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As I sit down to write this piece celebrating the 75th birthday of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I’m reminded of what I said in 2024 at a television channel’s summit in Delhi, where I talked about Brand Modi. And the premise I laid out before the invited audience was that, whether we like it or not, it is never meant to be derogatory. 

The truth is that all human beings are brands. We don’t come as numbers; we have an identity, which can be defined by our religion, caste, creed, colour, achievements, accomplishments, or whatever you might call it. And sometimes, more often than not, we wish to stand for something. If you look at human brands across the world and go into history, Gautam Buddha stood for compassion, Mahatma Gandhi stood for peace, Mother Teresa stood for love, and the list goes on. 

Political leaders are brands unto themselves, and we have such great examples. If Abraham Lincoln was the unifier of America at that point in time, Obama was the brand of hope for a lot of people in the US. In our country, we’ve had Jawaharlal Nehru, the brand of liberal thinking and the one who is always associated with the world of letters and cerebral thinking. 

If you recall in India itself, if we look at the last 40 years, we’ve had political brands that have had a certain identity, an identity that has served them well many a time. If Indira Gandhi was the only man in the Cabinet, Morarji Desai was the conservative human being. We then had Narasimha Rao, who was the silent thinker. Chandra Shekhar, at one time our prime minister, was always described as the Young Turk. 

And the last Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was always seen as the person who brought intellectual gravitas to everything he did. So when Narendra Modi took over, many were wondering how Brand Modi would work. 

But the moorings of Brand Modi can be gauged from how he started out, from very humble beginnings with no sense of entitlement, no family to lean on, no lineage to talk about, and no legacy to worry about. 

In many ways, Brand Narendra Modi was the perfect outlier in the Indian political pantheon. 

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Prime Minister Modi since 1999, when he was part of the briefing process for Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s political campaign, which I worked on. So I’ve seen Prime Minister Modi, who was then a karyakarta, at reasonable close quarters. But do I know him well? Can I say that I know him exceedingly well in terms of both his nuances and his vision? Perhaps not. 

But then, that doesn’t matter because brands don’t always have a personal relationship with the people who either buy them or judge them or believe in them. When Modi went to Gujarat as chief minister and the incidents that took place in Gujarat subsequently, there was a lot of vilification of Brand Narendra Modi. But the two qualities that Modi showed were that he would stand up to the full arm of the law, and he would remain consistent in the work that he had set out for himself. 

And that work is now for all to see. The transformation of Gujarat, the greening of Gujarat, the fact that Gujarat today boasts of almost every conceivable industry, the establishment of the GIFT City, the cleaning up of the Sabarmati, and his enormous emphasis on governance came to be the hallmarks of Narendra Modi. But at the same point in time, there was another former chief minister, who is now back as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, N Chandrababu Naidu, who stood for something called the progressive politician. And it is important for me to lay this background so that you understand the context in which one needs to analyse the contribution of Narendra Modi. 

So, what is brand Modi today? The beauty about brands is that they work on three principles—they must provide an enduring benefit, they must be consistent, and they must strive for a relationship rather than something that is purely transactional. 

Let’s go to the first point. What are the benefits that brands provide? In many of my marketing lectures, I’ve often said that consumers don’t buy brands, they buy benefits. For instance, you don’t just buy Tata Tea, you also buy trust and taste. You don’t just buy Colgate, but you actually buy the whitest teeth, and it so happens that in your mind, Colgate fits the bill both on delivery and on trust. 

The fact that today Narendra Modi is consistent is evident in the manner in which he conducts himself. He has an unwavering belief in the way India should be run. You may agree or disagree with him, but the reality is that consistency is mired in what I would call brand stubbornness. And sometimes this stubbornness may or may not work, but at all times, stubbornness ensures your brand is predictable, and that’s what consumers like. 

Consumers like brands that are predictable, not brands that will surprise them, either by the way they perform or by their self-image or social risk. And to that extent, one has to give credit to Narendra Modi. He has always been consistent as far as his idea of India is concerned. And obviously, his idea of India can’t be everyone else’s idea, but the fact is that he has been elected for a third term as prime minister. 

So, obviously, a large swathe of people in India believes that its idea of India resonates with that of Narendra Modi’s, which is why he is the prime minister. The third is, as I mentioned, about brands and their continuous striving for relationships. 

In everything that Narendra Modi does, he strives for a relationship, and I have been a witness to one such relationship. The late Arun Jaitley and Modi were always very close. And I remember on May 18, 2014, when the results were coming in and it was clear that Jaitley was losing his parliamentary seat for Lok Sabha from Amritsar, he got a call from Modi who said, “Kuchh nahi badla,” or, “Nothing has changed.” In a manner of speaking, what Modi was telling him was that Modi’s belief in Jaitley’s capabilities, in Jaitley’s performance and vision, was absolutely unshakeable. 

That gives you an insight into the kind of man Narendra Modi is. Many months later, when Modi spoke to Jaitley’s family and said that he would like Jaitley to lose weight and go through a bariatric surgery, again, it was a concern on the part of Modi. 

Sometimes, brands go the extra mile because they want that relationship to be embellished. Brands don’t, and cannot always, be transactional because when a brand is transactional, it commodifies its entire being and purpose. 

If you look at the way Narendra Modi’s Cabinet is stacked, you will see that many people who may have earlier accused him of being averse to those who, in the past, were more senior to him in the party, be it a Rajnath Singh or a Nitin Gadkari, have consistently and constantly found a place in the Union Cabinet. So, the thing that you have to understand about Narendra Modi is that, for him, human capital and human relationships are critical. 

And when he reaches out to the electorate, no matter where he is, he makes an effort, whether it is to dress in local couture, whether it is to wear a turban which signifies that region, or start with some sentences in the local language. Brands that care do this. Brands that are arrogant don’t. 

In my talk in 2024, I said that Brand Modi will always be remembered for some major changes in India. Yes, there will be the issue of Hindutva, and that is something that perhaps Narendra Modi may want to reflect on, but as I said, it has obviously worked for both him and the Bharatiya Janata Party. And this is not the Hindutva that needs to be vilified. 

The second is that Brand Modi has always stood for toughness. He is not someone you can walk over, and he will never allow himself to be in that position. 

Most recently, we have seen the manner in which he tackled Donald J Trump’s stupidity. Any other prime minister would have buckled and sacrificed long-term sovereign benefits for short-term relationships, but Modi didn’t, and in the end, Modi won. 

Let’s take a look at his engagement with Pakistan. While he did make an effort to both invite the then-Pakistan prime minister to his first inauguration as prime minister, he even went on a surprise visit to Nawaz Sharif’s family wedding, but obviously, those things didn’t deter Pakistan from launching constant terror attacks. 

And what did Modi do? He didn’t behave like the Congress government did after 26/11. He went all out and told both his country and the world that India is no longer a namby-pamby state that would allow itself to be destroyed just because it wants to be popular. Just look at the way Modi handled the 
abrogation of Article 370, or the way GST was introduced.So, the point that one is making is that very few leaders in democratic India have had the courage to go against popular sentiment. 

If you analyse the risks Modi has taken, it is the all-pervasiveness of the brand that has allowed this to happen. And in order to make a segue, I want to establish an illustration. 

Ratan Tata, who we sadly lost last year in October, stood for integrity. He stood for ethics. And when he passed away, every Indian was grieving. That was not just the stature of Ratan Tata, but the manner in which Brand Ratan Tata engaged and was relatable. 

When we look at Narendra Modi, I have to say there is no other equally compelling brand, and he is not a compelling brand because he occupies the office of the prime minister. He is a compelling brand because he has allowed India and Indians to think big. He has allowed India and Indians to gain back their rightful place in the community of nations, and he has allowed every Indian, no matter whether in India or part of the diaspora, to think and be proud of his or her Indian origins. 

There is nothing apologetic about Modi being Modi, and that will tell you why a brand like Narendra Modi will be remembered and why we are blessed to have him amidst us. 

Happy Birthday, Prime Minister.

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