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.
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