Party and politics mix as India celebrates Modi’s birthday

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday on Thursday will be marked by a month-long national spectacle organised by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The nationwide programme, known as the Service and Resolve Campaign, will run until October 17th and will bring together tens of millions of people across India through a variety of public events.

These include lighting earthen oil lamps, mass prayers, youth and women’s rallies, cultural programmes, health and welfare camps, and cleanliness drives that deftly combine public service with political outreach as the BJP prepares for a series of critical state elections early next year.

Consequently, BJP-led governments in 21 of India’s 28 states and federally administered Territories are competing to outdo one another in the scale and grandeur of their birthday tributes to Modi.

BJP national president Nitin Nabin recently said the programme would focus on commemorating the prime minister’s 25 years in public life and highlighting what the party describes as his contribution to the country.

Before becoming prime minister in 2014 for the first of three terms, Modi served for 13 years as chief minister of western Gujarat state.

Nabin said the BJP would portray Modi’s journey from an ordinary party worker to becoming the “people’s chief servant” through service and determination, which he said had also helped lift 250 million Indian families out of poverty.

The birthday spectacle will begin with millions of lighted earthenware oil lamps under the Lamp of Blessings initiative. The BJP is appealing to all 1.4 billion Indians to light one lamp at home at 7pm on Thursday.

Northern Haryana state alone has promised two million such lamps, while central Chhattisgarh has announced the provision of another 3.6 million to mark the occasion. Lighting diyas, or earthen lamps, is an Indian tradition associated with auspicious occasions, symbolising the triumph of light over darkness and the invocation of blessings.

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In New Delhi, the birthday celebrations will take on a considerably more material form, with the BJP government putting a substantial stamp on the occasion. It is inaugurating development and infrastructure projects worth the equivalent of €1.24 billion in addition to organising worker-registration, cleanliness and tree-planting drives, health camps and efforts to revive the rubbish-choked Yamuna river which runs through New Delhi.

The western port city of Mumbai, where the BJP is also in power, has pledged to light more than 10,000 oil lamps and illuminate 10 prominent landmarks. Its programme includes hosting youth gatherings seeking practical solutions to local civic problems, preventive-healthcare initiatives, welfare camps and street plays promoting government schemes, before culminating in a Good Governance Dialogue on October 17th, celebrating BJP initiatives.

In eastern Bihar state, one of India’s poorest, the BJP government organising about 125,000 elected local-government representatives, legislators and MPs to sing all six stanzas of Vande Mataram, India’s national song, on October 17th, in an attempt to secure an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

The festivities are also moving into the digital age, with social media influencers and content creators being taken to sites the BJP claims demonstrate the “transformation” achieved during Modi’s tenure as prime minister. Party insiders said the birthday was also an opportunity to present Modi’s record of “service and national transformation”.

Not everyone is impressed with the impending jamborees.

Opposition Congress Party leader Motha Rohith from the southern Telangana state said the BJP should be asking Modi to provide jobs to young people rather than asking Indians to light lamps. Bihar MP Pappu Yadav, meanwhile, said the BJP should first help provide relief to the state’s flood victims before launching its 30-day choreographed birthday venture, which he criticised as merely an attempt to reinforce the party’s hold on power.