Narendra Modi's Symbolic
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COMMENTARY For Modi, a nation state was not a secu- Narendra Modi’s Symbolic War lar entity but a spiritual essence, a civili- sational statement. For the RSS, distorted histories created defective politics and Shiv VisVanathan RSS as a plumber and therapist had to rectify it. Its political style sought to One has to ask, what was the arendra Modi achieved one of create a new man, a new persona who logic called Narendra Modi the greatest electoral victories of would refl ect current anxieties and serves and what was the nature of the Nmodern India, symbolically end- a projection, a hoarding of possibilities. ing the Nehruvian era. While Delhi In modernising Modi, RSS was modern- campaign? Modi was a semiotic adapts to the new regime, the socio- ising itself. An ascetic image had to yield construct who went on to fi ght logist, as analyst, has to ask what went to an aesthetic style. Colour is central to a symbolic war. The Nehruvian into the making of this campaign. such symbolic grammar. White, for all nation, Delhi, Development were Moments of victory cannot only be its purity is often dull and colourless. moments of celebration but have to be White signals widowhood, renunciation all semiotically reconstructed in moments of analysis and refl ection. One and a dullness. White had to yield to a brilliantly executed campaign. has to ask, what was the logic called specifi c colours, shades, some sense of This article is a preliminary Modi and what was the nature of diversity, some idea of change, and attempt at an ethnography of a the campaign? change, Modi’s designers realised, was a To understand this, one has to realise costume ball, a semiotic presentation. brilliantly executed campaign. Modi was a semiotic construct who went Modi was semiotically reconstructed. on to fi ght a symbolic war. The 2002 Colours mellow the man. Dourness, election while it brought victory in grimness are stern grey or steel white. Gujarat, added little to his image. A One needed a palette of diverse emo- dockside bully enacting Bajrang Dal tions to intensify diversity. One needed cameos does not quite add up to a chief tribal red to convey power, peach and minister with national pretensions. green to signal gentleness. It was a sub- Modi had to be remade. A past had to be tle modernisation where khaki shorts sanitised and a future scenario for the get erased from the mind. It is imitation man had to be constructed. The remak- Nehru for a man about to play the sec- ing of Modi begins with the man and his ond Patel. As colours melt, the body be- Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) comes decisive, even Prussian. It adopts background. a managerial idiom. The language is One has to enter the mind of Modi as a clipped. It marches like a sergeant rather semiotic space. One needs to map it in than a subaltern to history. It is larger terms of its old categories. Modi was than life size. Modi is a pracharak ampli- soaked in a RSS milieu. Modi has a pra- fi ed. A leader; and a leader has to be charak’s sense of law and order where hoarding size, all pervasive, all casual, the the nation state was not only a discipli- immediate cause behind every change nary space, an organic whole but a moral from loans to new facilities. He not only apparatus. Loyalty to the nation state demands change, he triggers change. becomes the defi ning principle of law Change is a gigantic wish list that and order. tomorrow is better, that the new gene- ration will live better, that well-being Travesty of History is more prevalent. Change rehearses For Modi, the Nehruvian nation had thr ough new vocabularies. Change is re- become a travesty of history, an event skilling not unemployment. Change is appropriated by outsiders. Delhi was the culture, the asmita that is a standard extension of colonialism because Delhi refrain through every modifi cation. has distorted history. The offi cial text- Cha nge is difference – felt, perceived, book history of the nation state had analysed and celebrated. Modi has to be ignored stalwarts who defi ned the the difference that made the difference. Shiv Visvanathan ([email protected]) teaches grammar of nationalism – men like He has to be catalytic, provide the col- at O P Jindal University, Sonepat, Haryana. Malaviya, Ambedkar and Vivekananda. lective thesaurus for change. 10 MAY 31, 2014 vol xlIX no 22 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY ‘Development’ RSS and other groups had a more prag- do was erase memories of riots and move The word development was handy. It matic sense of science. They loved tech- on. Many Muslims tired of being captive was the stuff of policy reports, it was nology and were more open to psepho- to the ethnic ghetto were open to this World Bank gobbledygook, it signalled logy and semiotics. They wanted to cap- invitation. Development becomes a spir- direction, purposiveness. Development ture the symbol as science. The social itual machismo to challenge the Congress. was more open-ended unlike planning construction of Modi was a semiotic act The idea of development had also an which was technocratic, Nehruvian and and Modi’s greatest creation was deve- athletic spin to it built around numbers. therefore restrictive. Plan is what Nehr u- lopment as a simulacra. A simulacrum is Numbers have more than a symbolic vians did. It was top-down. Develop- not a copy of reality. It begins as a copy value. Initially it suggests that develop- ment was lateral, an invitation to all sec- and then distorts in creative reactions. ment increases a culture of numeracy, a tors of the society, an omnibus term Development began as an empirical civics of numbers and indices, but num- which invited everyone for a ride. Deve- game but development had little to do ber is deceptive. It encourages numbers lopment was aspirational, competitive. with empirics but became more of a as darts to be thrown at other states. Sta- One entered the world of rankings. It game. Modi created development as tistics allows you to collect development was local and global, it was technical simulacra, a game where people approxi- badges like boy scouts. When Modi chal- enough to be scientifi c, mundane enough mated development without achieving lenged other states in this new develop- for general use. It is a unifying word for it. It was like a video game, which be- ment Olympiad, he appealed to the mid- a middle class full of historical anxieties came more obsessive and real than the dle class as a Messiah and a technocrat. ready and waiting for a new history. reality. Development was Modi’s great- The word development was honey for Development is every man’s Camelot. est symbolic creation. Individuals, states new constituencies. The World Bank An India that wants change is ready and collectivities treated it as one of the loved him, he seemed to speak their lan- for development. rituals and expectations of citizenship. guage authoring a book on climate Development was a wonder word. It One sees it in ordinary conversations. change and visiting Davos as the only fi tted any group. It exploded like an epi- When surveys ask individuals what they Indian chief minister to do so. Soon, he demic with personality development, want or expect, no one says rights, or has a chorus of legitimators in corpora- community development, and industrial security. The majority answers develop- tions. Ratan Tata joins with statesmanly development. It could be measured, ran- ment. It has created the new grammar of approval, Anil Ambani echoes the devel- ked, and shuffl ed with. It became the governance. “I develop, therefore I am” opment chutzpah and the Adanis are conceptual game of the decade, a new became the new logic of Modi’s govern- ready to play his adjutants. IIM Ahmeda- hierarchy where lesser development ance and being. bad invites him as CEO for the day. He meant lesser orders of being. It became plays the development artist, creating a the new Snakes and Ladders of the Theology of Change single window of decisions, offering regime that every magazine from India Development as a strategy provided a land to the Tata Nano project in 24 Today to Governance Now, and every theology of change. To be a Vivekananda hours. The middle class, corporations agency from the World Bank to Sasa- for a theory of civilisation would be too and the dias pora now form a powerful kawa Foundation could engage in. It was much to attempt, but a Vivekananda for chorus. Modi has captured a discourse method, it was prophecy, it allowed for a development creates a spiritually virile and orchestrates it to his advantage. Gu- transfer of utopia with Modi promising world, a moral universe for judgment. jarat is the new development paradigm that the Gujarat model of development As Mr Development, Modi could defi ne and Modi its greatest exemplar. Anyone could be replicated all over India. It was Rahul as effete. Development created else who echoed the word, whether a league table, a classifi catory sequence, the high moral ground. It also produced economist or politician, had to play sec- a seeding. It became the new game of a sleight of hand. Development legiti- ond fi ddle. Modi was inventor, exemplar governance, a new literacy which every- mised an abandoning of the past, a dis- and high priest of the development dis- one could play. To want development lodging of ethnicity. An invitation to course. He added mana and potency to was a normal act of citizenship.