"From Bollywood to ‘Bay Area Jai Shri Ram’: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up"
Modi brand rests on two pillars. First, every public figure of consequence is expected to praise him with near-religious devotion, as though he were a deity rather than a political leader. Second, there is never any acknowledgment of failure. If something goes wrong, it is explained away as natural, inevitable, or simply beyond anyone’s control. To justify this supposed inevitability, billionaires and power-brokers step forward to present “facts” that are often as distant from reality as the Earth is from the Moon. The delightful spectacle of Niranjan Hiranandani, the venerable real estate magnate—and chief competitor to the Adani empire, no less—showering the Prime Minister with the kind of beatific praise. This, coming not long after the entire nation watched a political drama unfold, where an opposition MP, Mahua Moitra, faced the judicial axe over allegations of taking favours from this very same gentleman. The man survives the scandal, thrives, and then publicly kisses the ...