Do as I Say

Not as I do, Narendra Modi should have said, as he instructed a roomful of civil servants to use social media for the broader public good as opposed to self-promotion. The prime minister has received lavish praise, at home and abroad, for his astute use of the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google Hangouts. Most of it, whether it’s ostentatiously embracing Barack Obama or drinking tea with his mother, has burnished his image as at once a man of the people and a towering statesman. It is a reflection of Modi’s amour propre that when he and the BJP achieved their sweeping election victory in 2014, he tweeted that “India has won!” But the prime minister is probably correct. While bureaucrats should be above self-promotion and self-praise, these are the politician’s stock in trade.