Understanding the Narendra Modi Phenomenon
Posted: 26 Jun 2020 00:45
Whether you love him, or hate him, think he is too soft, or too harsh, or just right, you would probably agree that Narendra Modi is an extraordinary political phenomenon of contemporary times. Maybe even sui generis, one of a kind. Unique.
Modi the politician and man has been compared to all sorts of contemporary world leaders. The comparisons prove to be rather weak in every case, in that they don't really tell us anything useful about the character, values and decision-making process of Modi the man, or the historical and social forces that caused him to emerge. Mainly because they are lazily or ignorantly conceived and executed comparisons.
What does "useful" mean here? If you think of Modi as a net positive for India and the world, then one meaning of "useful" could be, being able to replicate in some sense (through training, for example) leaders of the caliber of Modi.
For someone who thinks of him negatively, I suppose it would mean, among other things, being able to identify the steps needed to prevent replicas of Modi from emerging. This means, in turn, for those who think of him as a positive, a reinforced need for understanding, so that they could thwart the enemies of the Modi phenomenon.
As a starting point, here are two broad questions that come to my mind:
* What historic inflection points can be held responsible for the emergence of Modi?
* Similarly, what features of society and culture can be held responsible?
* What accounts for the apparent fact that Modi seems to be one of a kind in quality and caliber among his political peers?
I started this thread because
a. I have been curious about these questions for quite some time, and
b. I am concerned that the Modi era may be nothing more than a brief interlude of remission on Indic India's journey to perdition and extinction.
I hope Mods will let this thread live and BRFites will participate.
I'll kick things off next time by posting my "personal experience" of the Modi phenomenon, to see what may be learned from it.
Modi the politician and man has been compared to all sorts of contemporary world leaders. The comparisons prove to be rather weak in every case, in that they don't really tell us anything useful about the character, values and decision-making process of Modi the man, or the historical and social forces that caused him to emerge. Mainly because they are lazily or ignorantly conceived and executed comparisons.
What does "useful" mean here? If you think of Modi as a net positive for India and the world, then one meaning of "useful" could be, being able to replicate in some sense (through training, for example) leaders of the caliber of Modi.
For someone who thinks of him negatively, I suppose it would mean, among other things, being able to identify the steps needed to prevent replicas of Modi from emerging. This means, in turn, for those who think of him as a positive, a reinforced need for understanding, so that they could thwart the enemies of the Modi phenomenon.
As a starting point, here are two broad questions that come to my mind:
* What historic inflection points can be held responsible for the emergence of Modi?
* Similarly, what features of society and culture can be held responsible?
* What accounts for the apparent fact that Modi seems to be one of a kind in quality and caliber among his political peers?
I started this thread because
a. I have been curious about these questions for quite some time, and
b. I am concerned that the Modi era may be nothing more than a brief interlude of remission on Indic India's journey to perdition and extinction.
I hope Mods will let this thread live and BRFites will participate.
I'll kick things off next time by posting my "personal experience" of the Modi phenomenon, to see what may be learned from it.