A slip of the tongue is often a Freudian slip. The truth slips out inadvertently. The BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Puri, Sambit Patra, recently said, “Lord Jagannath is a bhakt of Modi,” or God himself is a devotee of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As controversy erupted, he quickly apologised. But Patra, who is a seasoned TV talking head, is not known for such “mistakes”, that too on camera.
Patra’s so-called “mistake” reveals the BJP’s current malaise—Modi is so overbearing a leader, his dominance so crushing that many in his party have been reduced to self-abnegating blind devotees, abjectly imbuing their supremo with “divine” attributes. Patra was only following his leader. Modi recently made similar statements, if only as a cue to his bhakts—devotees. In 2024, the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya has clearly failed to deliver political mileage; Modi is thus claiming a holy mantle for himself as an avatar of the Almighty.
In his last ten years as prime minister, Modi has never held an open press conference and rarely gives interviews. His aversion to independent media borders on fury and paranoia. In a 2007 interview with Karan Thapar, he is seen repeatedly sipping water and then abruptly quitting the interview, terrified of journalistic questioning.
Yet, in the 44 days between 31 March and 14 May, Modi has given 41 “soft”, scripted interviews where he did not take any hard questions and kept indulging in narcissistic image-building and projecting his own personality cult.
In three interviews on record, Modi claimed that he is not fully human but possesses God-like qualities. In an interview to CNN–News18, he said that until his mother was alive, he used to believe that his birth was “biological” but after her passing, he became convinced that he has been sent to earth by God since the energy he possesses cannot possibly have come from a human body.
In his interview to News 24, Modi repeated the part about being sent by God “for some work”. Later, he told NDTV that while people “may call me crazy, but I am convinced that Parmatma sent me for a purpose”.
In another interview, Modi laid out a “brighter future for the coming 1,000 years,” as if to suggest that the BJP’s reign is somehow beyond mortal lifetimes, representing an entire yuga, far grander than any mere electoral cycle.
What’s beneath the cloak?
When politicians seek to cloak themselves with divinity or claim that their rule is some sort of mythical epoch, they’re tacitly recognising that they face a severe legitimacy crisis and can only be rescued by the hand of God. Those leaders who lack moral stature, credibility and a convincing set of policy prescriptions claim God-like status to shore up their leadership. They do so in a misguided and unschooled belief that such a claim will replenish their fast-depleting political credibility and legitimacy. Elected autocrats claiming to be God set their parties on the road to ruin. When Modi-the-quasi-god disappears from the scene, the BJP will be left with its organisational networks and party structure mortally weakened by a surfeit of misdirected divine thunderbolts. Modi-as-god should make the BJP very worried about its future.
Claiming to be a messenger or an avatar of God achieves two objectives. First, it places a leader above other politicians, rationality and reason—basically, above all democratic norms. Claiming divinity means the leader can never be questioned, never be asked to abide by institutional restraints, and never be asked to govern rationally because he or she can simply claim, with the force of divine power, “I am the law and I am the state, so whatever I do is legitimate.” Claiming to be God means setting the stage for full-blown dictatorship.
Second, when a leader in a democracy claims to be God, there is no place for truth or hard empirical facts. The Indian republic is dedicated to the pursuit of truth. Our national motto is “Satyameva Jayate.” Let truth triumph. Democracies can only function when there are universally recognised truths and facts. Is India highly diverse and does it have 22 official languages? Yes, it does. Do electoral bonds exist and have they been declared illegal by the Supreme Court? Yes, they have. Is India facing an employment crisis and do youth make up 83 per cent of the total unemployed? Yes, they do. These are all empirical facts. Truth and facts are vital. Rule of law cannot operate without truth. Election results won’t be accepted without a belief in the truth. As historian Timothy Snyder writes, “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle, and the biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”
When a leader claims to be God, he is signalling that there is no objective truth. He, the individual, is the only truth and whatever he does, and however many lies he tells arbitrarily, all of it is true because he is telling them. Citizens are then lured away from truths and transformed into blind devotees, hypnotised by the leader who positions himself as the fountainhead of divine power. This negation of truth is deeply dangerous for each citizen.
God allusion isn’t working
BJP leaders have often pushed the Modi-as-God line. In 2018, then-parliamentary affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu described Modi as “God’s gift to India.” Former Meghalaya governor and BJP leader Tathagata Roy in 2020 said Modi “is an incarnation of Lord Krishna who has arrived in this world to save good men and kill rogues.” In 2022, a Madhya Pradesh minister called Modi “an incarnation of God like Lord Ram and Lord Krishna.” Last year, BJP president JP Nadda referred to him as the “King of gods.” Indira Gandhi and the Congress were taunted for years by the oft-repeated line “Indira is India,” uttered by the particularly sycophantic Congressman Dev Kant Barooah. But the BJP’s feverish and zealous devotion to Modi far outstrips Barooah in andh bhakti (blind worship).
During the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony in Ayodhya, Modi took centre stage. Across election posters today, Modi dominates completely. His larger-than-life face is splashed on every advertisement. Even Yogi Adityanath, seen by many as Modi’s vote catching successor, has been dwarfed in election posters in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP is in the vice-like grip of a suffocating personality cult, which is not allowing any other leader to thrive. In this personality cult, suffused with God-like resonances, the party’s organisational structure is atrophying. Most voters today would be hard-pressed to name the BJP’s chief ministers in Gujarat, Uttarakhand or Madhya Pradesh. The party painstakingly built by LK Advani and AB Vajpayee, once boasting a cadre of recognisable faces, today works entirely according to the whims of a single individual. Social scientist James Manor writes that the relentless promotion of the Modi cult has turned party activists into a collection of bhakts.
But the God allusions are not working. In the 2024 general elections, the BJP has already lost the narrative. Paper leaks, spiking cost of living (household savings are at their lowest in 50 years), youth unemployment, farm distress, water shortages, and destruction of MSMEs have burst the Modi balloon. It has shown how Modi and his party were living in la-la land by announcing they would get over 400 seats. The Modi personality cult pitchforked the BJP to two victories, but it is already evaporating. The 2024 election, which was projected as a ‘coronation’, has already delivered a reality check to Modi’s “divine” pretensions. The Leader may live in a bubble, but the citizens are raising more basic issues of mehngai (inflation) and rozgaar (employment). But when your self-image is of a God-like figure, do you really care about the travails of faceless voters or are they only pawns on the chessboard of the ‘divine’ Lord?
The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress (AITC). She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
People haven’t read the Bhagwat Gita for sure, what Modi said is called Karma Yoga. This kind of misrepresentation and misunderstanding comes from a lack of knowledge of one’s own culture!
One can understand managing 2-3 or even 4 scripted interviews. How ridiculous is it that someone can manage 41 scripted interviews. By looking at varied questions in all of them none of them is a scripted interview. Only thing is these are one on one interviews with full freedom to ask difficult questions.
A great article! Sagarika’s articulation of the current political situation of BJP and Modi in particular is true to its core. Modi’s statement that he is sent by God and that he is convinced that his energy comes from God means he is completely brain-washed by his own ideas, thinking inspired by RSS ideology. It is very much similar to “Chemical-LOCHA” as depicted in the film “Lage Raho Munnabhai”. This is not only suicidal for BJP, it is also dangerous for India. I sympathize with BJP-bhakts, and feel sorry for all Indians including myself.
When it comes to credibility, Modi alone has more credibility than Sagarika’s whole tribe. She should be the last person to talk about credibility.
Look who is talking. Is Sagarika and her tribe supposed to decide who is representing god? So far they have been behaving as if they are the chosen ones. No one else can lay claim as god’s representative.