Narendra Modi remains popular even when he makes mistakes or is unable to deliver. These have nothing to do with people trusting him. There are voters who say, ‘If Modi is doing it, it must be right.’
Modi is not the only politician who enjoys such trust. Naveen Patnaik in Odisha is another such man. There is no dearth of examples from the past and present, from the MLA-level to the Prime Minister level, of leaders enjoying unshakeable trust.
Let us break down the factors that drive public trust in politicians.
Service vs power
It is a big ask when a politician expects you to trust her with your vote for five years. It is a fixed deposit you can’t withdraw. You will only open a fixed deposit if you trust the bank to deliver the returns.
People want to know if a politician will be around to serve the people, or will they enjoy power and forget the people. This is a dichotomy between social service and power. This is why we often hear politicians say they want to serve the people, power is only a better means to do so.
But some of our politicians don’t even make such claims, they don’t even understand that they must position themselves as social workers rather than power players. This is particularly true of politicians who inherit their political careers. They are unable to understand that public trust is not part of the inheritance. So, it was a pleasant surprise to see 30-year-old Aaditya Thackeray make this point in an interview with Pradeep Chhibber and Harsh Shah for their book, India Tomorrow. Thackeray says:
“Elections matter to us because you have to win elections and once you win you can do a lot of good. But the whole transformation for me in terms of politics as a concept has been from focusing only on elections to those five years between elections.”
Thackeray goes on to explain how the Shiv Sena works as a social organisation, with unions and coaching for Marathi youth to crack entrance exams and partnering with NGOs for drought relief and running ambulances, and so on. This is partly why the Shiv Sena is strong enough to survive the Modi era.
Even Gandhi wanted the Congress party to disband after Independence so that it could transform into a new social service organisation, called the Lok Sevak Sangh.
Also read: Four steps to defeating Modi in 2024. Step one: forget state elections
Always be around
Another important factor in building trust is accessibility. We often hear voters say this about their elected representatives: ‘He never visited me in five years. He was never around.’
It is impossible to be accessible to over 138 crore people. Since the number of seats in our legislatures has not been increased with the rise in population, a Lok Sabha MP today represents around 25 lakh people. The chimera of accessibility and 24×7 hard work is then built through visibility. People even within the Congress complain that Rahul Gandhi is inaccessible but nobody says this about Modi or Amit Shah.
Modi is so visible, making a thundering speech here and releasing a gimmicky video there, that it convinces people he works 16 hours a day. Who knows, maybe he works only 10 hours?
Even when Narendra Modi goes abroad he makes sure he doesn’t ‘disappear’ from the minds of Indian voters. He addresses an NRI audience, speaks on domestic issues, makes sure that we don’t really feel the prime minister is not around. Rahul Gandhi’s endless foreign trips would rankle less if he did something similar.
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Consistency builds trust
Nothing builds trust like consistency. People go to their favourite restaurant again and again because they know exactly what the food will taste like. A politician who is consistent with her ideas, policies, objectives, visibility, even clothing and body language, is able to win the trust of the people.
An inconsistent politician says one thing today and another thing tomorrow. A BJP worker in Uttar Pradesh once told me why he thought the party declined in the early 2000s. “People felt we cheated them on Ram Mandir. We said Mandir Mandir and then forgot about it.”
When Rahul Gandhi suddenly stops going to temples just because elections are over, it breaks trust. The next time he goes to a temple before an election, even his supporters won’t be able to claim it is genuine faith, and not an electoral gimmick.
India’s most inconsistent politician is a certain chief minister of Delhi. One day he’s selling Lokpal and then he forgets all about corruption. One day he’s attacking Modi, next day he’s looking like an NDA ally. When the public can’t tell which way a politician will go, they don’t trust you. This is partly why Delhi’s own regional party is doomed to remain just that.
Also read: Not vikas, Modi’s 2019 election was built on politics of vishwas
Permanent campaign
This point can’t be overstated. To look like one’s goal is people’s welfare and not power, to always be visible, to appear consistent and make up for one’s inconsistencies — for all of this and more, politicians need to be in campaign mode all the time. Any point a politician has to make has to be a campaign. Press conferences and one-day events won’t do it in a world suffering from information overload.
Modi typically comes up with an over-arching slogan that lasts a year or two. Everything he has to do becomes part of this campaign slogan. These days it is ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, before which it was ‘$5 trillion economy’, before which it was ‘New India 2022’ and so on. Under the umbrella of visionary-sounding slogans, he’s campaigning all the time. Just look at how he’s been hard-selling a banality like the National Education Policy. When Modi has no campaign pitch to offer he’ll release a peacock video.
Permanent campaign seeks public approval on a daily basis, not just before elections. If the people like you all five years, they don’t suddenly lose trust in you when your opponents start attacking you before elections. They’ve been trusting you forever.
In the India Tomorrow book, there’s also an interview of Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, where he is asked: “Politics is a 24×7 job. You are a politician and so is your wife, Dimple. Has this posed any difficulties in your personal life? How do you manage your personal, public, and political life?”
Yadav replies: “If you would have asked this question two years ago, I would have said that it was difficult. Currently, we are in the opposition so we are a bit relaxed.”
Narendra Modi has been permanently in power since 2001 because he is never relaxed. There hasn’t been a day when he hasn’t been trying to occupy the people’s mind-space.
Permanent campaign is the marketing of trust.
The author is contributing editor, ThePrint. Views are personal.
An apt analysis. The Congress stalwarts should read.
Aren’t you worried that the country’s future totally depends on these ‘If Modi is doing it, it must be right.’ voters? i. e. “Modi bharose” voters? When you are looking for an expert advice, you would naturally look for the best expert in the field. For instance, if you are to undergo a surgery, you would look for the best surgeon. But then when it comes to a single most important matter, i. e. the future of the country, you go to the most ignorant mass of “Ram bharose” voters! What is the reason and logic behind this? Years ago I had heard a joke that a country like India can’t exist without the mercy of God, India proves that the God exists!
The haters are throwing in the towel. Why? Why are you rats abandoning that leaky sinking ship called the Congress?
Most people do not understand the importance of time. When the time is right for your ideas, you are a genius. When the time isn’t right, you can have the most brilliant of ideas but still be called an idiot/maverick/not in tune with reality/infantile/inconsistent/mentally unstable/intellectually lazy for those ideas. Presently the time is right for Modi’s ideas – hence others who oppose him look inadequate – and people like Kejriwal and Mayawati support him in the hope that some of Modi’s support rubs off on them too.
India can be realistically compared to only 2 countries – China and USA. Chinese people have no choice in selecting their govt, so no comments there. But the Americans, who are further along on their journey as a democracy, have a substantial movement called post-modernism which looks to address the gap in the wealth between the super-rich and the rest of us ordinary folks. So the super-rich have got together with the white supremacists and have the Republican party representing them while the intelligentsia, working class and minorities are represented by the Democrats. Right now the BJP occupies the pole position, but their super-rich friends will lose support as economic misery starts biting the working class and the already substantial gap in India between the super-rich and the rest keeps growing. And they are not even looking for the minority votes. So whichever politician will represent the post-modern voice in the coming years will be able to seriously challenge the right-wing ecosystem. Right now it is only RG who is the single proponent of post-modernism in Indian politics. Before long there will be others as well. Shivam will have to wait.
Has the writer even contested school class monitor election? So easy to sit and pass judgements and opinions on others. Some ppl are Educated beyond intelligence
Where is the learning on how politicians lose trust? You cant have an article titled win or lose and talk about win 4 times and lose just once that too in the context of people dont lose trust which is essentially a win.
These half hearted insights from the Print is not expected, as there was no real insight.
CONSISTENCY TOO HAS TWO SIDES. TRUTH & LIES. THE SECRET OF 56 ” IS RATHER HOW CONSISTENTLY HE IS ABLE TO FOOL THE PEOPLE WITH LIES AND MORE LIES.
Another paid and below par article.