Why Is Narendra Modi So Popular? Tune In to Find Out.
The Indian leader, who visits Washington this week, has softened his image at home with an old-fashioned radio show, which feeds a vast social media apparatus.
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Reporting from New Delhi
Once a month, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, walks into a studio set up at his government bungalow and takes his seat behind a microphone. The air-conditioning is switched off to quiet its hum. Thick curtains maintain the room’s silence even from Mr. Modi’s favorite peacocks in the garden outside.
Then the prime minister begins his radio show, for which he has recorded over 100 episodes, with a usual greeting in Hindi: “My dear countrymen, hello!”
What follows — about 30 minutes of Mr. Modi playing on-air host to the world’s most populous nation — is one way he has made himself intimately omnipresent across India’s vastness, exerting a hold on the national imagination that seems impervious to criticism of his government’s erosion of India’s democratic norms.
On the program, Mr. Modi is both favorite teacher and empathetic friend, speaking directly to his listeners and selected callers. He offers advice on managing the stress of school exams, even as he reminds his audience that his educational background is as humble as theirs. He champions water conservation while expressing an awareness of the challenges of village and farm life.
His presence on the airwaves may seem anachronistic, more suited to the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats, but it is crucial to understanding his overwhelming grip on India’s information landscape. At its core is a transformation of Mr. Modi’s image that will be on full display this week as President Biden hosts him for a state visit, part of a red-carpet effort to court India as a rising economic power and counterweight to China.
The radio shows, sliced into short clips and blasted through his party’s immense social media apparatus, accompanied by text and video, shape a persona wholly disconnected from the stoking of religious divides and the silence on sectarian violence that have marked his years in power. It is a softer Mr. Modi, served up for mass consumption, that counters his more partisan rhetoric in rallies and speeches.
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