Exploring Modi's Unwavering Popularity in India's Election Landscape

Speaker 2
It's a country of over a billion people, so the election takes weeks. And we are right now in the middle of that process. So, first of all, where do things stand now in the race?
Speaker 1
Well, it's hard to know exactly right now. There's so much noise around the campaigning and both sides. Prime Minister Modi and his opposition are pitching their side. But most observers expect Modi to be the favorite in this race because of his own popularity. This race has become a test of the popularity of a leader who has been in power for 10 years and who has a confidence that even if his party is struggling, his popularity can lift up their chances. And
Speaker 2
that's what I want to talk to you about, his popularity. I want to understand how that fits with the other thing I think of when I think of Modi, which is his authoritarian tendencies. And the last time you and I talked, it was after a political assassination in Canada that had been traced back to Modi's government. So how is it that Modi has managed to become such a prominent, durable figure in India in the world's largest democracy? So
Speaker 1
I've been in India for over three years now. And one of the central questions that has fascinated me is exactly that. He just has this enormous grip over the imagination of what is a hugely diverse country. The number of languages, the number of ethnicities, the number of religions, you know, across 1.4 billion people and in a huge geography. But he just has this talent of making them feel, one, making them feel united as the new India that he imagines. And he's put himself at the center of reimagining what it means to be Indian in this age.
Speaker 2
And how is he doing that, Munchiv?
Speaker 1
A lot of it comes from the fact that he knows this country very well, that he's traveled, he's spent time across the districts. So he understands, I think, the pulse of this country very well. But he also does it by using technology, by using both old and new methods, by constantly painting narratives that project India as this one nation on the march. And one of the ways he does that is through this monthly radio show that he has. A
Speaker 2
monthly radio show, kind of like FDR's Fireside Chat?
Speaker 1
Sort of, but a lot more personal in the way that he draws on his own story that most Indians are very familiar with. That here's a man very much like them. That he comes from a really humble economic background. You know, his father was a tea seller, but also in India's rigid caste hierarchy. He is not from the top communities. And also that he's dedicated his life almost entirely to what he says is his nation, the national cause. He doesn't have a family. He was married at one point, but he's sort of separated from his wife and he never talks about it. He always projects himself as a bachelor who around the clock only thinks about India. And this comes into the radio show. The range of topics that he discusses.

One Strongman, One Billion Voters, and the Future of India

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