Prime Minister Narendra Modi is everywhere in India. From billboards to book covers, TV screens to department store mannequins, Modi’s face, name, and meticulously crafted image, seem to be vying with the gods of the Hindu pantheon, for ubiquity and the Nike Swoosh, and Pepsi Globe for brand recognition.
Loyal citizens of Modi’s India can follow the Honorable NaMo™ on his official app, study the numerous books by him or about, him available at their nearest bookstore, and purchase his signature jacket and kurta from his custom clothing label.
And why wouldn’t they? After all, Modi is India, and so Indians should naturally strive to become Modi — even though there can only ever be one NaMo™.
This highly refined, all-encompassing personality cult indicates an almost Herculean narcissism. And, when the mocking laughter dies down, this narcissism reverberates with deeply authoritarian overtones. The hideous, never-ending countrywide parade of Muslim, Christian, Dalit, and adivasi lynchings; the sweeping, relentless, and often brutal attacks on dissenting activists, journalists, and intellectuals; and the militarised suffocation of eight million residents of Kashmir, the mass detention of two million residents of Assam, and the legislative exclusion of up to 200 million Muslims — all of which have been overseen, stoked, or initiated by Modi’s BJP government — are hardly laughing matters.
However, one of the key ingredients of this monstrous narcissism is rather counterintuitive: it’s humility or at least the cunning performance of humility.
The Ascetic Aesthetic And Humble Tyranny
Modi epitomises the Indian ascetic aesthetic: the politically, economically, and culturally resonant image of spiritual purity, self-denial, and selflessness deployed by numerous politicians, businesspeople, and godmen alike. This image arguably stems from the Hindu notion of bhakti, which, at its most simplified, denotes loving devotion to a supreme deity. As part of the path to salvation, this devotion is supposed to cleanse the devotee in question, inspiring — among other things — a personal austerity grounded in the rejection of materialism.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s warning about the dangers of bhakti was prescient, to say the least: today, the bhakti-inspired ascetic aesthetic constitutes a pre-eminent means of accumulating social and cultural capital in Indian society, in aa much, as it provides its users with sociocultural power vis-a-vis heightened visibility, reverence, and influence.
Moreover, this social and cultural capital secures, reinforces, and increases political and economic capital, thus enabling what I call humble tyranny: incipient, continued, or intensified top-down control, exploitation, and violence under the guise of modest, magnanimous leadership.
Condemnations of humble tyrants, as nothing more than hypocrites, do not adequately address how and why they can (literally and figuratively) get away with murder: the ascetic aesthetic traps their followers in self-reinforcing prophecies, that foster a cognitive dissonance between these tyrants’ symbolic gestures and their de facto positions and actions. To the extent that these leaders have the basic trappings of humility, they can do no wrong, no matter the glaring contradictions in their conduct. Humility thus becomes a smokescreen, an instrument of pacification, and a vehicle for political and economic betrayal.
The Chaiwala, The Good Billionaire, And The Holy Man
Thanks to the ascetic aesthetic, Modi remains a peace-loving vegetarian yogi even as his gau-rakshak, CRPF, and ABVP foot-soldiers continue to make Hindu nationalist terror the order of the day in India.
More than that, he remains the mythical chaiwala-turned-supreme public servant, even as he walks around in $16,000 suits, obliterating the wealth of India’s impoverished masses through demonetisation, selling off public assets to the highest bidder, and presiding over a collapsing economy.
Just as many Americans uncritically celebrate bootstraps narratives, that channel American capitalism’s Protestant work ethic, Indians take purported rags-to-raja stories like Modi’s as definitive proof that the protagonists of these stories know and care about the plight of the common person.
In truth, these supposed embodiments of individual integrity, industry, and determination are often propelled to prominence by other wily power players (like, say, the RSS), who then keep them in power for as long as they are strategically useful (for, say, consolidating a militarised, corporatised Hindustan). Regardless of their origins, humble tyrants are far removed from the harrowing realities of everyday life, for most of India, by the very positions of power they occupy and the self-interest that props up these positions, however many feet they wash or beaches they clean.
Modi is by no means the only humble tyrant saturating public space and consciousness in India. Right around the corner from most images of the Prime Minister — whether you’re in suburban Delhi or rural Jharkhand — you are bound to see shop signs displaying the unmistakable logos of the Tata Group and Patanjali Ayurved Limited.
The faces of these iconic conglomerates, Ratan Tata and Baba Ramdev, strike a sharp contrast with each other. Ratan Tata is the venerable patriarch of a more than 150-year-old nation-building industrialist powerhouse. He’s one of India’s “good billionaires,” as he has demonstrated through his numerous charitable and philanthropic endeavours, as well as his willingness to criticise “bad billionaires”, like Mukesh Ambani for their lives of excess.
Baba Ramdev, on the other hand, is perhaps India’s most notorious godman-cum-businessman. He’s a “penniless” yogi who happens to lead a multi-billion dollar enterprise, hawking everything from Ayurvedic ketchup to Ayurvedic toilet cleaner, while promising to cure homosexuality with yoga, calling for a policy to control India’s Muslim population, and deeming followers of Periyar and Ambedkar “ideological terrorists.”
Humble tyrants come in many shapes, sizes, and colours, and they by and large pursue their shared interests across their differences. Tata and Ramdev demonstrate how the ascetic aesthetic manifests itself, at both extremes of the spectrum, between reserved refinement and bombastic vulgarity, as it exists in the realms of political manoeuvring, material accumulation, and cultural warfare.
As a good billionaire who refuses conspicuous consumption and throws a bone or two to the downtrodden, Ratan Tata arouses scant suspicion, as they acquire scarce land and other precious resources for one of India’s largest, wealthiest, and most influential transnational corporations.
As a penniless billionaire who vows to lead the simple life of a sadhu, Baba Ramdev is hailed as a saintly, entrepreneurial patriot when he clogs the airwaves with Patanjali ads and instigates violence against the heretics who dare to question him, the righteousness of Hindutva, or the BJP head honchos with whom he regularly rubs shoulders.
Alongside his bad billionaire counterpart, Ambani, Tata attended Modi’s second swearing-in ceremony earlier this year, having previously praised Modi’s vision for the country and committed the Tata Trusts to fulfil the Prime Minister’s (wildly misfiring) Swacch Bharat Mission.
Ramdev, meanwhile, followed up his vociferous campaigning for Modi by offering his heartiest congratulations through various media channels; he even helpfully advised opposition leaders to use Kapalbhati and Anulom-Vilom breathing exercises to control their stress for the next 10 to 15 years. Both men, in their own styles, reaffirm Modi’s humble tyranny in order to advance their own, epitomizing how the state, capital, and religiosity combine to profit from the fetishisation of humility.
India’s ideal humble tyrant is a statesman, a tycoon, and a yogi all rolled into one: he fans the flames of reactionary nationalism and sits atop a mountain of ill-gotten gains while folding his hands in simpering obeisance.
Unmasking Humility, Celebrating Audacity
The ascetic aesthetic and the many flavours of humble tyranny that it enables, extend well beyond Modi, Tata, and Ramdev to other politicians, corporate puppeteers, and millenarian figureheads across India.
For that matter, these political, economic, and cultural weapons are very much employed outside of India and South Asia as well, albeit through different vehicles and with different resonances.
Justin Trudeau tries to court progressive Canadians by marching in LGBTQ+ Pride Parades, greeting refugees at the airport, and donning culturally appropriate garb for various community celebrations, even though he continues to sanction oil pipelines across Indigenous territory and sell arms to Saudi Arabia.
Bill Gates is apparently another good billionaire for wearing a $10 wristwatch and trying to solve the world’s problems through his eponymous foundation, even though the latter only feeds the wealth generation mechanisms that made Gates his billions, has set off alarm bells for testing vaccines on highly vulnerable populations in India, and was roundly lambasted for honouring Modi (as fate would have it) shortly after the crackdown in Kashmir began.
Princes William and Harry are “good royals” for completing their military service and championing select humanitarian causes, even though they are the heirs to a political dynasty built upon the broken bones and plundered wealth of millions of colonised people.
Can The Power Brokers Of India And The World Ever Truly Be Humble?
For that matter, what does humility in the context of politics, economics, and culture even mean in the first place? Should humility really entail nothing more than a set of pre-designated gestures that automatically signal virtue and bestow their users with untold power, sidelining substantive concerns on the basis of blind faith?
The stomach-churning brutality endured by students at Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University in the past few days – all in the name of an Act that Modi hailed for reaffirming India’s “humanitarian values” – strongly suggests that we should not.
Perhaps Indians and people of conscience across the world should stop worshipping humility as the face of power and instead recognise audacity in the face of power — that is, the audacity of ordinary people who defy their humble circumstances to fight for autonomy, dignity, equity, and justice.
The audacity of the Kashmiri youth who have refused to submit to their occupiers. The audacity of the Jharkhandi Adivasis who refuse to let public and private corporations blacken their forests, poison their water, and destroy their homelands.
The audacity of the millions who have taken over public squares, metro stations, and government buildings in Haiti, Lebanon, Bolivia, and France over the past several months, vociferously rejecting the destitution, disenfranchisement, and domination that have taken over their lives.
In seeing all these audacious people take matters of life and limb into their own hands, perhaps we can realise our own capacity to do the same, well and truly bringing our tyrants – humble or otherwise – to their knees.