PM Modi's face dominates selfie booths, billboards, and social media. Outlook explores how it evolved from the 2014 elections to become BJP's sole emblem, shaping India's political landscape.
Outlook also delves into the high-tech populist campaigns, slogans, and omnipresent imagery that define Modi ahead of the 2024 elections.
In this issue, Outlook investigates Modi's enduring popularity, dissecting slogans like 'Modi hai toh mumkin hai.' It explores the mega machinery behind preserving his image, making him a unique global leader even after a decade in power.
#ModiMania #NaMoWave #ModiMagic #SlogansOfSuccess #ModiFiedIndia #EraOfNaMo #Modi2024 #CampaignChronicles #PoliticalPopulism #ModiSlogans #SelfieWithModi #PoliticalIdentity #NarendraModi #SlogansAndSymbols #ElectionEra #ModiAtTheTop #NaMoBranding #MediaModiocracy
Outlook also delves into the high-tech populist campaigns, slogans, and omnipresent imagery that define Modi ahead of the 2024 elections.
In this issue, Outlook investigates Modi's enduring popularity, dissecting slogans like 'Modi hai toh mumkin hai.' It explores the mega machinery behind preserving his image, making him a unique global leader even after a decade in power.
#ModiMania #NaMoWave #ModiMagic #SlogansOfSuccess #ModiFiedIndia #EraOfNaMo #Modi2024 #CampaignChronicles #PoliticalPopulism #ModiSlogans #SelfieWithModi #PoliticalIdentity #NarendraModi #SlogansAndSymbols #ElectionEra #ModiAtTheTop #NaMoBranding #MediaModiocracy
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00:00 Outlook brings to you excerpts from its latest issue titled "Omni-Present, Omniscent".
00:06 The issue looks at Modi's personality, his cult and his brand in the light of the recent consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya,
00:14 which also kick-starts the election campaign.
00:17 Modi is an avatar, a statesman, a saint.
00:21 Beyond Hindutva, there is now the Moditva project.
00:25 In the introduction, editor Chinke Sinha writes, "Phantasmagoric appeal of the one.
00:31 He is everywhere. There are his cutouts in which the Prime Minister is holding a broom.
00:37 In others, he is waving at nobody in particular.
00:40 And then there are selfie booths at airports, in institutions and at railway stations with a 3D life-size replica of Modi."
00:49 For everyone to be with the Prime Minister, the cult of personality has been a dominant feature of Indian politics
00:56 since Modi became the Prime Minister, when even vaccination certificates had his photo.
01:01 It is an idealized, heroic image created through mass media and propaganda,
01:07 centered around nationalism and now religion and majoritarian politics.
01:12 This is the time of apotheosis, the culmination of it all in defecation, almost.
01:19 Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone beyond a human avatar to be hailed as an avatar of Lord Vishnu by his own party members.
01:28 In the Ram Temple consecration ceremony, Modi was the man who supposedly returned Lord Ram to his estranged homeland, Ayodhya.
01:37 In his speech, he said that Ram had been living under a tent and now Modi has got him his birthplace.
01:44 A pakka house like crores of Indians.
01:47 Modi, and not an ordained priest, did the honors of setting up Lord Ram in his newly built abode
01:54 while leaders and others, including Bollywood celebrities, cheered him on.
01:59 Last year, in the new parliament, Modi had carried the Sengol, a kind of scepter that reminds one of kings and their coronations.
02:08 Such a scepter has always been associated with monarchies or priests.
02:14 Symbolism matters. Optics is everything in the digital era.
02:18 Modi is an influencer. He has more than 80 million followers on Instagram.
02:24 He is real and surreal. Unreal too.
02:27 Depends on who you are and how you look at him.
02:30 You can't ignore him. There is no escape from him.
02:34 Modi is a myth, a person, an avatar, a holographic image even.
02:39 He is omnipresent, omniscient. He is one and many.
02:43 With the general elections coming up, Modi is projected as the man responsible for Lord Ram's homecoming.
02:50 The orange flags are everywhere now.
02:53 Political theology is at the core of legitimizing democracy and its institutions.
02:59 Such a reading helps us make sense of the present where those who disagree with all this are branded as illegitimate, irrelevant and inconsequential almost.
03:10 Modi has made all this possible.
03:12 He has many versions, for all kinds, for women, the old, the young, the tribals, the Dalits, the upper castes and even for minorities.
03:23 He can morph into anything.
03:25 His personality has superseded the party and the ideologues, so much so that even the wind around elections is branded as the Modi wave.
03:35 He can reboot, reconfigure and redistribute his many images to the many people of this country.
03:43 He can hang with the birds, dive into the sea, live in the wild, retreat into a cave, play host to the world powers and can even cry.
03:52 He is vulnerable and he is a superman.
03:56 He is also now elevated to the divine stage.
03:59 Most media is mesmerized by him, in fear of him.
04:04 His glorification knows no bounds.
04:07 He is on covers, billboards, channels, in the newspapers.
04:12 He is even in textbooks and temples.
04:16 Religion hasn't receded from public life to a private realm but has gained more power over the years and is now asserting itself as a force
04:26 and it is this force that legitimizes the divine kinship of Modi and bestows exceptional authority upon him.
04:34 It is the charisma channelized via many props, including bodily optics.
04:40 It is now beyond Hindutva.
04:42 It is Moditva-oriented populist politics that has a sanction of the divine kinship in Hindu texts and promises ideological salvation to the nation.
04:53 There is a saintly avatar. There is also the sophisticated, fashionable version.
04:58 A mediation tactics where fashion designer Troy Costa was hired for a wardrobe change for Modi in 2014 when he first became the Prime Minister
05:08 and ahead of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa brick summit in Brazil and his US visit.
05:17 It is called omnipresent marketing, which is an approach that aims to be at every customer interaction, regardless of the device or channel.
05:27 The aim being to ensure a bespoke, always on, highly personalized experience.
05:34 The 2024 general elections will be about Modi and Ram, both avatars.
05:40 One is God, the other almost one now.
05:43 In this issue of Outlook, we look at Modi's personality, his cult and his brand in the light of the recent consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya,
05:53 which also kick starts the election campaigns.
05:56 It is us and God then.
05:59 For this and more, read the latest issue of Outlook.