The middle-class-driven ‘New India’ embraces Modi – the new book provides analysis about the rise of Modi

eNarada | Bengaluru | Friday, April 10, 2020 | 17.40

By R. Guru Prasad

The release of the much-awaited book ‘Middle Class, Media and Modi: The Making of a New Electoral Politics’ is postponed due to lockdown in India.

The author of the book, Nagesh Prabhu, a senior journalist with  ‘The Hindu’ said the SAGE publications made all arrangements to release this book in March this year but due to lockdown, the idea was dropped temporarily.

Nagesh Prabhu has 3 decades of field experience in covering politics. In this book he narrates policies introduced by then PM Rajiv Gandhi to ‘woo poorest of poor people’  and the latest ‘Lights off –lamps on, for 9 minutes at 9 pm on 5 April 2020’campaign by PM Modi.

Speaking to  #eNaradaNews, Nagesh Prabhu said, “Rajiv Gandhi introduced many policies for the welfare of poor people including ‘Garibi Hatao’  but could not take it forward as precisely as Modi. Truly, he (Modi)  operates on those soft levers of the middle class and the media through his novel social engineering tools. This book, which hits the stands in a few weeks from now, is about deciphering the charisma that Modi wields on the middle class and the media through which he ascended the political ladder right from a Swayam Sevak to a Pradhan Sevak. Modi’s techniques leveraged the burgeoning Indian middle class through a slew of welfare and progressive policies/ programs initiated by his government during the last six years.”

Now responding to the public demand and the middle classes’ lockdown woes, Doordarshan (DD) is once again broadcasting Hindu epics television programs – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. That draws the middle class closer to the PM, as broadcasting these under Rajiv Gandhi’s government in the late 1980s brought spectacular results to the BJP. The book traces how the BJP benefited from the Ayodhya movement that was largely aided by DD which broadcast Hindu epics to nationwide audiences.

The book not only provides the analysis of the rationale behind the rise of Modi over the BJP’s spectacular victories in the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections but also examines the strategy Modi adopted: a form of social engineering he created himself to communicate with the Indian electorate. It examines factors constructing Modi’s image as a charismatic leader who negotiated a long ladder from Swayam Sevak to Pradhan Sevak, the coveted post of Prime Minister, not once but twice. The ‘New India’ for the middle class and Modi is a clean and sanitized political landscape, free from a dynasty. The middle-class-driven ‘New India’ will not only occupy a central pillar in Indian politics but it also stands to gain from the Modi government’s future policies.