Ramachandra Guha: Why India’s claims of being vishwaguru are foolish fantasies

During Narendra Modi’s first term as prime minister, and well into his second, the government’s cheerleaders claimed that India was poised to become vishwaguru, Teacher to the World. It was said that our civilisational depth, our rich philosophical traditions and our distinctive spiritual practices had long placed us at the forefront when it came to culture. Now, with India’s economic and technological success, our global leadership was all but assured.

This claim was intensely personalised so that it was not just India but Narendra Modi himself who was said to be leading the world. Hence the morphed photographs of G20 meetings abroad where our prime minister was seen in the front of the frame, striding down the steps of a grand building, with the American president, the French president, the British prime minister and others quietly and obediently (if not reverentially) following behind him.

Such propaganda was not without a certain effect; after India assumed the rotational G20 presidency in 2023, a friend heard someone say on the Delhi Metro: “Aap ko pata hai, ki Modiji sirf hamare desh ke nahin, lekin bees desh ke pradhan mantri hai?” (Do you know that Modiji is not just the prime minister of India but of 20 nations altogether?)

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