Populism – Pericles
Pericles with his Corinthian helmet Populism begins with a simple, irresistible promise: power belongs to the people. Some people, more correctly, and the leader is just one among them. Populism speaks the language that the ordinary people would love to hear. An obvious and easy example that my compatriots would understand is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political style. He appeared on the national scene famously emphasising his origins as a chaiwallah or tea-seller. “I’m a very ordinary man,” he said. And the implication was: “I don’t belong to the Lutyens elite or the Khan Market gang.” These elites and gangsters are an un-Indian group of corrupt, English-speaking, urbanites. So Modi started with erasing or even decimating the elite past. The Central Vista was constructed to relegate Lutyens Delhi to an unsavoury history. Delhi was “decolonised.” And the country’s history was redeemed from the Mughals and other Muslim rulers. India belongs to its people – some people, agai...
