Given what is at stake in the 2019 general election, much can be read into recent surveys where a majority of respondents found Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be the most trusted leader and that his leadership enhances the country’s image abroad.
In this epoch of social media, the hunger for admiration is unbounded, which could explain this national fixation with the country’s global image. This craving to prove India’s prowess in the absence of real progress in many areas has resulted in certain awkward moments for the government and the country. A recent one was the doctored video of the Vande Bharat Express posted online by Railways Minster Piyush Goyal.
There is enough data to link this image-neediness to other sociopsychological findings. According to the United Nations’ 2018 World Happiness Index, India ranks low, lower than the Occupied Palestinian Territories. According to the World Health Organisation, India is the most depressed country in the world. In 2015, India ranked fourth in a Social Hostilities Index. And in the 2018 Global Peace Index, it ranked 137 out of 163 countries and territories.
Herein lies the paradox: an unhappy and depressed country dealing with large doses of internal hostility is concerned with its leader’s ability to enhance the country’s image. This is a natural corollary to the strategy of impression management, a notion that seems to have come into vogue in recent years after it was promoted by the current dispensation. For example, consider the public and media references to Mr. Modi’s 56-inch chest and the bear hugs he gives to global leaders. All of this implicitly gets linked to the broad question of policy performance. Never mind that policies such as demonetisation, implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, and the surgical strikes across the Line of Control in 2016 were seen by many to have failed in some regards; the mere image of the Prime Minister being decisive and driving these policies to bring about positive change seems enough to carry the day. This aura also appears to legitimise taking credit for the previous government’s achievements.
The BJP-created need for a strong leader has synthesised into potent individual cravings for global recognition. This has become so chronic that we as a country are more interested in creating and maintaining a facade of social harmony and uninterrupted economic progress than recognising the disarray at home and putting things in order. Or is the high from global recognition a coping mechanism for the despair citizens find themselves in? That India is more concerned about the face it shows to the world than what the world sees behind it indicates how far removed it chooses to be from reality.
The writer is the author of 1400 Bananas, 76 Towns & 1 Million People
