MODIS KASHI YATRA A wave, tsunami or the most well

oiled -PR machinery

By Vikram Sawant
April 25, 2014
On Wednesday, AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal went to file his nomination for the only seat he is contesting from. He
put up a decent show, there was some cheering and no untoward incident. Arvind Kejriwal may have
on Wednesday gone to bed a satisfied man. Thursday morning was a different story altogether. Hours before
Narendra Modi arrived to file his nomination, the streets of the holy city were a sight to behold. A sea of saffron,
was all that was visible, wherever one turned. Somewhere in one corner of the city, Arvind Kejriwal sat on a
dharna, protesting against alleged attacks on Somnath Bharti by BJP workers. But unfortunately for AAP, it was
the celebration extraordinaire of the BJPs PM candidate that made headlines.















The Pomp & grandeur of Narendra Modis roadshow was beamed across all TV channels for the country to see.
The turnout perhaps took many by surprise. But Modis close aide & the man in-charge of the campaign in U.P
Amit Shah had been working hard in the background, to ensure the BJPs PM candidate gets the rousing
welcome that was on display. And Modi did everything right. Starting from the Banaras Hindu University, paying
respect to all the right icons & invoking the river Ganga Narendra Modi stuck to the script & the frenzy was
evident And the icing on the cake the four people his team chose as nominators. The grandson of Madan
Mohan Malviya, musician Dhanulal Mishra, a weaver Ashok & a member of the boating community Veerabhadra
Nidhad. Modi looked comfortable, almost too comfortable as he made his way through the city that is a bastion
of Hinduism.
As Varanasi came to a stand-still on the 24th, the Congress & AAP camps were clearly worried. Arvind Kejriwal,
perhaps predicting the show of strength, started damage control on Wednesday itself. During his own roadshow,
Kejriwal said I have Rs 500 in my pocket & this jeep that I am travelling in. Kejriwal also predicted that Modi
would arrive by chopper & questioned the source of his funding. The Congress went a step further, demanding
an FIR be lodged against Modi & his team for drawing all the attention with their show on a day of polling. An act
that Congress says was in violation of the code of conduct, conveniently forgetting its own violation of the same
rule. Joining Congress chorus is BSP chief Mayawati. The former U.P Chief Minister, who many predict, may just
have the numbers to thwart Modis accession.
For the BJP, the criticism is perhaps perfectly timed. At a time, when questions were being raised about whether
the Modi wave peaked to early,yesterdays turnout is their reply. Of course, there will be allegations of crowds
being paid, stage managed etc., but the element of spontaneity on the streets of Varanasi yesterday, cant be
denied. Modis much talked of PR machinery did its job yesterday by creating the hype, publicity & curiosity
required to create the manic frenzy we saw yesterday. The last time so many people poured out on the streets,
was when Anna Hazare launched his India Against Corruption campaign. Then it was sheer anger & frustration
with the center and this time around it was the same, with the added hope of a man who is being touted as the
change India requires.
Narendra Modi called it his homecoming. Narendra Modi referred to the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb, spoke of Muslim
weavers and quoted Kabir. Modi said he wanted to make Varanasi the spiritual capital of the world. As Modi
basked in the attention of a thousand eyes & hundreds of cameras, he gave glimpse of what may happen if he
crowned come May 16th. And if his PR machinery keeps the momentum going, the question would not be
whether Modi will get a majority. The question will be, if Modi will get a thumping majority. Whether it will be a
wave that engulfs the country or a manufactured Tsunami that drowns the nation.


.
2
he Modi Mythology
Manufacturing consent, saffron style


240
B Y Jatin Gandhi E MA I L A U T H O R ( S )
T AGGED UNDER | Narendra Modi | Gujarat | BJP | PR agency
SPI N

HYPE FORCE Supporters at an event organised by Modifying Indiaan initiative by Modi supporters to project him as Prime
Ministerin New Delhi on 31 May

On a recent visit to Chandigarh, I met a lawyer well known in Punjab for representingoften free of
costhapless young women deserted by their NRI husbands. The discussion veered from the
enormity of this problem to the next General Election and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modis
pitch for prime ministership. The lawyer was almost convinced of Modis vision and ability to lead the
country because she had heard several stories in the past few years about the Gujarat model of
governance.
But then, she said something spectacularly incredulous: Modi, she had heard, spends half an hour
every morning on the internet solving arithmetic problems for IIT students. She said she had heard
this from a senior police officer she had no reason to disbelieve. Both, it seemed from her
conversation, were convinced of the BJP leaders benign genius. While Chetan Bhagats achievements
and ideas may have contributed to this impression of IIT students, what is amazing is how Modis
mythology of superhuman accomplishments has penetrated the psyche of even those youd expect
would exercise a degree of scepticism when they hear something so fantastic.
Even a senior editor of The Times of India was ready to trust his sources who fed a story that was a bit
too amazing. His report on Modis rescue of Gujaratis in Uttarakhand titled, Modis Rambo Act, saves
15,000 (TOI dated 23 June 2013) said, Around 80 Toyota Innovas were requisitioned to ferry
Gujaratis to safer places in Dehradun as were four Boeings. On Saturday, 25 luxury buses took a
bunch of grateful people to Delhi. The efforts are being coordinated by two of the senior-most IAS
officers of Gujarat, one currently stationed in Delhi and another in Uttarakhand. According to this
report by Anand Soondas, the 15,000 stranded Gujaratis were rescued in two days. This, at a time
when the Indian Army was struggling to get just a few hundred people to safety every day.
Almost every day, the Indian mediaand sometimes the foreign media toois tricked or influenced
by Modis Public Relations machinery.
And machinery is the right word for it. It is large and consists of multiple levers, chains and cogs at
several levels of operation. Its command panel rests with the CMs office in Gandhinagar, and it has
been working without a break to conjure a larger-than-life public persona for the Gujarat Chief
Minister.
Before the Bharatiya Janata Party decided to throw its weight and might behind Modis pitch for
prime ministership, this machinery was external to the party. For half a decade now, the Gujarat
government has had PR and advocacy agencies, both national and international, working on contracts
issued by it. Manufacturing consent across social media platforms, Modi also has teams in Bangalore
and Mumbai. The BJPs infotech cell, no less well equipped, has now geared itself to augment that
apparatus. Apart from that, there are ground forces in the form of dedicated party cadres or Modi fan
outfits (the likes of Modifying India and Modi for PM as they are called).
+++
The Guajarat Government is in the process of finalising a new contract with a PR
agency. The current contract, held by Delhi-based Mutual PR, expires in a couple of
months. The governments international contract, held worldwide by Apco, an
American lobbying firm, ended in March 2013; it was estimated to be worth Rs 13 lakh a
month.
A look at the Request for Proposal document, which is confidential (available only to
bidding agencies), reveals the mammoth task that managing the Gujarat CMs public
image is. The document issued by the state government says it expects the agency to
hard sell positive growth and developments happening in the state at regular intervals,
or as and when asked to do so by the Commissionerate of Information. The stated
objectives of the exercise are: to help shape favorable media opinion for Gujarat
Government, both nationally as well as internationallyand to position Gujarat as
one of Indias leading states across sectors by increasing visibility and enhancing top of
the mind recall so as to make it an ideal destination among various stakeholders. The
PR firm that wins the bid is expected to report to the states Commissionerate of
Information and prepare an effective Public Relations Strategy Plan for the
Government of Gujarat with a vision for the next year while making all arrangements
necessary for the media coverage of any event when dignitaries from Gujarat, such as
the Governor of Gujarat, Chief Minister or any other important dignitaries, on their
visits to Delhi or any other part of the country or as and when asked to do so by the
Commissionerate of Information.
The Request document states that the hired PR firm should arrange for national and international
media to visit Gujarat and attend various events organized by the different departments of the
Government of Gujarat. Further, that The number of media personnel for any event shall be decided
by the Commissionerate after deliberation on the scale of the event. It is the Firms responsibility to
arrange for the visits of journalists to Gujarat, any other part of the country or abroad. The expenses
for the same will be reimbursed by the Commissionerate of Information on the submission of actual
bills.
Sources in Gujarat reveal that the state government has already borne the expenses of scores of
journalists, paying for their flights, travel within Gujarat and stay on assorted occasions (and multiple
visits in some cases). Senior journalists are usually assured of luncheon meetings with Modi, with
seating plans drawn up to boost their egos. The current Indian PR agency has so far arranged
meetings between Modi and a range of newspaper and magazine editors. Starting this year, the
government also has a budget allocation for taking journalists abroad on Modis foreign visits.
Apart from acting as facilitators, the agencys executives are expected to prepare press releases and
articles, supply information to journalists for publication and telecast. This is par for the PR course,
anyone would say, but while routine PR work does involve stiff targets, here is a list of what Gujarat
expects, according to its Request document:

The firm should also strive to achieve the targets stated below:
Publication of at least 6 major stories from the State in a quarter based on the input provided by
the State Government in national News Papers viz. HT, TOI, Indian Express, Hindu, ET, etc.
Publication of 6 major stories in regional newspapers in a quarter again based on the input
provided by the State Government
Publication of 6 major stories in a quarter in the major vernacular Newspapers with widespread
coverage viz. Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, Oriya, Urdu, etc.
Publication of at least one major story in national magazines viz. India Today, Frontline, Outlook,
The Week, etc. based on the input provided by the State Government
Coverage/ telecast of at least one major story every month in a major TV News Channel viz.
NDTV, Times Now, CNN-IBN, AajTak, Zee News, Star News, TV Today, etc.
+++
PR industry insiders say that while Indian clients usually insist on assured numbers, PR firms rarely
promise these in contracts. For the Gujarat government, however, most agencies are willing to make
an exception. Mutual PR is said to have met its earlier targets successfullya reflection on media
gullibility if not complicityand remains frontrunner among those vying for the latest contract.
Apart from achieving those targets, the PR agency is expected to follow the following practice:
Arrange for press conferences, one-to-one meets, roadshows or any other such BTL activities in
consultation with the Commissionerate, or as and when instructed by the Commissionerate to do so.
The devil is concealed in the details of objectives such as this: Crisis perception management and
informing the Commissionerate of Information about impending stories about Gujarat State /
leadership. In effect, an industry insider reveals, this is where the dirty work comes in. The
leadership clearly refers to Modi. From slowly working on journalists and feeding them stories, and,
in some cases, doling out advertisements to their employers, the state government does it all. Crisis
perception management essentially kicks in at times when Modi goofs up an interview with remarks
like the recent one he made to Reuters about a puppy under his cars wheel. Or when he told The Wall
Street Journal in June 2012 that malnutrition among children under five was explained by middle-
class girls in Gujarat being more figure conscious than health conscious.
The Request document clearly demands that the agencys officials monitor the presence of, and
discussions about, brand Gujarat in social and political circlesThis can be achieved through, among
other activities, continuously monitoring and tracking all national and regional newspapers,
magazines, TV channels, the inter-web, blogs and other channels of external communication at
regular intervals.
The government expects PR executives to have close liaisons with correspondents, reporters, editors,
photographers, think-tanks, critics, trend-setters and other such opinion leaders.
+++
Among the handful of agencies vying for the contract are Mutual PR and another Delhi based agency
Avian Media. Executives at both agencies confirm they are bidding for it. We are really too small to
manage Mr Modis image, says Kavita Datta, partner at Mutual PR, We work for the government on
creating awareness on development and social sector initiatives. The targets set by the state
government, Datta says, are not unusual: When you are on a monthly retainership, you have to bring
it down to deliverables. Nitin Mantri, CEO of Avian Media, confirms that his firm is in the race for the
account, which is expected to fetch around Rs 5 lakh per month. Of course, the contract comes with a
Non Disclosure Agreement.
The original contract [won by Mutual PR four years ago], says another source in Delhi, was a pink
paper contract meant for hard selling Gujarat in the business papers, but sometime last year, the
Commissionerate started asking the agency to focus more on political reporters and mainstream
papers than on business papers. This was also the time when the focus of these stories became more
[Modi] personality centric.
At the Vibrant Gujarat summit earlier this year, a list of 20 journalists was drawn for a luncheon
meeting with Modi. On this list was Madhu Kishwar, editor of Manushi and a fellow at the Delhi-
based Centre for Study of Developing Societies, who has turned from being a critic to an advocate of
Modi. Internal communication accessed by Open shows that the agency was wooing Kishwar,
something she firmly denies. She says that she is writing a book on Modi: I am going to include a
chapter, I think, on the myth and reality of Modis PR. There is no PR. I have written angry letters to
the CMs office asking for information for which I have been waiting several weeks now. They are so
overburdened.
With Kishwar claiming she is oblivious to the machinery at work, the Gujarat government
nevertheless gave her special attention because she was seen as one of the lone voices emerging from
the the Left liberal space favourable to Modis policies with captive column space available to her
in The Hindu, DNA and Manushi
+++
Modis team in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar is led by his trusted aide K Kailashnathan, a 1979 batch
Gujarat cadre IAS officer who was appointed chief principal secretary to the CM a day after he retired
on 31 May. Earlier, before he was appointed additional chief secretary (a post he held till retirement)
to Modi, he had been Commissioner of Industries and CEO of the Gujarat Maritime Board. He was the
official in charge at the time that Gujarat privatised its ports.
In May, the charge of information and broadcasting was given to GC Murmu, a 1985 batch officer who
had handled sensitive legal casesincluding those related to encounter deathsand forms a part of
his core team. As home secretary of the state in 2004, Murmu was accused of tutoring and coercing
witnesses who appeared before the Nanavati-Shah Commission that probed the 2002 riots.
In Ahmedabad, the CMO coordinates PR efforts with the social media team in Bangalore put together
by Rajesh Jain and BG Mahesh, who have gathered a bunch of over 100 techies in that city. Both Modi
and the BJP, reveals a party source, see social media as a game changer for the polls of 2014. Both
Mahesh and Jain, contacted by Open, decline comment. I dont speak about it to the media at all,
says Jain, who is based in Mumbai. I cant comment on any of it, says Mahesh, Someone from Mr
Modis office will contact you.
Jain is also the founder of NitiDigital, a company that owns the websiteNiti Central, known for its
Modi tomtoms. In June last year, on his own blog he put up a post titled, BJPs project 275 for 2014.
In this, he argued that the BJP would need a wave election and should focus on 350 winnable seats.
The last wave election was in 1984, Jain wrote. He seems to have more confidence in the BJPs vote-
catching abilities than the party itself.
As Open goes to press, Modis Facebook page has over 2.3 million likes while his Twitter followers
exceed 1.9 millionno Indian politician has a higher count.
A proportion of those are fake followers, who include bots. There exist sites that sift real followers
from fakes, but there is no uniformity in their statistics. What is beyond dispute though is that among
Modis social media fans, there are millions of fakes.
The response of the BJP to this fact is predictable. These figures are all rubbish, says Arvind Gupta,
head of the partys infotech cell. Modis close aide Amit Shah has been appointed in-charge of the
partys social media campaign, which means Gupta is effectively going to take orders from Modi on
the campaign. He adds that different algorithms throw up different results. But he does concede you
cant know how many of these followers are voters.
The BJPs social media strategy, which now converges on Modis own after his appointment as its
Campaign Committee chief, appears to rely on the fact that between the 2009 and 2014 elections,
India has added close to 100 million new voters. In the previous General Election, the estimate of
first-time voters stood at 60 million.
Among the most vulnerable to the elaborate PR machinery are members of the BJP itself. Their
fascination with Modi has been evident ever since his elevation within the party. Spokespersons and
leaders now defend Modi with the same aggression and ferocity that the Congress reserves for its first
family.
Meenakshi Lekhi, spokesperson of the BJP, says that Congress attacks on Modi have increased after
his elevation in the party, but the BJP has a plan to counter the Congress. This counter plan will surely
focus on Modi.
Dissent within the BJP is at a new low as well. Thespian Amir Raza Hussain is the latest victim of the
partys new game; he was forced to resign as vice-president of the BJPs Delhi unit after he praised LK
Advani over Modi in a TV discussion.
Such a personality cult is not new to the BJP, but never before has the party fallen in line so meekly
behind one man.


Modis messaging machine: How NaMo wins the PR war by Lakshmi Chaudhry Apr 11, 2013 #Feku on Twitter
#Narendra Modi #Public Relations agency #social media #WideAngle inShare 1 166 CommentsEmailPrint Earlier
this week, BJP and Congress spokespersons each accused the other side of "faking it" in the recent #Feku vs
#ModiStormsFICCI Twitter war: Your guys are all paid flunkeys, while our supporters are genuine, passionate
citizens who truly believe in the cause. The absurd premise of this mutual accusation game was that a 'paid' or
'unpaid' social media campaign is somehow shameful or 'wrong.' Primetime politics is a public relations war
fought on multiple fronts, from the dais in a dusty village to the air-conditioned TV studio to the viral battlefields of
social media. This is an objective fact not a moral judgement. It's just how the political game is played these
days. It is what it is, as George Bush once famously said. And the #Feku hashtag revealed a lumbering Congress
belatedly jumping in to the online fray to take on its hitherto uncontested champion, Narendra Modi. Modi is a
master of public relations, and its greatest innovator in Indian politics. This makes him a modern 21st century
politician, not necessarily a sinister one. Yet Rana Ayyub's Tehelka profile f Modi's PR apparatus repeatedly
takes on an ominous undertone as she describes "an almost obsessive campaign that Modi has used,
unprecedented in the history of independent India." Modi is a master of public relations, and its greatest innovator
in Indian politics.. PTI The 5-page cover story offers an up-close look at the operations of Modi's messaging
machine. One example is his speech to the India Today conclave: The speech was covered by most journalists
on the social media. Criticism of Modi was dealt with by an army of Twitter handles, most with anonymous
identities. Then there were journalists, unabashedly pro-Modi, and their websites and handles, which culled out
the significant parts of his speech and tweeted them. From Kanchan Gupta, who runs news website Niti Central,
to Tarun Vijay, who tweeted about the desire of a certain editor of a secular magazine to pose with Modi. The
tweet received more than a 1,000 retweets, mostly from anonymous handles otherwise busy hurling abuses at all
those who attempted to correct Modis exaggerated GDP figures. The cameras too did their job, by zooming in on
people in the audience who mattered the most. The image of beaming feminist and activist Madhu Kishwar, the
new poster woman of the Modi fan club, was played time and again by the channels. What we witness over and
again is the workings of a NaMo echo chamber made up of different elements that span the information
landscape, including the twitterati, journalists, bloggers, official and unofficial pro-Modi groups, and the party
apparatus. Each may exist independently of Modi, but this is the first candidate to actively tap into, coordinate
and amplify their efforts. The result is a multiplier effect. Everywhere we look, we see a larger-than-life Modi
backed by vast armies of supporters, creating the desired sense of political dominance and inevitability: From his
Sadbhavna fast two years ago, when an RTI application revealed the state government had spent money on
providing free skullcaps, to news being viralled on the Internet about former Congress member Asifa Khan joining
the BJP, to Irfan Pathan campaigning for him or inviting Modi for his brother Yusufs wedding, there is no news
his PR agency does not publicise. If at all in trouble, whether it is over the CAG indictment for undue favours, or
the diluting of the Lokayukta, the Modi fanboys on social media come to the rescue by using Hindutva to counter
the charges. From the likes of Subramanian Swamy, who Modi counts as one of his strongest admirers, to a
section of supporters in the media and a battery of intellectuals, there is nothing that Modi runs short of. Welcome
to political warfare in the Age of Information. Modi's campaign is "unprecedented" because he is first Indian
politician to spearhead a thoroughly modern political campaign, the kind that is now routine in the United States.
for decades, the Republicans dominated the electoral landscape because of a tightly disciplined messaging
machine which encompassed TV news channels and papers, radio talk shows, online bloggers, wealthy
financiers, a battery of think-tanks, local grassroots organisations like churches and clubs to dominate the
national discourse. The liberals bitterly complained about media manipulation, manufactured consent, and
Republican lies, all to no avail. Barack Obama is the first Democrat who stopped complaining and started doing.
He won by creating his very own PR machine, equally nimble, wily and aggressive, and a powerful grassroots
organisation that pulled together liberal networks and constituencies, even as he created new ones. This is how
the electoral game is played today in the United States. Its strategies were first employed by Modi's NRI
supporters, who helped convert their candidate, who has since embraced the imported model with gusto and to
great success. The #Feku campaign was the belated acknowledgement of a new media reality thrust upon a
lumbering Congress by the rise of Narendra Modi. The BJP party and Modi's rivals within it too are playing catch-
up. It is Modi not the party that is driving this new style of campaigning. The real downside to this new brand of
politicking as Americans have found out is that it transforms facts into ideological opinion. Everything is up
for debate, including reality itself. Soon the public is divided into two polarised camps who can't even agree on
what is true which makes policy debates moot. Political arguments over solutions are only possible when the
both sides agree on the facts, be it statistics on poverty, land use, malnutrition, development indicators, sexual
violence etc. Political contests then become about image not substance. It's all about who can better market his
version of the truth. And no one is well-served by politics reduced to perception. Not democracy or its citizens.
While Modi may be changing the way we fight elections, but come 2014, the parties will still have to win the gaddi
the old-fashioned way: wooing allies, making caste and sectarian calculations, trading political favours, hustling
for seats, one dusty constituency at a time. In other words, wrestling with unwieldy, diverse, chaotic reality of
India. We're still far, far away from being a nation whose elections are decided by who wins on Twitter or the
primetime news. And that may not be such a bad thing.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/modis-messaging-machine-how-namo-wins-the-pr-war-
694799.html?utm_source=ref_article

..
Modis Operandi
Twitter, blogs, news portals, investor summits, celebrities nothing seems to have escaped the
public relations blitzkrieg driving Narendra Modis prime ministerial ambitions

RANA AYYUB | @RanaAyyub
2013-04-13 , Issue 14 Volume 10
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Man Friday: Widely regarded as Modis hatchet man, Amit Shah will play a big role in the run-up to the polls




@Albatrossinfo what is #ModiNama? It is 1 mans fight v/s
intellectuals+media+Congress+NGOs+DilliSultanate+VHP(at times)+(compromised)SC+ItalianMafia
@Amitvkaushik NaMo does not have hold on the discision takes for other States and hence
the BJP leaders in Delhi, UP etc stink
The language and style of the tweets must be familiar to many of us conversant with social media and
subjected to tweets by Narendra Modis fan club. But these are not just ordinary Twitter handles. These are
some of the many that Modi follows and hence endorses on Twitter. Perhaps then there is not much scope
for further assessment of Modis prime ministerial ambitions, which has been spoken of in newspaper
editorials churned every day.
With his induction into the BJP Parliamentary Board earlier this week, Modi supporters would want us to
believe the stage is set for his coronation. While party presidentRajnath Singh stated the move had nothing
to do with Modis clout in the party,Modis PR machine has managed to swell public opinion in his favour
over the past four years. Modis induction is perhaps the result of well-crafted pressure built by various
groups in India and abroad that have been working overtime to construct a larger-than-life image of him.

Twitter Chatter
#NaMo sprang to life on the popular
microblogging site. Heres a sample
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of how Modiadmirers drive his
prime ministerial ambitions
@ashokepandit
Thank U India Today Conclave for
confirming our belief in
NarendraModi as our future PM
@madhukishwar
Those going berserk over
4 Modinamas better save your
abuses- Many more Modi namas to
follow before I take on gujarat
development story
@madhukishwar
Mohan Bhagwat joined Togadia to
rake up Ram Mandir issue to create
trouble for Modi and
giveCongress big handle. Kitna
bhunaoge Ram ko ?
@riya043
@narendramodis single speech is
more inspiring than PM MaunMohan
singhs entire life

There were three other chief ministers in the running for induction into the Parliamentary Board. It
was Modi who was chosen over the likes of Shivraj Singh Chauhan, whose candidature was endorsed
by LK Advani. While Rajnath insisted seniority was the criteria, the appointment of Modis hatchet man
Amit Shah as the party general secretary speaks volumes. While insiders believe the elevation of Shah,
who has been charged by the CBI with murder in two fake encounters, will send a wrong signal, and by
bowing down to Modis diktat the BJP has set a wrong precedent, there is a section within the party that
calls it an attempt to checkmate Modi in his own game.
When asked to comment, a senior RSS leader suggested it had become an absolute necessity to
involve Modi in BJP affairs at a national level to send out a strong signal to the voters, mostly the young
ones who find themselves enthralled by the image Modi has built for himself. Nobody is in a hurry to
name the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP or the NDA just yet, he says. For the BJP to be in a
position to name its PM candidate, it needs the requisite numbers, and those numbers seem to be distant.
For now, we need to galvanise the numbers in our favour. If the Modi mania can produce the numbers, and
for that if we need to have Modi in the Parliamentary Board, then its a small price to pay.
Another BJP leader known for his anti- Modistance believes Modis induction is an attempt to checkmate
him at a time when he had been bargaining for his own say in party affairs. Shah, who has been asked by
the Supreme Court to stay out of Gujarat, found himself in a constant tussle with Modis other favourite
Anandiben Patel, who seems to have made the most of Shahs absence in the state. With Shahs closest
team of policemen languishing in jails following cases of fake encounters and his confidant GL Singhal
being arrested in the Ishrat Jehan case last month, Shah had been building pressure on Modi to bring him
back into the BJP mainstream.
While Rajnath found himself uncomfortable answering questions on Shah, managing to fumble that the
case was sub-judice, it was not difficult to sense the pressure theBJP had been under.
When contacted, RSS leader Ram Madhav suggested Rajnath had done a balancing act, while repeating the
standard reply of the RSS: We did not put pressure on them or suggest to them to appoint people. It was
purely in the hands of senior BJP leaders under the leadership of Rajnathji to come to a decision.
With the inclusion of Varun Gandhi and Uma Bharti as office-bearers, Rajnath has indeed done a
balancing act, one that explains Modis insistence on getting Shah in the team. Both Varun and Uma come
with a hardline Hindutva image and have the ability to consolidate votes in north India.
Former Karnataka chief minister Sadananda Gowda, who had to make way for Modi favourite Jagdish
Shettar, also finds himself back in the new team.
In a situation like this when the party seems to have been looking for ways to counter the Modi mania, it is
pertinent to assess events of the past three years that culminated in Modis induction. Whether Modi will
become the prime minister or not will indeed depend on the partys performance in the Lok Sabha election;
that the BJP will have to pander to its allies like the JD(U) and Shiv Sena, which have expressed their
displeasure at Modis candidature, is something that will indeed weigh in. But for a man who has been in
the news in the past three years courtesy his ambitions, it would be interesting to delve into an almost
obsessive campaign that Modi has used, unprecedented in the history of independent India.
THREE WEEKS ago, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was in New Delhi to address a public rally
demanding special status for Bihar. Before that Modi was also in the capital to attend the annual conclave
of a news magazine; in attendance were industrialists, journalists and activists. Before Modi began his
address, there was a visual treat in store for those waiting with bated breath for him to speak (if one were
to believe BJP leader Tarun Vijay, who was live tweeting from the event). The corporate film that
showcased Gujarats achievements under Modi had the audience in rapt attention. Strategically placed
across the hall were foreigners (who we were told were businessmen in awe of Modi). After the film (it is
believed that Akriti APCO, the subsidiary of PR agency APCO Worldwide, made the film) a
beaming Modi held forth with a two-hour speech. While the speech was more or less a repetition of the
film script, the biggest indicator of Modis obsessive love of himself was the use of me (My Gujarat, My
efforts, My foresight).
The speech was covered by most journalists on the social media. Criticism of Modi was dealt with by an
army of Twitter handles, most with anonymous identities. Then there were journalists, unabashedly pro-
Modi, and their websites and handles, which culled out the significant parts of his speech and tweeted
them. From Kanchan Gupta, who runs news website Niti Central, to Tarun Vijay, who tweeted about the
desire of a certain editor of a secular magazine to pose with Modi. The tweet received more than a 1,000
retweets, mostly from anonymous handles otherwise busy hurling abuses at all those who attempted to
correct Modis exaggerated GDP figures. The cameras too did their job, by zooming in on people in the
audience who mattered the most. The image of beaming feminist and activist Madhu Kishwar, the new
poster woman of the Modifan club, was played time and again by the channels.
Kishwars turnaround and change of heart vis-a-vis the Modi administration came about earlier this year
when she was found gushing about Modis biannual Vibrant Gujarat summit, which she attended for the
first time. Since then, her publication, Manushi, has taken upon itself the task of clearing Modis name in
the 2002 communal riots. In one of her tweets, Kishwar wrote, Why doesnt anyone applaudModi for
preventing any communal riots between 2002 and 2012?
Kishwar added she was a victim like many others of a barrage of misinformation spread by activists and
politicians, including some of her friends. As if to compensate, she published a four-part piece on her
website lauding Modis work and how his government deserved laurels.
From here began the work of Modis PR machine. From Center Right India, which did interviews with
Kishwar, to Friends of BJP, which viralled her columns across the Gujarati community in the US, UK and
India. Back home, Modis website (narendramodi.in), which streams live videos of his speeches and is
flooded with images of him with foreign dignitaries, used Kishwars remarks as a badge of honour.
Zahir Jan Mohammed, a resident of Juhapura in Ahmedabad who has worked in the US House of
Representatives as a senior foreign policy aide and was a witness to the 2002 riots, is documenting the
events since that fateful year. Perplexed by Kishwars assertions, Zahir wrote an open letter to her on an
independent website. Her columns were all ridden with misinformation, and I had to counter it, says
Zahir. But apparently, PR power is much stronger than facts. Perhaps a classic example of which could be
Vibrant Gujarat, a brainchild of ad firm Gray Worldwide. Modis PR blitzkrieg begins here.
From his Sadbhavna fast two years ago, when an RTI application revealed the state government had spent
money on providing free skullcaps, to news being viralled on the Internet about former Congress member
Asifa Khan joining the BJP, to Irfan Pathan campaigning for him or inviting Modi for his brother Yusufs
wedding, there is no news his PR agency does not publicise. If at all in trouble, whether it is over the CAG
indictment for undue favours, or the diluting of the Lokayukta, the Modi fanboys on social media come to
the rescue by using Hindutva to counter the charges. From the likes of Subramanian Swamy,
who Modi counts as one of his strongest admirers, to a section of supporters in the media and a battery of
intellectuals, there is nothing thatModi runs short of.
Perhaps the most interesting anecdote of Modis PR machinery comes from a journalist- cum-filmmaker
working for an international publication. She wanted to do a piece on Gujarat and was given two dozen
books on Vibrant Gujarat and Swarnim Gujarat. She was also given a CD with a video of Suhel Seth
praising Modi. When she met the CM and his bureaucrats, she was taken around the office and handed
over 12 books written by Modi (including those of his poems and compilation of his blog) Hes very
impressed with Obama, said an official, you should draw more comparisons between the two.
In 2009, Gujarat Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil raised a seemingly trivial issue on the floor of the
Assembly, which might be of relevance in the context of Modis popularity. Gohil asserted that
Sanskardham, a school that was Modis brainchild, was being used to further his publicity despite the fact
that he had given up charge of the school. Having managed to get some information via RTI on
Sanskardham, Gohil went on to tell the media that former students and workers at Sanskardham had
spoken to him and had disclosed shocking details on condition of anonymity.
We had found that students, mostly those whose families had RSS backgrounds, were taken on board,
said Gohil. They work in three shifts and each of them had as many as 1,000 email ids. Their job is to
post comments on every website where a Modi article appears, and also blog about him. One of the
students I spoke to was given the job of writing testimonials on Modis website. He posed as a
businessman or a doctor and praised the efficiency of the Modi government. I verified this information
with some bureaucrats and they conceded. This is the real truth of Vibrant Gujarat. When TEHELKA
tried to gather information about Sanskardham, we were stonewalled by the officials.
One cannot agree or disagree with this, but what one sees of late does lend credence to Gohils accusation.
For instance, all one needs to do is check the list of people Modifollows on Twitter. The list varies from
NaMo4PM to handles that abuse anyone questioning Modis ambitions. And this is no hypothesis, as it
is Modis official handle, and his endorsement says a lot.
If Gohil is to be believed, the anonymous handles on Twitter, and the accounts that post comments on
YouTube, Facebook and Google Plus, are products of organisations like Sanskardham. Another factor that
binds Modi followers on Twitter, besides the fact that most of them are expatriates, right-leaning, self-
confessed nationalists, sanatan dharmis, engineers, doctors from acclaimed US and UK-based universities,
is their allegiance to organisations like Centre Right India and Friends of BJP. A state official, who
TEHELKA spoke to, conceded the states IT cell dedicates most of its resources to handling these social
networking groups.
ONE OF the major sources of embarrassment for Modi over the past few years has been the reluctance of
the US and UK governments to grant him a visa for his role in the 2002 riots. No wonder then that UK
Prime Minister David Camerons visit to India was monitored closely and intense lobbying was done by
pro-Modi groups.
Among the lobbyists was Manoj Ladwa. Hailing from Porbander in Gujarat, Ladwa is the convener of the
Europe India Chamber of Commerce and is at the core of lobbying for Modi. Having worked in Mumbai
and New York, he returned to London and in 2002 founded MLS Chase, headquartered opposite the
Houses of Parliament in Westminster. He merged his legal practice with Sharrards Solicitors LLP in
February 2012.
It was Ladwa who was instrumental in citing Gujarat as a great destination of investment for the UK,
especially as Cameron faced elections and a good part of the population that could vote the Tories back to
power was the strong Indian community. If Modis aides are to be believed, Cameron has conveyed
to Manmohan Singh that if at all Modi is to be granted a UK visa, it will be for the interests of his
government coming back to power and that the Gujarati community needs to be kept in good humour.
Whether this is the handiwork of lobbying by Ladwa or a PR machinery could be anyones guess.
For his part, Ladwa has said in an interview that Britain has been watching as Modihas visited China,
Russia, Japan and Singapore, and was under tremendous pressure to come up with some face-saving
measure to end its self-imposed exile in Gujarat. There are 6 lakh Gujaratis in UK.
The Modi Factory
The bloggers, students and NRI businessmen who make Modis slick PR machine tick
DESH GUJARAT A web portal that widely covers Narendra Modis public relations activities
SANSKARDHAM Located in Ahmedabad, the school was an initiative of Modibefore he became chief
minister. It is now the hub of Modis PR activities. Members have Twitter accounts to post opinion
in Modis favour
NATIONAL INDIAN AMERICAN PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE The Chicago-based outfit fixed
the recent trip of three US Congress members to Gujarat
OVERSEAS FRIENDS OF BJP Convener Vijay Jolly was instrumental in garnering the Wharton
business school invite for Modi, which was cancelled later
NAMO GUJARAT A local news channel in Gujarat that focusses on Modi
GRAY WORLDWIDE The advertising firm that first came up with the Vibrant Gujarat concept
APCO WORLDWIDE Replaced Gray Worldwide in 2009. Was responsible for the Canadian prime
ministers decision to invest in Gujarat
EUROPE INDIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Its convener Manoj Ladwa was responsible for
lobbying for Modi before the British Prime Minister David Camerons visit
INDIAN AMERICANS FOR FREEDOM The goal of the website is individual liberty, free enterprise
and freedom from bureaucrats. It gets its support from US Congressman Joe Walsh who wrote a letter to
Hilary Clinton to grant Modi a visa
HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION A pro-Modi organisation funded and run by Gujaratis in the US
A week before Cameron visited India with his delegation, the UK-India Business Council (UKIBC) had
called in APCO to help the prime minister with communications support. APCO Worldwide, which is
believed to have made the turnaround for Modi, is an independent communications consultancy. With
more than 600 employees in 29 worldwide locations, it is the second largest independently-owned PR firm
in the US. Headquartered in Washington, DC, APCO was founded in 1984. The UKIBC already works
with APCO in India and this along with lobbying by pro-Modi business groups was responsible for the
softening of stands on the chief minister.
Modis spin doctors came to his rescue yet again last month when a three-member delegation led by
US Congress members Aaron Schock, Cynthia Lummis and Cathy Rodgers came to visit him. A fortnight
before the members reached Gujarat, local and national media houses were sent notes by bureaucrats
that Modi had crossed a major hurdle. A local newspaper editor from Gujarat was asked to dedicate his
papers front page to the news that Modi had finally conquered US. Modis website, had minute-by-
minute details of the delegations visit, including flashy photographs of Modi with the three members.
Before the lawmakers arrived, Modis PR department issued two advertisements. His government was
issuing three types of packages to corporates: 7 star, 5 star and 3 star. The ad read, Invitation to join the
business delegation led by Congressmen Schock, Stuzman, Loomis and Gardner. Departing 26 March
return on 7 April. Package includes private dinner meeting with top leadership of India including chief
ministersModi, Badal and Shettar.
Modis PR machine organised a starry press conference and reporters were encouraged to ask questions
from the three members on Modis ascent to the top position. And they happily obliged. Schock,
interestingly, is facing a House Ethics investigation for misuse of funds and violating federal laws. It
would be important to recollect that it was Schock who praised Modi on the floor of the House when the
latter won a third successive term in December 2012.
What came as an embarrassment for Modi were newspaper reports which alleged that his government had
paid money to the three US Congress members to make the trip. Even if one were to dismiss that it was a
paid trip, one can only ask the Modigovernment as to how three junior members on a private visit
amounted to Modigetting an American visa?
Congress leader Rashid Alvi said that it was the biggest sham the country had ever witnessed. As Zahir Jan
Mohammed points out, This is laughable. When any member of the US Congress travels abroad, he/she
travels as an official of the US and carries a US diplomatic passport. But that person does not necessarily
hold the views of the US or the White House.
The visit of the US Congress members was organised by the Chicago-based National Indian American
Public Policy Institute. Of late, the group, which has a considerable number of the Patel community, has
been playing a significant role in helping Modigain acceptance.
It was this group, along with the Overseas Friends of the BJP and its convener Vijay Jolly, that had
organised the Wharton speech by Modi, later cancelled. The group has been specifically asked by
the Modi regime to arrange two trips by the end of August to reputed American institutes.
@sarkar_swati
Perhaps Bhupendra Chaubey shud
have asked his boss & former
colleague of why they took it to
themselves to villifyModi as a
mass
murderer?@KanchanGupta
When you see @narendramodi
spontaneously indulging in light-
hearted banter you realise why he
is different and connects with
people easily@emanin
MSM is driving a Hardline
Hindutva agenda as their anti-
NaMo campaigns have failed to
give the desired
results@shilpitewari
While all the articles analysed all
muslim colonies in guj why didnt
they see the muslims leaning to
vote for modi? Abt 31% did

What is this hype leading to? There has been a concerted move to show Modi is building bridges with
Muslims, thanks to efforts by the likes of Zafar Sareshwala, a Muslim industrialist from Gujarat whose
fortune has grown manifold in the past 12 years. Sareshwala has been one of the most significant spin
doctors for Modi who has also used his Bollywood links to help Modi. FromModis meetings with
scriptwriter Salim Khan to his Google Hangouts with actor Ajay Devgn, who is whispered to have sought
land in Gujarat for his film institute, Modi has not left any stone unturned.
An editor of a Gujarati daily adds, Look at portals like deshgujarat.com, they are covertly run by the state
government. Every time a celebrity, for instance Ajay Devgn, visits the state, the website declares in bold:
Devgn calls Gujarat the best-ruled state, plans to invest in solar power.
Modis officials also speak of his intention to celebrate Gujarat Foundation Day in London and APCOs
endeavour to organise a public function for Modi in Brussels.
If there is one thing that has come in handy for Modi, it is natural resources, which Gujarat provides to
industrial houses like the Ambanis, the Tatas, the ESSAR group and the Adanis. Check the website of
APCOWorldwide to Aakruti APCO, the Indian subsidiary of APCO, and its client list tells you the story.
Adani, GPSC, Modigovernment, Vibrant Gujarat dominate its screen. Call up APCO and Aakriti and ask
them about the money the regime pays for its services and you are stonewalled.
Will all this reap dividends for Modi? One of Modis propaganda machines might well have the answer.
The introduction on his Facebook page reads, If awards, honours and grants are to be taken as accolades,
the verdict is clear. The recognition is not just statewide, its national and international. And, its the
same Modi-Magic that has worked here.

PAGES: 1 2 3 4 5 | SINGLE PAGE
(Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 10 Issue 14, Dated 13 April 2013)

..
Truth vs Hype

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Narendra Modi: The Grand Illusion?

Sreenivasan Jain

Ahmedabad: There may be general consensus that the election in Gujarat is a no contest
but the jury is still out on whether to credit Narendra Modis performance as
Chief Minister, or credit his massive and expensive propaganda machine, which his
critics say has vastly inflated his rather limited successes.

The Modi PR machine never sleeps, but in election time, goes into overdrive.

There are his surreal, and much publicised 3 D speeches, 29 Vikas Raths equipped with
projectors, and 10 LED Raths each with a 110 screen which roam interior villages.

His personal website has been given a spanking new election upgrade. As has his other
social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook page and Youtube channel.

The frequency of advertisements on TV, print and online have multiplied. And he also
has his own TV channel: NaMo Gujarat, which was launched just before the elections.

But who runs this for Modi, and who pays for it? As with most things related to Modi,
answers are not easy to come by. The Modi spin machine appears to use a mix of official,
quasi-official and private players, with fragmented responsibilities, a structure that
allows for grey areas of accounting and accountability.

One such hub is run in a corporate tower in Ahmedabad at the offices of Maulik Bhagat,
who runs a software and media firm. Bhagat is only 27 years old, but his father is BJP
party Headquarter fixture, and Modi confidante Parindu Bhagat. Hes a new, but integral
part of the Modi spin team, creating the concept for a series of popular kabbadi ads,
meant to highlight the leaderless state of the Gujarat Congress.

Maulik says he is also coordinating the Chief Ministers mammoth online and social
media campaign.

But at the BJP headquarters Rajeeka Kacheeria, who head the partys IT cell, seems to
suggest that she is coordinating a similar effort.

The confusion over who runs his online operations, extends to questions about costs as
well. Maulik says that while social media is low cost, but admits that running websites
and producing ads and buying ad space comes at a cost. He says he doesn't have any
idea of budgets.

There is equal secrecy about the other big expense: the 3D projections.

The opposition claims they were quoted figures of Rs. 5-6 crore per projection.

If that was true , by the end of the election Mr Modi would have spent Rs 20 crores on
the 3D visuals alone.

But Mr Mani Shankar, the director of the projections says that his lips are sealed, and he
cannot talk about the deal.

The same opaqueness surrounds the running of NaMo TV. All that is visible is its
content: a mix of speeches, talk shows and promotional features on the government.
NaMo TV and the 3D projections are run by Parag Shah, an ex member of the Chief
Ministers office.

Mr Shah refused to come on camera.

But then details of government spending have always been hard to come by. The
publicity department of Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which Modi controls, in
its annual budget for 2011-12 has set aside Rs 1 crore for hiring a PR firm in Delhi to
showcase the Gujarat growth story. But expenses of different campaigns are spread out
amongst different ministries, making it impossible to pinpoint ownership or a complete
figure.

RTI activists like Trupti Shah, and Rohit Prajapati describe how they were repeatedly
stonewalled when they tried to get details of spending on some of Modis pet schemes.
Their RTI application was about the government's claim of providing employment to
65,000 people during the Swami Vivekananda Employment Week. She said in
reality the figure was very less. They were also not provided with details on the
travelling expenditure of the Chief Minister and other ministers.

As an apparent bid to show transparency in election fundraising, early this year Modi
launched Dhan Sangrah scheme. Controversially this set targets for party officials and
ministers to raise Rs. 500 crores from the public.

The party refused to comment on how much they raised, but reports suggested that the
scheme had to be abandoned after rising allegations that it was a form of indirect
extortion.

Gujarat Congress spokesperson, Ami Yagnik says that since the voters do 'matdaan' one
cannot ask them for 'dhan-daan' for the party.

To this Jainarayan Vyas, spokesperson for the Gujarat government said that the targets
were not for individuals but for party units. He admits that while he managed to meet
his targets, many fell short.

In their defence, team Modi claims the publicity machine is low cost, because it is
propelled by adoring volunteers. Like an army of online followers who spread his word,
and take on his critics.

Rajeeka says that 4-5000 people are involved in retweeting Modi's tweets, and
spreading his word. She says that his online followers are genuine.

And yet, soon after Modis spin machine declared that he crossed a million followers on
Twitter, the hype was somewhat deflated by a piece of news which said almost 40% of
his followers were fake.

Rajeeka claims this is a deliberate conspiracy to defame Modi.

So are claims of Modi's vast support base as exaggerated as his achievements?

The Congress' rather feeble counter narrative to the Modi success narrative are ads
which parodies a popular folk song, and describes the Gujarat CM as a phenku, or
exaggerator.

A greater worry for the BJP is the powerful Gujarati press, which seems to have done a
u-turn on Modi.

In a rare interview, Shreyans Shah, the editor of Gujarat Samachar, the state's largest
selling daily says that he 'would give (Modi) him all compliments for his marketing
ability. He is an excellent marketing manager and marketing man and he can sell
a fridge on the North Pole'

We asked Jainarayan Vyas about the anomalies in the claims being made by the
Gujarat CM's spin machine.

For instance Planning Commission figures show that Gujarat comes 6th in Agriculture,
5th in literacy rate, and 10th in sex ratio.

Mr Vyas said that while its true that some state's maybe growing faster than Gujarat,
that could be because they operate from a lower base.

Selling Modi to Gujarat is one thing but how did the Modi PR machine sell Modi to the
world?

The origins of the Modi PR hardsell began in the immediate aftermath of the 2002 riots.

The ad firm Grey Worldwide which had come up with the concept of Vibrant Gujarat for
the tourism department was given a wider and more ambitious brief - to
convert Vibrant Gujarat into an investor summit.

In the words of a PR professional, it was to create happy, happening images of Gujarat.

Since 2003, the 5 editions of Vibrant Gujarat claimed to have brought in pledges
of 800 billions of dollars, which some claim is unrealistic.

Former Hindu journalist Nina Vyas says that the 'Vibrant Gujarat website claims that
they had over 800 billion dollars of MOU totally. For the same period of 10 years the
Reserve Bank says that Gujarat got only 7 billion dollars. So, where is 800 billion dollars
and where is 7 billion dollars ? And the absurdity of the figure is you can see because
the whole of China for the same period received a total of 600 billion dollars FDI. I mean
its an utter web of lies'.

When it is pointed out that Gujarat trails at number 5 as an FDI destination, Jai Narayan
Vyas says that it is unfair to only go by FDI figures and that other sectors have
flourished citing the example of auto majors Maruti and Tata.

But the summits may have served their intended purpose. Manoj Ladwa , a UK based
lawyer and a Whitehall insider is believed to have laid much of the groundwork that
led to the UKs U turn on Modi.

He spoke of how anti-Modi voices in the UK like 'Curry King' Lord Gulam Noon and Lord
Meghnad Desai had changed their mind about the Gujarat CM.

Some reports suggested that the change of heart maybe because of lobbying by firms
like APCO Worldwide, the PR firm which replaced Grey in 2009.

APCO refused to respond to specific questions on lobbying, instead claimed Our
mandate is limited to positioning Gujarat as an investment destination of choice and the
Vibrant Gujarat Summit as a global business and knowledge hub.

Manoj says it is not lobbying but the Vibrant Gujarat success story which brought this
turn around. He said that the starting point was in fact the statement made by the
British High Commissioner after meeting Modi where he said that engagement with
Modi would happen if it was in their national self interest, which would primarily mean
business interest.

But when asked to name big investors that have set up shop after 10 years of hardsell,
he said its 'not about the big ticket but what's happening on the ground with smaller
players across different sectors.'

With victory in sight, any exercise to point out loopholes in Modis claims might be
academic. But is using a political PR blitz to paper over a controversial past and win
elections good for the health of Indian democracy?

(With inputs from Niha Masih)

PR firms creating Modi myth

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi seems to have captured peoples imagination using his
strong PR machinery working in liaison with Gujarat Commissionerate of Info-rmation. The PR firm would
force feed journalists and publications of our times with stories, inputs, and information to project superhuman
accomplishments of the Gujarat Chief Minister; his Rambo Act in Uttarakhand is one such example, where no
degree of skepticism was exercised initially.
Even as Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party have till date denied hiring PR agencies, a detailed report
published by Open Magazine gives convincing details including facts and figures to prove public relations
agencys involvement with Modi and the Gujarat government. The report also confirmed the degree to which the
PR organization would handle Modis press and interactions with journalists for 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
According to the report, The Guajarat government is in the process of finalizing a new contract with a PR
agency. The current contract, held by Delhi-based Mutual PR, expires in a couple of months. The governments
international contract, held worldwide by Apco, an American lobbying firm, ended in March 2013; it was estimated
to be worth Rs. 13 lakh a month. A look at the Request for Proposal document, which is confidential (available
only to bidding agencies), reveals the mammoth task that managing the Gujarat Chief Ministers public image is.
The document issued by the state government says it expects the agency to hard sel l positive growth and
developments happening in the state at regular intervals, or as and when asked to do so by the Commissionerate
of Informa-tion.
The mammoth task given by Commissionerate of Infor-mation to PR agency include to help shape favorable
media opinion for Gujarat government, both nationally as well as internationallyand to position Gujarat as
one of Indias leading states across sectors by increasing visibility and enhancing top of the mind recall so as to
make it an ideal destination among various stakeholders.
..
Modis Ratings
By HARTOSH SINGH BAL
APRIL 24, 2012, 9:41 AM 25 Comments
Sam
Panthaky/Agence France-Presse Getty ImagesNarendra Modi in January 2010.
NEW DELHI Narendra Modi, the leading figure of Indias right-wing Bharatiya
Janata Party (B.J.P.), didnt make Time magazines list of the 100 most powerful
people in the world this year. Midway through the online polling, after Modis stock
had started to surge,liberals in India organized a counter-campaign. In the end,
256,792 votes were cast for him and 266,684 votes against.
Too bad for Modi: its an election year in the state of Gujarat, where he is chief
minister, and he is known to be eyeing the countrys prime minister slot. But I, for
one, am relieved: finally a defeat for Modis formidable PR team, which routinely
manages to whitewash his responsibility for fueling sectarian strife and oversells his
economic accomplishments, especially to Western journalists.

Modi has been accused of doing little in 2002, the year after he became chief
minister, to prevent largely Hindu mobs led in the main by people affiliated with
the B.J.P. and allied organizations from attacking Muslims throughout the state in
retaliation for the death of 58 Hindu pilgrims in a train fire. According to
government records, says the BBC, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed in that
outburst, making it one of the worst incidents of anti-Muslim violence since Indias
independence.
Since then Modis PR machine has worked hard to undo the damage by portraying
him as an efficient administrator. Foreign journalists have served that mission well.
Their concern for striking a balance in their copy seems to have demanded that they
offset the stain of the 2002 riots by praising Modis achievements. Modi, in turn, has
played his part by granting them access to him, which he rarely does for Indian
journalists.
In a 2009 profile for The Atlantic, Robert Kaplan wrote, I have met Jimmy Carter,
Bill Clinton, and both Bushes. At close range,Modi beats them all in charisma.
Kaplan also relayed some of Modis self-described achievements with little question:
What he gave me was not the usual promotional brochures, but long lists of sourced
statistics put together by an aide. Gujarat had experienced 10.2 percent annual GDP
growth since 2002. It had eight new universities. In recent years, almost half the new
jobs created in India were in Gujarat. The state ranked first in poverty alleviation,
first in electricity generation.
Last month, just a week before Times online poll and the very day that a profile of
Modi in the magazine made the cover of its South Asia edition William Antholis,
the managing director of the Brookings Institution, posted Indias Most Admired
and Most Feared Politician online. He, too, extolled Modis work: Gujarats
economic performance is without peer in India, growing an average 10 percent each
year for a decade. That is faster growth than almost any place on earth, including
most of China.
Neither Antholis nor Kaplan treated the facts and figures that Modis team threw
their way with enough skepticism. The decade of growth for which Modi gets so
much credit is the decade during which the Indian economy as a whole averaged over
7.5 percent growth. Several Indian states of a comparable size, like Maharashtra and
Tamil Nadu, have come close to matching Gujarat (pdf) on this count while doing
better at improving living conditions for their citizens, especially marginalized
groups.
The 2011 Human Development Report for India states that hunger and malnutrition
are worse in Gujarat than in Indias other large states. According to the report,
almost 45 percent of children in Gujarat are malnourished. A larger percentage of
children go to bed hungry in Gujarat, one of Indias richest states, than in Uttar
Pradesh, one of its poorest.
In terms of infant and maternal mortality, Gujarats record during the decade that
Modi has run the state is poorer than that of the country at large. In 2006-2010, life
expectancy in Gujarat was two years shorter than the national average (about 66
years). Gujarat ranked 17th among all Indian states in terms of literacy in 2001, the
year Modi took over. Now it ranks 18th.
These figures belie Modis reputation as an efficient administrator. But you wouldnt
know it reading the foreign media. In fact, the coverage is so complimentary that
Modis people have collected it in a 49-page e-book called The World Lauds
Narendra Modi Excerpts from TIME, Brookings & The Economist! and made it
available on his Web site
.
With Modi, AAP taking early lead, can global
PR firms better Rahul Gandhi's poll prospects
in 2014?
Akash Deep Ashok January 7, 2014 | UPDATED 14:47 IST

In a changed political scenario, where Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal and Bharatiya
Janata Party's Narendra Modi have taken a lead at the poll campaign for the 2014 General
Elections, the Congress has decided to take professional help to breathe fresh life into the
sagging poll prospects of its vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

According to a report in the Hindustan Times, the party has hired Japanese advertising firm
Dentsu to popularise and build Gandhi's image as a young, dynamic leader who will
empower the common man. The report said the party has roped in another global
communications firm, Burson-Marsteller, to take on Modi's and AAP's social media
campaigns and make the young leader a force to reckon with in social media.

The grand old party is the latest among major political players to realise the importance of
professional help in the run-up to 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Perhaps, the realisation comes in
the wake of its disastrous performance in four of the five states which went to the polls,
dubbed the semifinal to 2014.

However, with less than 120 days to go before the nation pronounces its verdict, it remains
to be seen how much difference the PR firms can make for the Nehru-Gandhi family scion at
this stage. More so, since Modi's PR machine started working overtime well in advance and
has made incredible leaps ever since.

NaMo, NaMo: How it all began

According to a report published a few months ago in The Indian Express, public relations
giant APCO Worldwide was hired to promote Modi's investment and development
showpiece 'Vibrant Gujarat' as early as December 2009. In the four years since, its team of
45 experts in 20 countries has also given the Gujarat CM just the push he needed to open
doors globally.

But apparently the PR firm's role was not limited to 'Vibrant Gujarat' only.

The report quoted an RTI query revealing an excerpt from the agreement signed between
the Modi's government in Gujarat and APCO: "APCO will also gauge the tonality of coverage
and identify journalists who can further be Media Ambassadors for Gujarat. The idea is to
expand and build on the 'Friends of Gujarat' circle so as to have a sustained programme of
endorsement and outreach."

The report said that any such group called 'Friends of Gujarat' did not exist at the time the
agreement was signed. Besides, APCO had earlier been in a similar controversy over
promoting notorious Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev through a 'Friends of
Kazakhstan' group.

Ever since, a lot of global accolades and recognitions have come for Modi's government in
Gujarat through organisations which are related to APCO. For finer details of these, please
go through this article here.

Aam aadmi's khaas campaign

AAP applied its own dynamics at creating an incredibly favourable wave in its favour in a
very short time all across the nation.

Apart from dedicated teams to further the newly-formed party's cause on the social media
platforms, Kejriwal's campaign in the Delhi Assembly polls relied on more than 7,000
dedicated volunteers-students, factory workers, young women and men on sabbatical from
their jobs, cab drivers, retired civil servants, who went from house to house telling people
why change was not only important but imminent.

In Delhi, the activist-turned-politician's poll strategy was premised on his early experiences
with Parivartan, a voluntary group he founded in 1999, and more recently, Anna Hazare's
Jan Lokpal movement.

The campaign is likely to make a splash in the party's run for Lok Sabha also since it is
crafted to engage with individual voters via nukkad sabhas, constituency-wise manifesto
meetings where voters are invited to submit suggestions on ways to improve governance in
their local areas, and sustained door-to-door visits.

Far away from the traditional methods of campaigning, these are all novelties the Delhi CM
brings to the table at the hustings in 2014.

The challenges for Rahul Gandhi's PR campaign are bigger, because both Modi's and
Kejriwal's campaigns are based on the Congress's allegedly wrong policies and a decade-
long misrule.

How deep-rooted is the malaise was visible in the empty public gatherings of Gandhi in the
recent campaign for the five state Assemblies. It will be an uphill task for any PR firm to
further the Congress vice-president's cause at the hustings in face of enormous early gains
already made by Modi and Kejriwal.

It remains to be seen how these global firms win the race for Gandhi against time.


Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rahul-gandhi-pr-firm-lok-sabha-
elections/1/334891.html


On December 14, 2009, public relations giant APCO Worldwide was hired to
promote Narendra Modi's investment and development showpiece 'Vibrant Gujarat'.
In the four years since, its team of 45 experts in 20 countries has also given the Gujarat
CM just the push he needed to open doors globally.
An RTI query shows Steven King as one of the members of APCO's "global project
management team" for Vibrant Gujarat. While APCO claims they don't work for Modi,
and that their brief is limited to promoting Gujarat as a destination for investors, King
was named as an official spokesperson for the Chief Minister in a report by The New
York Times.
For her report 'A divisive Indian official is loved by businesses' in February 2011, NYT
correspondent Heather Timmons had sought Modi's comments. "A spokesman for Mr
Modi, Steven King, with the Washington public relations firm APCO Worldwide, wrote
in an e-mail responding to questions: 'The government has very highly developed
grievance proceedings'," said the NYT report.
The Modi government signed a deal of Rs 2.25 crore per year at the prevailing dollar rate
in 2010 with APCO. An RTI query shows that APCO's brief was not restricted to building
Gujarat as an investment destination alone. "APCO will also gauge the tonality of
coverage and identify journalists who can further be Media Ambassadors for Gujarat.
The idea is to expand and build on the 'Friends of Gujarat' circle so as to have a sustained
programme of endorsement and outreach," the agreement stated.
A grouping of Gujaratis living abroad, Friends of Gujarat, didn't exist incidentally at the
time APCO signed the agreement. According to the filings with US tax authorities, which
can be availed from the US Internal Revenue Service website, it was formed 10 months
later, in September 2010.
Since then, Friends of Gujarat has often served as a platform to promote Modi and his
government's governance record. It was also used by the CM to reach out to the Gujarati
community in the US.
The 'Swarnim Gujarat' function held by Friends of Gujarat in New Jersey, to mark 50
years of the state's creation, was attended by a large delegation sent by Modi.
Last month, the 'Global Gujarati Conference' organised by Friends of Gujarat saw
addresses by Modi at multiple venues through 3D projection. In 2011, the Canadian
Friends of Gujarat sent one of the largest delegations to Vibrant Gujarat, including a few
parliamentarians.
APCO was in similar controversy over promoting notorious Kazakhstan President
Nursultan Nazarbayev through a 'Friends of Kazakhstan' group earlier.
Lobbying disclosures made by APCO in the US show that it was in touch with Eni
Falemavaga, a member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign
Affairs and a member of the Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific, on deals with
Kazakhstan as well as Malaysia.
In March this year, it was Falemavaga who strongly appealed to the Committee on
Foreign Affairs to open dialogue with Modi. While commenting on the post-Godhra
2002 riots, Falemavaga said: "The fact remains that... India's Supreme Court has not
found any evidence against CM Modi... The US should shift its attitude and extend a
hand of friendship to Modi, just as the European Union and the UK are doing, given that
Modi is the frontrunner among the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial
candidates."
Despite emails and calls, APCO did not respond to specific queries sent by The Sunday
Express, including on Friends of Gujarat.
Apart from King, the global project management team of APCO for Vibrant Gujarat
includes Gad Ben Ari (former media advisor to ex-Israel PM Yitzhak Rabin and ex-
director general of the most powerful Jewish fund-raising organisation, Keren Hayesod);
Philippe Maze-Sencier (he earlier worked with the European defence firm EADS and
with the European Commission in Washington); and Barry Schumacher (senior director,
APCO Worldwide, and one of the foremost Washington lobbyists).
Recently, Labour Friends of India, an outfit of the Labour Party in the UK, invited Modi
to address the House of Commons. One of the lobbyists for Vibrant Gujarat working in
the UK is Alex Bigham, political advisor to the Labour Party.
The new work order issued to APCO in December 2011 stated that "APCO Worldwide
will promote VG 2013 Summit only internationally." Besides, APCO was given additional
responsibility of "supporting Gujarat as tourist destination" and "attracting case-studies
endorsements from learning institutions".
In October 2012, the Gujarat Solar Park, about which Modi talks often, was awarded
'Best Project of the Year Medium Term Duration' by Project Management Institute
(PMI), a global organisation with presence in over 185 countries, in one such 'case-study
endorsement'. APCO is also a lobbyist for PMI


Narendra Modi's election campaign: what's
working, what may not
By a columnist
April 21, 2014
First Published: 15:15 IST(21/4/2014)
Last Updated: 15:50 IST(21/4/2014)
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BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi addresses a public rally in Lakhimpur. (Shadab Raza/ HT photo)
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi has swamped the Indian media ever since his declaration
as BJP election campaign chief in June 2013. With his announcement as BJP's prime
ministerial candidate three months later, his TRPs soared. For the past 9 months or so he has
been a constant across the media and inevitably occupies mind space.
Now, when more than 40% of the Lok Sabha seats have gone to polls and the D-Day (May 16)
is less than a month away, heres an analysis of what seems to be working for him or what
could go wrong.
What seems to be working
10 years of UPA rule
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has ruled India for the past 10 years.
There have been many corruption scams, persistent inflation and low job creation. Economic
growth has slowed down to less than 5% in UPA II (though global factors were also partly
responsible). The impression of weak leadership and talk of a parallel power centre in
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has not helped.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is no Jawaharlal Nehru. Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul
Gandhi, do not exude the charisma of Indira Gandhi. All these mean there is a strong anti -
incumbency wave. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
and Modi are taking advantage.
Indians love personality cult politics
Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Jai Prakash Narayan, Indira, Rajiv, Sonia, Rahul, AB Vajpayee; they
have all benefited from our love of big personality figures. The Indian voter likes towering
leaders who have a larger than life image and are bigger than their parties. These leaders are
charismatic. At the moment, Modi is filling this void for some. They believe all evils faced by
India will vanish if Modi becomes PM.
Good orator
Modi speaks good Hindi, despite not being from north India. Hindi is the most popular language
in the country and is understood in most parts of the country. Though not a Vajpayee, he is a
good public speaker. He has the ability to hold big crowds with his speech wherein he attacks
and mocks the opposition.
TINA factor
At this point, Modi has no competition. No other party has officially declared a PM nominee.
AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa has indicated her PM ambition, but is not a serious contender yet.
The Third Front has crashed before take-off due to the abundance of PM aspirants. The
Congress has shied away from naming a PM candidate, citing democratic principles. Arvind
Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party are challengers, but by political yardstick, not there yet. BJP
is projecting "there is no alternative " to Modi and is confident that it is working.
Virtual capture of social media
Modi is the undisputed king of social media among Indian politicians. Nobody is near him. The
other top contender, Rahul Gandhi, has little social media presence. Kejriwal is on Twitter and
gathering followers, but trails Modi by a fair distance. Attention to detail and excellent public
relations machinery, which ensures Modis personalised messages reach out to his followers
and fans, are helping the BJP.
What could go wrong
BJP's internal fighting
The perceived one-man show is not going down well with everyone in the BJP. Senior leader
LK Advani has shown his displeasure several times. No other leader is holding ralli es as him,
helping Modi (not that he seems to be too bothered). For the so-called anti-Modi camp, an
opportunity may arise if he falls short of a majority on his own and needs allies. Some who
would like to ally with the BJP might not necessarily be agreeable with Modi in charge and this
is where Advani and other big leaders will have an opening.
2002 riots and polarisation of Muslim votes
The opposition and media glare is on post-Godhra riots. With the notion that Hindu votes get
divided and Muslims vote en bloc, every party eyes the minority vote. No matter what the PR
spin is, the minority community is unlikely to side with the BJP and Modi.
Poor selection of candidates
With opinion polls showing the BJP emerging as the single largest party, leaders from other
parties are jumping on the Modi bandwagon. The BJP is embracing all-comers and also giving
some of them tickets. This demoralises the local leadership and workers. Some alliances such
as the one with N Chandrababu Naidus TDP and Ram Vilas Paswans LJP are being resented
locally. Moreover, the party also has to contend with anti-incumbency against sitting MPs who
have been re-nominated.
The BJP is fighting the general elections much in the manner of the US presidential polls. It
believes that Modi will wave his hand to the crowds at rallies and people will vote for him and
the BJP, no matter who the local candidate is. This style is being tried first time in Indian
politics. May 16 will tell us if it succeeded or not.
- See more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/indiapoliticswatch/narendra-modi-s-election-campaign-
what-s-working-what-may-not/article1-1210544.aspx#sthash.EWqs0yQt.dpuf

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India Shining Lies, And
The PR Firms That Sell Them
By Raja Swamy
21 April, 2004
countercurrents.org
The BJP-NDAs India Shining PR campaign is a project of the global PR giant Grey Global Group
(http://www.prweek.com/thisweek/index.cfm?ID=203981). The 7th largest PR firm in the world,
Grey Globals operations have earned notoriety in the United States on account of the activities of its
subsidiary, APCO. The website http://prwatch.org documents APCOs activities in support of such
stalwarts as Philip Morris, the tobacco giant, the American Plastics Council, a lobbying group for the
plastics industries (plastics are derivatives of petrochemicals), and more recently, in setting up a task
force for the reconstruction of Iraq in other words, the cornering of lucrative contracts in an
invaded third world country, for their US corporate clients. Members of the board on this task force
include political bigwigs like Steven Solarz, and Richard Allen, the former National Security Advisor
under Ronald Reagan. Additionally, the CEO of APCO has ties with the fundamentalist Christian
Coalition, an important supporter of the Bush administration
(http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1996Q3/cohen.html).
What does this say about the nature of the BJPs efforts to win this general election? First, it reveals
the fact that the BJP has sought help from a corporation with an established track record of defending
the indefensible. While the real state of Indias economy teeters on the brink of all out devastation for
the vast majority of working people, particularly in rural areas (see http://www.rupe-india.org for a
devastating analysis of the real state of Indias economy), the BJP would like to project itself as the
party that brought prosperity to India: a classic inversion of reality! In order to do this, they have
utilized all sorts of imagery and noise, as iconic representations of the BJPs supposed successes.
Images of the artificially kneed, and rather tiresome personality of the Prime Minister, with his arm
raised towards a glowing scenic background, are supposed to convey a sense of immaculate power
and vision an assertion neither borne out by facts on the ground, nor even remotely echoed in the
contrary reality of grotesque Hitlerian salutes of Hindutva accompanying 5 years of fascistic violence,
murder, and destruction.
Displaying greater loyalty to Hindutva, than to India, this Prime Minister and his cabinet of
murderously anti-poor and anti-minority fascists, have repeatedly and brazenly assaulted the
foundations of free Indias democratic institutions, its basis in the constitution, its heritage of pluralistic
possibilities, despite all their flaws and deficiencies, and the human and civil rights of hundreds of
millions of Indias Muslim and Christian citizens. Grey Globals PR machinery is employed to mask
this and present the Prime Minister as some sort of prophetic visionary perched atop the dizzy clouds
of false achievements. While the loot taken from India has enabled western corporations and their
domestic clients to make a literal killing at the cost of unemployment, malnourishment, and miserable
starvation deaths throughout rural India, the managers of state find it appropriate to wave glossy
images of contentment as if imagery and noise could mask the latter realities. It is an insult to the
intelligence of any fair-minded human being, that the author and protagonist of the terrible genocide of
Muslims in Gujarat, the fascistic Mr. Modi, pioneered the use of the grotesquely irrelevant term feel
good factor, while addressing hordes of Indian and NRI capitalists a few months
ago(http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=47280). Mr. Modi remains a
warm host to capitalism, Indian and global no condemnation from the U.S. government;
Ambassador Blackwill, stated that he was disturbed while the massacres took place in 2002.
Secondly, the reliance of the BJP on Grey Globals PR skills, reveals the extent to which the most
egregious abandonment of the social development dreams of free India, goes hand in hand with a
treacherous adherence to neoliberal led American imperialism. The BJP is firmly entrenched within a
framework of loyalty to U.S. imperialism, and its primary beneficiaries, neoliberal capitalism. As a
party that has gone beyond any other, to serve the interests of international (and domestic lackey)
capitalism, the BJP is projected as the favorite, by domestic and global corporate media. In addition,
pro-Hindutva and neoliberal-friendly U.S. based outfits like the OFBJP (Overseas Friends of the BJP),
have dispatched leaders and members to campaign for the BJP in India
(http://in.rediff.com/election/2004/apr/13iype.htm)! It is quite a travesty how the phrase India
shining and various permutations of it such as shining India and feel good factor have dominated
the corporate media, without any reference to the global PR corporations responsible for them.
The Public Relations industry itself has a fascinating history, superbly documented in Alex Careys
Taking the Risk out of Democracy (http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s97/carey.html). The
importance of generating and mobilizing consent among the working class, towards the policies and
interests of capitalism, has distinguished the United States for half a century, from standard forms of
totalitarian control. The PR industry arose as a response of the ruling class, to the radicalization of the
American working class in the early part of the twentieth century. Its growth and functioning drew
admiration from no less a fascist totalitarian than Hitler, who while praising Allied propaganda
techniques in World War 1, decried the crass incompetence of German propaganda as a factor in
their defeat. This admiration and critique formed the basis for the renewed and much more effective
assault for hearts and minds by the Nazi party after it came to power in 1933. As the former head of
Hitlers propaganda film department, Franz Hippler stated in an interview with Bill Moyers,
propaganda relies on one important technique simplification and repetition
(http://www.counterpunch.org/jackson04162004.html). The U.S. PR industry now dominates a
world in which globalization is synonymous with the expansion of U.S. imperialist power and the
interests of its corporate beneficiaries. It excels in setting up front organizations and manipulating the
perception of corporate and government actions, in addition to selling products, brands and ideas.
Given this sordid history, it is not at all surprising that the fascistic BJP has turned to an American PR
firm, which has an established track record of painting toxic plastics as good for infants and nursing
mothers, opposition to giant tobacco corporations as unscientific, and the imperialistic plunder of Iraq
as reconstruction. In stark Orwellian terms, the BJPs India Shining PR campaign is a fair
equivalent of poison is good for you style propaganda, whose roots, like the BJPs own ideological
roots, lie in a history of fascistic, totalitarian deception and genocidal thuggery. It goes without saying
that beyond the feeling and beneath the shine lies the disturbing truth of ugly manipulation, in the
shameless service of capitalist greed and imperialist domination, and in opposition to the true
interests of the majority of Indias people, especially workers, peasants and all oppressed
communities of India. The CEO of Andhra Pradesh in response to farmer suicides in the countryside,
once dispatched teams of psychiatrists: to alter the perception of the world among those responding
in utter desperation to the cruel outcomes of the very policies he and his friends fervently promote.
The BJPs Grey Global Group India Shining project takes this venality to soaring new heights,
through simplification and repetition of lies and with a little help from their U.S. corporate friends.
How appropriate: an imperialist corporation which treats lying to people like it were a professional
science, is charged with representing the shining performance of the BJP led NDA government! Can
things get more bizarrely blatant that this?