By Sushil Kutty
The surround sound around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Meditation’ at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari during the ‘silence period’ in force before the last and seventh phase of the 2024 election is at its crescendo. Modi recently astounded people with “nobody knew Mahatma Gandhi before the 1982 Gandhi film.” Rival politicians including Congress rival Rahul Gandhi had a good laugh, saying this “guy Modi is the limit”. Now, it is like “nobody knew Narendra Modi before the ‘2024 Modi meditation’ at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial”. Such is the decibel level. Either Modi wants to make a last pitch to avoid defeat or he is desperate that the BJP/NDA doesn’t fall short of the brag ‘abki baar 370/400’.
A Congress delegation led by AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal’s lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi met Election Commission officials and submitted a representation against Modi’s meditation mode. News of the Modi meditation “gimmick” had become the talk of the 24 Akbar Road Congress headquarters, catapulting it to the top of the news cycle. The Modi meditation had become the most reported event as the Congress railed against it. Its loud demands that silence reigns in the last 48 hours before voting for the seventh phase sounded like an oxymoron.
The Vivekananda Rock Memorial monument is a tribute to Swami Vivekananda and has great significance for Hindus worldwide. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been juxtaposing Hindu and Muslim throughout the previous six phases of these elections and he is not ready to stop. One more phase left and Modi is going on silent meditation to make himself heard loud and clear countrywide, “abki baar 400 paar”. Of course, the Opposition had every reason to make a hullabaloo, the loudest in the realm.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot take advantage of the habitually lax Election Commission of India and the mockery made of the Model Code of Conduct. At this point in time, the Opposition considers itself the sole guardian of democracy in India that is Bharat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s master acts are known to all and sundry. In 2019, Modi had committed a similar act, meditating in the Kedarnath Cave, his image and pictures splattered all over the broadcast media and the print Press, the ‘Silence Period’ be damned.
What happened? The BJP won the 2019 elections hands down and Narendra Modi became a second-time Prime Minister. Now, he is aiming for a third straight term and this time it’s with the active connivance of Swami Vivekananda. On the evening of May 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on two days of meditation at the Vivekananda Rock. The Kanyakumari district administration is under tremendous strain and pressure and the locals will not be denied a glimpse of the Vishwaguru in action. It will be criminal if the media misses such a “god-given” opportunity.
The thick security blanket that wraps the vicinity of the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in itself calls for saturation coverage of the event. For that is what it is, another of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mega events. It is not for nothing that Modi is considered the world-leader in Event Management and during these elections, also media interview management. The Prime Minister has so far allowed himself to be interviewed 80 times. Don’t be surprised if a favourite gets to interview Modi in Meditation Mode also. Anything can happen.
Modi will spend 45 hours meditating. Constant meditation. Of course, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is God Almighty’s ‘pick’, the one to serve Maa Bharati and take her to great heights, what’s a 45-hour long meditation for the ‘Chosen One’? Will Modi sleep, get a shut-eye, when he is meditating with both eyes closed for all those uneventful hours? What about toilet breaks? The mid-sea memorial is but a rock with a Vivekananda statue, the revered Hindu saint. Is Modi also aiming for sainthood, too? For the time being, at least, Modi is aiming for a third term and with whatever it takes to.
Without doubt the meditation is a ploy. It will be impossible for the media to ignore Modi in meditation mode as this happens only once in five years. Photo and video journalists will climb up other rocks and crab-walk up coconut tree-trunks dotting the coastline. The SPG cannot compete with the latest in camera and videography. Are the SPG even capable of scaling palm trees which the locals are adept at? The Modi meditation will, like it or not, get saturation media coverage and the Election Commission of India will be complicit.
It is the last ditch before Prime Minister Narendra gets his wish of getting for himself a third straight term. INDI-Alliance can make all the noise it can, the voices of the alliance parties will drown in the silence of the Election Commission of India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi sits monk-like and dreams of another term at India’s helm while in deep meditation. The Opposition cannot even pray because that is what Modi would be doing, the prodigal son of the ‘Paramatma’. (IPA Service)
