The trailer for Modi Biopic seems to be BJP propaganda

Just a few weeks before the first phase of voting, the trailer of Vivek Oberoi-starrer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi: The Story of a Billion People raised more than 14 million views on YouTube.

The propaganda film, which masquerades as a biopic, not only reinforces the personality cult around the Indian Prime Minister, but also makes it possible to blame serious allegations for its role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, which have devastated Modi for nearly two decades. .

He presents Modi as an ultra-living patriot, more powerful than nature, deeply human and attentive to the tragedies of which his people were victims. The trailer seems to suggest that you are not doing better than that. All the similarities with the BJP's election campaign are pure coincidence.

Two and a half minutes later, the trailer starts quite badly about the voiceover, " Aap Kashmir ke mudde ko bhadhayenge to desh tukde – tukde ho you incite the problem of Kashmir, India will be cut into pieces), while a man with broad shoulders moves towards the horizon, hands joined, towards the public.This is a subtle gesture for the so-called "tukde-tukde gang", a phrase that is now the basic product of Right social media and TV debates at prime time, but this sets the tone for what follows.

From there, the trailer takes viewers into the childhood and formative years of Modi. There are clichés of Modi expressing his desire to become an ascetic, followed by a montage of which one would think that he just came out of Batman Begins . Here is a man who lives on the remains of land, surveying arid and difficult lands and engaging in physical work alone.

In a later scene, the virtues of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are vaunted. "RSS is not that a group, it's an army," says an instructor, while Indira Gandhi, a criminal, orders the arrest of RSS officials, presumably during the emergency. Scenes of repression and death follow. We see a helpless Modi with a body on his shoulders, revealing him as a real and relatable person. But also someone who is determined to fight Indira Gandhi and the congressional party that she has nurtured.

Yet another scene presents a very patriotic scene of Modi leading a group carrying a tricolor flag on a bridge, as an unidentified enemy. attacks. Of course, the Modi Vivek Oberoi has the largest tricolor and raises courageously even when the Army personnel is safe from fire. Just because the concept of subtlety does not exist in this film, he even says: "India will not fear terror, terror will fear India".

The rest of the trailer is about the notorious riot in Gujarat in 2002. Revisionist way, culminating in the most memorable scene of the trailer: "Mera Gujarat jal raha hai" (My Gujarat is in the process to burn). Modi, wearing his greatest pained expression, is rediscovered as CM, crushed by riots that have claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people. Modi was accused of having done little to stem the anti-Muslim violence that had submerged the state as a result of the Godhra train fire. The point is actually to close the chapter on the most troubling phase of Modi's life in a way that the Prime Minister may wish to abandon. Why, here is a man who would feel pain even if a puppy was crushed under the wheels of his car and you are talking about a whole state being burned. Well done, director Omung Kumar.

From there, the film goes to the infamous attack of Akshardham's temple, as Modi says: "I will not move until people are safe," and then will place over the corpse of one of the terrorists. by announcing that he will cut off Pakistan's hands when he was attacking India again.

While the Code of Conduct model is already in effect, no one can guess why this seemingly mediocre and adoring film Modi is allowed to come out in April 5, a few days before the start of the first polling phase, on the 11th This does not seem interesting or convincing and presents an image of Modi that he himself might be pleased to support as the real thing.