Why psychoanalysing Modi is a waste of time

Spread across 9 pages of psychoanalytic jargon, bar graphs and pie charts, the latest Outlook cover story claims to take the reader “ Inside Modi’s Mind.” The “a first-of-its-kind study” by IIT linguists parses through 68 speeches, a hundred photos, and focus group results to tell us what we already know. Narendra Modi talks a lot about ‘development’ but barely mentions ‘inclusion’. He is more likely to use assertive or ‘fight’ gestures than a Nitish Kumar, and smile less often. And during TV interviews in 2002, anger was the dominant emotion on the left side of his face – the side deemed more ’truthful’ by psychobiologists. [Read the article in its entirety here] The only surprising result: Modi’s most common behavioural tic is the “rather ambiguous ‘self-touch’ hand-on-face-or-mouth gesture” which “has an unusually high representation amongst Modi’s hand movements and is associated with thoughtfulness and on-the-spot decision-making on the one hand but also with lack of self-confidence and commitment and, sometimes, deception, on the other.” Surprising, yes, but not, as it turns out, illuminating. [caption id=“attachment_890893” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narendra Modi. Agencies.[/caption] One problem lies in the methodology used in certain parts of the study. Doing a word search of 68 speeches (handpicked by Modi’s official website) is unlikely to tell you anything meaningful. Modi may mention villages more often than cities but we don’t know why or how he employs rural references. Is he using folksy stories to speak to his urban base or more frequently addressing farmers? The last would be intriguing given his image as the hero of the urban middle class, but we remain in the dark. Modi also makes more cumulative references to women than men – once you tote up the numbers for women, ladies, mothers, daughters etc. – but we don’t know what he saying to or about them. His speech to the FICCI Ladies organisation, for example, was chock-a-block with broad stereotypes about sulking housewives and suffering widows. Was that typical or does he have a different style when talking to women in Gujarat? Again, we don’t know. And the fact that he doesn’t utter the word ‘Hindu’ is meaningless since it fails to capture the innumerable scriptural and mythological references that are a Modi trademark. And that he rarely says Muslim and never mentions a mosque is hardly surprising for a man who insists “‘Appeasement for none, development for all’ is our motto.” But the greatest flaw in the article maybe its basic assumption, i.e. there is a hidden Modi. The BJP stalwart’s one great virtue is that he has never pretended to be anyone other than what he is. What you see is what you get. He is authoritarian, staunchly religious, patriarchal and devoted to a particular model of development. He has no interest in inclusiveness of any kind, be it in the matter of coalition partners, party rivals or minorities. And he is both highly regarded and reviled for precisely the same qualities. There is no disagreement over who Modi is. So why would we need extended linguistic and behavioural analysis that merely offers more confirmation of the same? The IIT researchers would have better employed their talents if they focused instead on the true cipher in Indian politics: Rahul Gandhi. Despite a decade in politics, no one knows who he is or what he stands for. None of that ‘beehive’ talk told us anything about his economic vision. We don’t know where he stands on secularism, Naxal violence or gender rights. All we have are vague and oft times contradictory statements and speeches that never quite add up to a sum larger than its parts. There are no signature Rahul phrases, no pet themes, not even meaningful omissions a la Modi. After all these years of ‘grooming’, we don’t even know if he wants/plan to be Prime Minister.  So how about left side/right side analysis of his face the next time someone asks him that burning question? Rahul Gandhi is so opaque we don’t even know if there is indeed another ‘real’ Rahul lurking inside. Any revelation, however minor, will be welcome at this point.