Modi Just Branded Himself Patriarch of Patriarchs.
Modi Ka Parivar is an Indian family we all know intimately.
I find it exasperating when politicians launch personal attacks against their competition. I think it’s a cop out when a politician attacks another politician’s family (or the lack of it) instead of picking from a buffet of relevant criticism—their views, their policies, their public failures, their inability to see all citizens as equal, how they collect and spend money, corruption, crony capitalism, the facilitation of bigotry, the contradictions in what they say and what they do blablabla.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav could have chosen any of the above critiques but instead he opted to say that Modi had ‘no family’. It was obvious this comment was going to backfire. And the Bharatiya Janata Party, India’s richest party by far, didn’t disappoint. It threw multiple resources behind its response.
First Modi said the whole country was his family. Then all BJP ministers and functionaries tagged Modi Ka Parivar onto their X handles.
Jio subscribers received a letter from the PM addressed to, My Dear Family Member.
The political party quickly launched a video song titled Modi Ka Parivar filled to the brim with happy looking wives, mothers, daughters, autodrivers, hijabis and one man in a wheelchair. There are many shots of blissful looking Kashmiris and farmers too. Bengalis and Malayalis are well represented. It’s the updated version of 1988’s Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. Except that now everyone just needs to smile and be the adoring chorus of Modi, the head of the parivar, the patriarch of patriarchs.
I’m sure they did more things too (and next up will be the ‘influencers’), but I’m too tired to check and detail the full response. I’m writing this to make a slightly different point.
Modi’s parivar is an age old parivar that already exists and is thriving, Modi is just rebranding it like he does with every other Indian scheme.
In this parivar, there are clear gender roles. Men decide and protect. Women procreate and nurture and teach. Men are leaders, women are followers. Men are assertive, women are aggressive (thanks to a little birdie on Instagram for this line in a different context).
It is an endogamous parivar. No mix and match please. No print on print. No black and white. No Hindu and Muslim. No gender fluidity. You already know this. The government told you last year when they defined marriage as being “only between a biological man and a biological woman”.
Marriage is a must, single women are a no no. Marital rape is not criminalised.
In her book Everyday Nationalism, which examines the role of women to recruit new followers into the Sangh Parivar, one Durga Vahini member told author Kalyani Menon: “Girls today want to be free. We ask them, do you want to be free or strong? (mukti ya shakti?)” Menon found that women’s assertion was channeled to replicate Hindu nationalist ideology to new audiences. We all know how women-friendly that ideology is.
Obedience is the bedrock of this family. Anyway most women in India already believe in this commandment of marriage. “Asked if they agree with the statement that ‘a wife must always obey her husband,’ women in India (86%) are only slightly less likely than Indian men (89%) to say they either completely or mostly agree.”—Pew Research said recently.
We all know about the toxic, controlling Indian family that takes all decisions on behalf of its younger members, especially women. A patriarch looms over every such family. Now Modi has announced he is the baap of all these patriarchs.
Further Reading For Enthu Cutlets: