BackOpinion | The Prime Minister’s television surprise
While Narendra Modi’s appearance on a global ‘reality television’ show could certainly do his public image a good turn, it’s not as if such a break from convention is entirely riskless
PremiumThe buzz is unmistakable. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to appear on Discovery channel’s survival show, Man Vs. Wild. It will be beamed across the world on 12 August and social media is agog with a teaser of the episode that is doing the rounds. News of the appearance has taken many of us by surprise. After all, how often does one see an Indian politician, let alone the country’s top elected representative, wander the jungles, sail on a makeshift raft or fashion a spear? As an exercise in image projection, it has high potential, especially among the youth, who are likely to be charmed by the idea of a national watchman with a yen for outdoorsy adventure. Other world leaders have, of course, done similar things; former US president Barack Obama’s day out with Bear Grylls, the show’s anchor, and Vladimir Putin’s fishing expedition in the Russian countryside come to mind. Modi, however, has spanned a wide range of optical occasions, from twisting his back into a yoga posture on the lawn of his official residence in New Delhi to a picture-perfect lotus pose for a session of meditation in a Himalayan cave near the Kedarnath shrine in Uttarakhand. That he is a master of the craft goes without saying.
Through the Discovery show, the Prime Minister reportedly expects to make an appeal for wildlife conservation. That he will also come across as a man of action, as a leader who doesn’t need the usual trappings of authority to lead, may be secondary to that aim, but it’s what will resonate most with the country’s electorate, particularly his nationalist supporters who see in him a reflection of what they would like India to be: strong and resilient. This would reinforce Modi’s signature theme of leadership, though other facets of his personality have been on display as well. In the run up to the general elections earlier this year, he gave an interview to actor Akshay Kumar that brought out his softer side—one of the highlights being his love for mangoes. While the interview was ridiculed by Opposition parties, it perhaps helped steer the public discourse away from pressing issues of governance and endeared him to even more voters.
Image consultants believe that every new move of this nature comes loaded with some risk, especially since audience responses are difficult to predict. For example, the use of holograms to make virtual speeches, pioneered by Modi for his 2014 campaign, was considered needlessly risky by some back then for being too obviously unreal as a stand-in. Once its novelty wore off, the idea was dropped. As for Man Vs. Wild, the Opposition seems to fancy a chance to revive its charge that the Prime Minister was too busy shooting for a television show—a frivolity in its view—to respond with appropriate gravity to news of the Pulwama terror attack in mid-February. The Congress alleges that he kept the cameras rolling even after being informed of it. The Prime Minister’s party has denied this. Even so, given India’s response to the Pulwama attack that was hailed as a success, a revival of this discussion is unlikely to hurt Modi’s image. The risks of appearing on such a show are different. The teaser seems to have an air of aloofness from urban concerns—over the parlous state of the economy, for example. Nobody has anything against “reality shows". One only hopes that the urgent issues ailing the country don’t get lost in the bargain.
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