success of the party in the last general elections. The latest rankings released by Morning Consult, a global decision intelligence firm based on data collected from July 8-14, 2024 ranked Modi number one global leader with an approval rating of 69 percent which implied his popularity at home in the post-2024 elections times as well. Similarly, prior to the General Elections, 2024, a CSDS-Lokniti Pre-Poll Survey, 2024 found that Narendra Modi maintained a significant lead over any other leader, with 48 per cent of respondents indicating their preference for him to remain as Prime Minister. This piece of writing makes an attempt to find out the factors that contributed to Modi’s popularity that was constituted by his projected personality and image.
The article argues that in order to project himself as a leader who imbibes values embedded in Hindu culture, Modi demonstrated ascetic personality, fatherly gestures and qualities associated with a decisive ruler. This was directed to sway people across castes, creed and gender towards his image.
Modi as A Spiritual and Committed Nation-Builder
Modi tried to appropriate and internalize a form of eastern masculinity in him which is characterized by spiritual strength derived from self-control over bodily desires and necessities. His flamboyant display of abstention from food and practices of yoga and meditation were instrumental to attracting people towards him unlike western masculinity which is based more on physical strength.
Modi’s spiritual qualities were represented by his control over sensual appetite and ability to rise above family attachments and work for common masses. He displayed his control over his sensual appetite when he demonstrated necessary stamina and endurance to go on a fasting for 11 days prior to Pran Pratishtha in Lord Ram in the newly constructed Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
His ability to rise above family life was perceptible in the public domain by the fact that he left his wife and family ties behind whereas his active participation in the public life was clearly noticeable. This engendered an enduring perception that Modi was destined to serve the nation without any desire for private property. His call against corruption during the UPA II government gathered steam primarily because he was personally viewed as man untouched by shadows of corruption.
Modi’s commitment to the nation and its poor masses was corroborated by the fact that he was born to a family belonging to “backward” caste (OBC) community and his father was a railway station chai-wallah (tea seller) and he also worked as a chai-wallah himself in his youth resonated with the masses of many parts of India that it is he who understood what it is like to live in poverty.
Modi as a Solver of Personal and Psychological Issues
Modi was perceived to have transcended a political image as people began to believe in him as a fatherly figure who could be their problem-solver even in their social, cultural and religious realms of their lives. His continuous engagements with the public through programmes like Mann ki Baat (literally Heart-Talk) and Pariksha Pe Charcha (Modi’s interaction with students, teachers and parents on the ways to approach examinations from a strong psychological and moral foundation), his presence at religious and spiritual sites have further helped him gain such trust. Modi’s popularity, to a great extent, hinged on his ability to connect directly with the voters, usually via social media platforms defining his populist communication style.
Modi as A Decisive Leader
The unexpected surgical strike launched on the Pakistani side of the border by Modi regime on September 28, 2016 fed into the narrative that it is he who can put the threat of cross-border terrorism at bay. Similarly, Modi’s abrupt demonetization strategy in November 2016 although failed to uproot corruption, however, could engender a perception that it is Modi who can only take surprisingly bold and quick decisions.
Modi has been able to engender a sustained perception that it is a government under his leadership that can effectively counter the aggressive behaviour of Pakistan and China by engaging in tough military projection of power. India’s tough military posture during the Doklam standoff of 2017 with China forcing the latter to withdraw from construction activities hardened such perceptions among many Indians. The 2019 Balakot airstrike carried out by India to conduct bombing raid operations in the Pakistani territory as a preemptive strategy to destroy one of the biggest camps of Jaish-e-Mohammed on 26 February 2019 was marked as one of the successes of Modi’s adventurist foreign policy. According to a CSDS Lokniti Survey, many Indians gave credit to Modi for the Balakot air strikes, and among them a very large majority wanted Modi to continue as the Prime Minister and therefore voted for the BJP in the 2019 elections.
While less number of Indians would like to know about greater details of India’s foreign policy, they take note of the country’s foreign policy measures during critical junctures especially vis-a-vis Pakistan and China. Much in a similar vein, the abrogation of Article 370 and integration of the province of Jammu and Kashmir as a union territory in August 2019 by the BJP government under Modi’s leadership corroborated the perceptions that Modi can take decisions based on India’s national interests while refusing to be cowed into the sinister designs of the intransigent neighbours.
Modi’s Personality as Evolving in the Global Arena
Modi sought to combine three elements to forge India’s external identity while in relation to China and Pakistan, he tried to send a message that he would not tolerate any threat to the nation’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, at the larger level he sought to communicate that the country firmly believes in Vasudheiba Kutumbakam (world is a family). Third, he emphasized on India’s ambition and capabilities to become Biswa Guru (global leader)- in the spiritual sphere due to repository of vast cultural resources in the country’s rich civilization. As the Non-Alignment foreign policy of Nehru which provided India with a distinctive identity in the global platforms has become irrelevant with the end of the Cold War, it is Modi who has successfully projected the country with a civilizational identity. The BJP government under Modi has innovated India’s foreign policy by infusing it with civilizational values as reflected in initiatives from Buddhist diplomacy to efforts to use Hindu sociocultural terms to promote solidarity among developing economies.
The innovative usage of semantics culled from India’s rich cultural heritage by Modi along with emphasis on other aspects of the country’s civilizational resources such as Yoga and Ayurveda accompanied by his unprecedented oratory skills and style of presentation at global platforms helped India assume presidencies in G-20 and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2022 and take leadership in many other platforms representing Global South while building robust relations with the powers of the Global North as well.