The politics of spectacle

In the 2014 general election campaign, when L K Advani lost the race to become his party’s prime ministerial face to his junior colleague, then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, Advani took a sly dig at Modi saying, “Modi is not my protégé, he is an expert event manager.” Ten years later, after a decade of Modi’s prime ministership, Advani’s words ring truer than ever. The multi-pronged preparations for the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22 reveal the Modi publicity and event management machine working to perfection. 

Modi is a master of the grand political spectacle. In 2016, the Goods and Services Tax was ushered in with a midnight mass-style congregation at a joint session of parliament. The G-20 summit (only a rotational conference) saw multiple cities bedecked with touristic razzle dazzle and giant depictions of the PM. The opening of the new parliament struck devotional notes when the PM stepped down the aisle at the head of a procession of priests and MPs, bearing a `sceptre of righteousness’ or Sengol. Now, we have the crowning moment of the Modi regime’s communication expertise—the inauguration of the Ram temple. 

Extracting political benefits from massively mounted power displays projected live across all media is Modi’s particularly well-honed talent. No other Prime Minister of India has been as adept in the art of showmanship, whether in a minor event like flagging off a train or in a national celebration such as the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing. 

The build-up to the Ram temple is following Modi’s tried and tested ‘How to Stage a Political Spectacle’ playbook. First, start the media drumbeat and relentlessly blast the message across all media. Already, many ostensible ‘news’ channels are beginning to resemble Aastha TV in their 24x7 coverage of Ayodhya and ceremonial details of the consecration of the Ram idol. Second, send Sangh Parivar footsoldiers and BJP cadres to work on the ground to make direct contact with lakhs of people and spread the word. Invitations have also been sent out to celebrities, VVIPs and mood influencers. Third, locate the spectacle in the persona of the PM through a flood of photo-ops, with Modi front and centre. Modi held a well-publicised roadshow in Ayodhya last week when he inaugurated several infrastructure projects and was showered with rose petals. The PM visited the “billionth” beneficiary of the Ujjwala gas scheme, underlining his image as the fount of welfare. The woman, in turn, hailed the PM as ‘god’. 

Modi heads a democratically elected government but is presented by his communications team as a quasi-religious figure who enjoys divine sanction from the Hindu pantheon. As the campaigning for the 2019 general elections ended, Modi was photographed meditating in a cave in Kedarnath. In 2022, Modi was again seen in Kedarnath, framed against the mountains, his hands raised Moses-like as if relaying holy instructions. The photo-op, with the PM seen in holy places, is key to the assiduous cultivation of the image of ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’.

Yet, as the line between executive power and devotional cultism is almost completely blurred, we need to remind ourselves of the disastrous consequences of mixing religiosity with majoritarian politics. Should politicians preside over religious ceremonies which are the focus of deeply-held beliefs? Faith and spiritual pursuits are other worldly, soulful and reflect an inner human relationship with god. To harness the practice of religion to partisan politics only leads to a degeneration of values in both religion and in politics. The enduring values of religion -- justice, compassion, morality, and ethics -- are lost, and what remains, as we have seen in our South Asian neighbourhood, is the weaponisation of religion. When ostentatious religious ritualism is used as a political tactic, a democracy (where all citizens are equal) begins to look like a theocracy (where religion determines the nature of citizenship). Across the Islamic world, theocracies have undermined both democracy and genuine spirituality.

The inauguration of the Ram temple by the high grandees of the government reveals an attempt to finally bury the secular Nehruvian State. A State which was supposed to be insulated from religion of all hues and deal evenhandedly with all citizens, irrespective of personal religion, has been replaced by a State which now promotes the majority religion and stands for Hindu nationalism. 

For the ruling BJP, ever since it adopted the 1989 Palampur Declaration and publicly stated it was a party of the Ram temple, the temple is the fulfilment of an over three-decade-old promise. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was PM, pressures of a coalition government meant that the building of the Ram temple could be suggested only tentatively. In those years, Advani coined the term ‘positive secularism’ to distinguish the BJP from the Congress’ so-called `pseudo secularism’. Today, the word secularism has entirely gone missing from the official lexicon as the BJP, armed with a full majority, has ushered in the era of unapologetic Hindutva in which the political Hindu is centre-stage in the government and (if recent election results are any indication) among voters. 

Perfectly timed to coincide with the start of the 2024 general election campaign, the devotional upsurge around the Ram temple will undoubtedly feed into public mood going into the polls. With the open involvement of State and government in a religious ceremony, political Hinduism has been mainstreamed and normalised, and is an inescapable part of politics. In the prevailing atmosphere of religio-politics, we need to remind ourselves of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi held a spiritual approach to politics but was never seen with a particular deity or photographed with any temple serving as a backdrop to his political campaigns. The Mahatma’s ‘ramrajya’ was a quest for truth and social justice; the Modi-led BJP’s Ram Mandir spectacle is an assertion of political supremacy.

(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator based in Delhi)