Since May 2014, the BJP and the ruling coalition have been subject to the interests or desires of a single man, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A tremendous personality cult has grown up around Modi, and its manifestation can be observed in official and Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) propaganda, media eulogies, and adoring calls of his ostensibly revolutionary leadership by India’s prominent businesses, entertainers, and sports stars. The term “cult of personality” was popularized in reference to Joseph Stalin by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in his address to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956. Stalin’s situation was not special nor exceptional because the communist world was rife with personality cults in the decades that ended World War II, including those of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Enver Hoxha in Albania, and Kim Il Sung in North Korea.
The world’s most brilliant mind and the undisputed truth, Chairman Mao’s ideas are a distillation of his knowledge of the proletariat’s struggles in China and across the world. The cults of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany came before those of Stalin and Mao. Notably, both developed in circumstances that contained some democratic elements. In the 1932 elections, seats obtained by Hitler’s National Socialists were the highest. Mussolini attempted to gain credibility through an election eight years prior, despite the fact that the voting process was all that but fair and impartial. In an effort to bolster their own and their parties’ power, both presidents promptly put an end to political and personal freedoms after taking office.
One hundred years after the emergence of Hitler and Mussolini, authoritarian leaders are once again taking power in nations with a history of democracy. These elected autocrats include Vladimir Putin of Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Modi, and, last but not least, the autocrat who is currently out of favour but longs for a comeback, former U.S. President Donald Trump. All of these leaders have received a great deal of admiration and personalized leadership. They all attempt to position themselves as the nation’s saviour or redeemer, uniquely qualified to increase its prosperity, power, and adherence to what they assert to be its rich cultural and historical history. They have all created personality cults around themselves. Two prominent characteristics can help to identify the personality cult in a leader. The first is that they frequently encourage crony capitalism, with a selected group of businessmen enjoying windfall profits as a result of their allegiance to the leader and his party and their closeness to them. Second, they frequently encourage majoritarianism based on race or religion. The leader is considered to exemplify the essence of this dominant group with a single distinction and effectiveness. The majority ethnic or religious group is claimed to reflect the actual essence of the country.
Every leader with a cult personality proved themselves advantageous to some extent but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has some different aspects. Three reasons put emphasis on Modi’s cult personality. First, it takes place in a country with the supposedly longest history of democracy. Second, given that India is about to surpass China as the world’s largest populated country, this cult will likely have more profound effects than similar cults built elsewhere in the entire world. Third, probably most significantly, this personality cult has developed in a nation that had rather strong and frequently democratic norms until quite recently. Prior to Modi taking office in May 2014, India had a democracy that had lasted for longer overall and India also possessed a vibrant public discourse culture, a press that was relatively free, and a court that was largely independent.
Modi as a cult leader has restricted the state institutions from exercising power independently, and the following have been affected the most under Modi’s authoritarianism. The political party is the very first of these institutions. Cults of personality were fiercely resisted by Indra Gandhi’s party, the BJP, in the past. The RSS, the BJP’s parent organization, has consistently emphasized that it does not support “Vyakti Puja”, or the worship of individuals. But since 2014, Modi has consolidated his whole and undivided control over the BJP. All BJP officials, including those who are more senior than Modi in society as a whole, have submissively followed orders, whether due to fear or devotion. There is absolutely no dissension among the greatest party in the largest democracy in the world.
The Union Cabinet is the second governing body to have bowed down to Modi. Between 1998 and 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP’s first leader, served as prime minister. He governed as first among equals and granted his senior cabinet members a great deal of autonomy, which was consistent with both the values of his party and the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy that India had embraced. However, Modi ensures that he receives only credit for government welfare programs and rarely consults cabinet officials before making major policy decisions. The Prime Minister’s Office, which is filled by personally devoted unelected employees to Modi, many of whom are from his home state of Gujarat, runs the government in major part. Unluckily, India did not adopt the Westminster model’s Prime Minister’s Questions tradition. Bills on important issues like farm reforms and personal privacy, which have an impact on hundreds of millions of Indians, are approved without much debate and without being assigned to a parliamentary select committee for review, as protocol requires. The speakers in both chambers of Parliament are famously partisan, hastening the quick passage of a proposal developed in the Prime Minister’s Office into legislation without consulting the cabinet or the legislature.
The press is the third democratic body to have experienced a sharp deterioration after Modi took charge as PM of India. The press is meant to be independent in a democracy but it is compliant and propagandistic in India. In his eight years in the PM’s office, Modi has not conducted a single news conference to address the reporter’s question. He expresses his opinions through a bimonthly speech on state radio and occasionally in an interview with a journalist who is known to be supportive of the regime; both of these are conducted with a fawning devotion to Modi. The phrase “Godi Media” has been coined to describe prime-time news stations that fervently celebrate the prime minister and incessantly criticize the opposition. Numerous open-minded and unbiased journalists have been imprisoned on baseless charges relating to their work; other journalists have been targeted by the tax authorities.
The bureaucracy is the fourth important structure in a democratic state that has lost its autonomy and independence after Modi became the PM. In India, civil workers are expected to operate impartially and in compliance with the constitution. They have increasingly gotten more political over time, with many bureaucrats favouring certain political parties or even certain politicians. But after 2014, whatever autonomy and independence were left have been totally sundered. Modi lays a considerably higher emphasis on devotion than skill when selecting his top employees. Every ministry also employs a minder, who is a member of the RSS, to ensure that the senior civil servant who retires is replaced has the correct ideology. In addition, state agents have been brutally unleashed to subdue and intimidate the political opposition.
Last but not least, the court has not performed its constitutionally mandated duties in recent years. The legal scholar Anuj Bhuwania writes in Scroll.in, “During the Modi duration, not only has the court unable to carry out its constitutional duty as to keep an eye on governmental errors, it has additionally served as an ambassador for the Modi government’s agenda”. Not only has it abandoned its ostensibly anti-democratic role as a safeguard for citizens against state lawlessness, but it has also in fact operated as a potent sword that can be used at the executive’s command. He adds that the Supreme Court “has positioned its tremendous arsenal at the government’s command in pursuit of its radical dominant agenda.”
Compared to Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom or Donald Trump in USA, Modi poses a significantly larger threat to the future of democracy in his nation. It is clearly understood that Narendra Modi’s reelection campaign in 2024 would revolve around staged adoration and cult-building.
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