A cult of personality emerges when a country’s regime – or an individual politician or patriots of an individual politician –employs the techniques of mass media, propaganda, the big lie, spectacle, the arts, academia, movies, government-organized demonstrations, non-government organization and protests to create an idealized, heroic, worshipful and godlike image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise, and whitewashing all his sins. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established by modern social engineering techniques, usually by the state or the party.
In India, this creation of the cult of personality is going from over a very long period of time, where India’s first Prime Minister-Jawaharlal Nehru- is often exalted to a status higher than all his successors by many of his blind supporters. If someone tries to undo this then the entire cabal goes after him/her. Now, the entire cabal is up in arms against Modi government’s decision to convert Teen Murti Bhavan into a Prime Minister’s museum. Supporters of Nehru be it in media, academia, politics etc have been tasked to prove their blind devotion for Nehru.
Especially, the Congress party is rattled with the move of Modi government to convert the Teen Murti Bhavan because their entire politics is based on cult of personality. There are 450 projects, buildings, institutions, awards named after Nehru-Gandhi family members. According to this News18 report, as per the RTI, 12 Central and 52 state schemes, 28 sports tournaments and trophies, 19 stadiums, 5 airports and ports, 98 educational institutions, 51 awards, 15 fellowships, 15 national sanctuaries and parks, 39 hospitals and medical institutions, 37 institutions, chairs and festivals and 74 roads, buildings and places are named after 3 members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. And those three members are Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Not any other PM, just these three. Naming the stuffs after the members of Nehru-Gandhi family is a way to create cult of personality. It is a great way to ensure that future generations only remember their names, their contributions and thus keep them in power by voting and supporting their party. History is not about what happened, but about what people think happened.
No other PM coming from the Congress party received similar treatment except PMs coming from the Nehru-Gandhi family. Lal Bahadur Shastri and P. V. Narasimha Rao, arguably the best PMs Congress gave to the nation, are forgotten. Their legacies have been deliberately and systematicaly wiped off. Nobody speaks or writes about them. PV Narasimha Rao was denied a memorial in the national capital despite scripting the economic renaissance of the nation and his funeral was a humiliating affair.
Media and academicians supported this act of sycophancy with all enthusiasm. They are part and parcel of this long PR gimmick and now they are the leading ones who are opposing the Modi government’s latest move to convert Teen Murti Bhavan into a museum dedicated to former Prime Ministers of India. They want us to believe that India starts and ends with the Nehru-Gandhi family. They want to imprint this in the psyche of all of us, they want to make Nehru-Gandhi family synonymous with India just like the infamous slogan “India is Indira, Indira is India.”
The decision of Modi government to make Teen Murti Bhuvan a museum dedicated to former Prime Ministers of India and not a Mecca for Nehru, strikes at the core of this politics of legacy building. Teen Murti Bhavan used to be a memorial for our soldiers but somehow Nehru managed to hog it and later on it was converted into some sort of Nehru memorial.
#TeenMurtiDebate | Last I checked Teen Murti was a memorial to our soldiers, not Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi: Anand Ranganathan, Scientist and Author pic.twitter.com/5RhtWWK9WR
— Republic (@republic) August 27, 2018
It’s time to correct the wrongs of the past. Just like Nehru, the other PMs of India also deserve the celebration of their legacies and contribution to the nation. Once the proposed museum comes to existence then people of the nation would also come to know about the significant contribution made by other PMs for the nation. But it looks like liberals are not willing to do so because it threatens to destroy a carefully crafted legacy and it will destroy the “cult of personality.” That’s why they are outraging so much against this move of Modi government.
