Narendra Modi: The leader of Prachars

Who is a leader?

Prime minister Modi has completely changed the meaning the founding fathers and makers of our nation gave to a ‘leader’. How?

India is a country where the leaders had put in their sweat and blood serving the country. For the rights, development and future of the nation, they faced prison, oppression and even death. In today’s era of Narendra Modi, the leadership now is no more about serving the nation and its people, rather it is reduced to popping up in ads and certificates.

As per the replies to an RTI, from June 2014 to March 2015, the Modi government spent Rs 424.85 crore in print publicity, Rs 448.97 crore on electronic media and Rs 79.72 crore on outdoor publicity, totalling to Rs 953.54 crore.

In 2019, BJP and Modi had used a total amount of 27,000 crores of their party funds on publicity. In the same year, while Rs 295.05 crore of taxpayers’ money was spent on print advertisements, Rs 317.05 crore was wasted on electronic media and Rs 101.10 crore on outdoor advertisements.

But what can be wrong with publicising the face of a prime minister of a country?

The problem is not with the publicity and the amount of expenditure on publicity. The problem here is uselessness, faking and utter wastage of public money. The face that appears at all the frontiers of the nation apparently does nothing for it. The problem is a PM interested only in posing and grooming when the whole country is going through one or the other kind of crisis. The problem is a PM that only faces cameras in scripted scenarios and photoshoots, not for answers and press conferences.

PM Modi’s face is on all certificates of COVID vaccination, on huge banners placed at fuel stations and many other places, wearing a smile nothing short of a smirk at all the lives lost and tears shed during the pandemic and the public hopelessness in the face of relentless rise in fuel prices.

While he gazes through the posters of Pradhanmantri Ujjwala Yojana, he has actually turned a blind eye to the plight of the common man who has to pay Rs 900 now for domestic gas cylinders.

These are just a few examples. Every place where PM Modi has put his picture and name speaks an entirely different story in reality. All the instances have a recurring pattern. Whenever there is an event, a small policy decision, or even a trivial suggestion, the media hypes it up. Newspapers are flooded, hashtags go viral, the people are made to believe in something good happening and eventually, all of it fades. The focus always remains on what is being said, whereas what is being done is forgotten. The next day, there’s always a new agenda, a new Jumla, with no accountability on yesterday’s issues. The grandeur following his hollow words is enough to blind the people with its extravagant shine.

Modi’s hollow advertisement and publicity may fool the public for a while but it won't hold up in the long run. The citizens of India are watching everything, they are growing aware of his deeds and the shallowness in his words. His smiling face on banners and posters cannot shroud reality anymore. A leader isn’t someone who's name and face is everywhere, but he is a person who actually “cares'' and works for the good of the people. Very unlikely that PM Modi fits anywhere in this definition.