For a softer Mr Modi
As Holmes might have said, it is a curious fact that Narendra Modi smiles rarely at home, but when abroad the camera usually catches him beaming, laughing, smiling. At home, the prime minister invariably looks grim or impassive, the body language conveying gravitas, authority and serious purpose. He may manage a smile when greeting a senior colleague, but much of the time not even that. When he walks through a public space, or into an assembled gathering, no lines break on his face, or wrinkle around the eyes. If he catches someone’s eye, it is with a gimlet stare.
At public meetings, the body language is aggressive, the voice assertive, the gestures expansive. The index finger points outward, and his voice drops only for dramatic effect when he is about to come roaring back to make a point. If ever an Indian prime minister was Alpha Male, it is Mr Modi. Aakar Patel has brilliantly deconstructed the picture on Mr Modi’s Twitter home page, catching the prime minister as he walks out of Parliament House, security guards flanking him from behind, SUVs parked in the distance. The composition is consistent with the message of single-point authority.
Yet the prime minister is transformed when he travels overseas. He is very obviously enjoying himself, relaxed and smiling, taking selfies, and glorying in the adulation of overseas Indians to the extent that he sometimes forgets himself and says things that he should not even think to himself. It is not just overseas; even at home, when in the company of an international leader, Mr Modi presents a more outgoing, congenial persona, someone who is reaching out rather than asserting himself or his position. His eager-beaver language with Barack Obama was sometimes almost cringe-making — reminding you of the picture of Nehru with Edwina, with Mountbatten looking into the distance. You wanted India’s prime minister to show more restraint.
The two images that Mr Modi presents of himself are so starkly different that one is tempted to ask the real Narendra Modi to present himself. Most people are usually not aware of their leaders’ private side. The little anecdotes that came out after Indira Gandhi was assassinated spoke of a person very different in private life from the power-obsessed ogress that her many critics thought her to be. Mr Modi, it once came out, had adopted a Nepalese boy; nothing had been heard of this before, or since. Did anyone know till his Japan visit, for instance, that Mr Modi could do a little number on drums?
Being prime minister is a tough job — and any prime minister must feel the need to let his hair down every now and then. Narasimha Rao would sometimes watch Spanish movies on the flight back from summit meetings. Rajiv Gandhi after a meeting would get behind the wheel of a fast vehicle and play cat-and-mouse with his security posse, or go off on a holiday to Lakshadweep or the Andamans. For Mr Modi, official travel may serve the same purpose. What was impressive about his China visit was that he was able to display a relaxed public persona even as he did some tough talking in official meetings — that showed a person confident and in control of what he was doing. So why doesn’t he do that double-act at home?
Minders often soften the public image of leaders by showing them in family settings — Nehru playing with tiger cubs along with his grandchildren, and Kennedy with glamorous wife plus a toddler-son crawling around in the Oval Office. Mr Modi, unfortunately, does not have such options. Perhaps he should humanise his image by showing that he has interests other than politics and his morning yoga. He could take to percussion as a hobby; it has the advantage that he would still be beating his own drum.