Learn from Narendra Modi

Saba Naqvi

IF Narendra Modi had decided to float on a river for three days in the midst of an election (as Priyanka Gandhi did), he would have ensured a few things. First, the journey would have been shot from perfect camera angles including moving cranes, designed to make him look majestic. A top-notch high-definition video package would have been made, and the crowds would have been made to look larger through a particular camera lens. The package would then have been offered free to TV channels by the BJP.

Yes, that’s what was done between 2013 and 2014, when the then Gujarat chief minister began his ambitious journey to move to the Centre. True, the BJP ran the most expensive advertising campaign in India’s history, but the coverage of Modi’s speeches and events was done for free. This happened partly because he is an interesting public figure, love him or hate him. In 2014, as a PM candidate, he had particular things to say at different venues that were in sync with news cycles.

He also got enormous coverage because TV channels are starved for content, try to keep costs down on news-gathering (debates are cheaper), and the Modi team was offering well-packaged content. The channels did not have to send their own crews; they often just carried the news feed offered by the BJP.

Power of packaging

From the time he was the chief minister, Modi understood the importance of telling a story and creating an event to get people’s attention. The importance of packaging was visible from 2007 onwards when Modi hired international lobbyists to market the Vibrant Gujarat summit. At those events, big businessmen were showcased as paying homage to the chief minister for his economic genius. He built his brand even while staying away from engagement with the free press. The captains of industry attended and foreign countries slowly began to send their delegations.

When the national campaign began for 2014, a few changes were made to the manner in which the PM candidate would be filmed in a very presidential campaign. Team Modi invested in hiring the best camera equipment, and cranes were deployed with mobile cameras atop that would swing across the stage capturing Modi from each carefully choreographed angle. In the traditional Indian maidans and grounds, crowds scatter across the field. The BJP took care to put up wooden fences and keep the crowd in a narrower and longer space so that when the camera swung across, the crowd looked compact and thereby larger.

Eye for detail 

Other details, too, were given careful attention. For instance, the symbol of the party till 2014 was a saffron lotus flower. In the 2014 campaign, due to inputs from one of his NRI Gujarati campaign managers, London-based solicitor Manoj Ladwa, then a member of the Labour Party, this underwent a small change. Ladwa advised changing the lotus colour to black and white, so that it appeared the same as voters would see it on their EVMs when they press the button next to the symbol. Without much fanfare, this change was quietly made in February 2014 and Modi would appear with the white lotus pinned on his chest.

The final choreography of the 2019 campaign is unfolding. It’s visibly huge, is built around Modi and will be even more expensive than 2014. But the opposition would do well to understand that there is intelligence at work besides big bucks. Beyond the optics and presentation, Modi made political mistakes as PM but he has quickly self-corrected. In the first year of his reign, the Land Acquisition Bill created a storm, giving the impression that his regime was of big corporates and “suit-boot” people. Modi saw that, the bill was quietly buried and the PM auctioned off that infamous suit on which his name was written. He began to project his economic policies as being for the poor. Those who believed he would end populist economics were disappointed, but Modi understood what was politically smarter thing to do.

The other big mistake was allowing NDA allies to drift away as they felt slighted in the virtually single-party rule. But how well the Modi-led BJP has self-corrected on that front too, wooing back regional parties in the last lap leading to the 2019 polls by giving them more seats than they actually deserve. There is, therefore, a Plan A and a Plan B in the Modi-led BJP. Every shot is carefully framed and if it comes off badly, another narrative is created and the script changed.

At a time when the Opposition is struggling to come up with a coherent narrative against Modi, they should at the very least, understand the phenomena and the playbook.