A face on the calendar

Till a BJP minister in Haryana waded in with comments belittling the Mahatma, it appeared that the Opposition was making a mountain out of a molehill in the matter of a calendar and a diary, issued by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. The Opposition voices accused the Commission of replacing the Mahatma with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Commission had rightly pointed out it was neither mandatory nor conventional that the Mahatma’s photograph should appear; in fact, the Mahatma did not make it to the cover in 1996, 2002, 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2016. And, it can be argued that the Mahatma’s permanent and respectful place in Indian history and India’s collective conscience does not get dislodged just because a government-controlled Commission omits his photograph from its calendar and diary. 

The Opposition, again, was over-pitching in criticising the Commission for using Narendra Modi’s photograph, rather than that of the Mahatma. Nobody becomes a mahatma by simply getting himself photographed with a charkha. After all, the charkha denotes a set of values and carries with it a suggestion of austerity and self-denial. No one in our public life has managed to come anywhere near the persona associated with that iconic image of the Mahatma at work on the charkha. It would be comforting to know that if anyone has to take objections, it has to be the Prime Minister himself, because surely he too knows that any comparison with the Mahatma would only invite ridicule and derision. As someone well-versed in the art of marketing, the Prime Minister can be expected to know the danger of an over-sell drive. He had earlier discouraged — and, rightly so — his followers from setting up a temple in his name. 

Technicalities apart, the larger issue is of the creeping culture of sycophancy. It was not long ago that the Prime Minister had landed himself in massive embarrassment when he demonstratively put on an expensive, self-monogrammed suit. The Prime Minister has a well-advertised and well-photographed fondness for expensive clothes. Still, no one can find fault with him for this weakness. But, then, only a professional durbari can think of the Prime Minister as a mascot for khadi.