Why the RSS finds it appropriate to name a stadium after ‘living gods’

Search as I did, I have been unable to find a football stadium named after Boris Johnson; or a rugby stadium after Tony Blair. Nor is there a baseball stadium after Joe Biden or a basketball ground after Barack Obama. Nor even one after Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter. Which is as it should be. For nowhere across the world, including in India, is anything ever named after living beings.

Institutions or infrastructure named after celebrities, leaders and legends are essentially memorials to the dead and the departed; except when it comes to British Royalty. There are many Indians, however, who do seem to find naming a cricket stadium after Narendra Modi (Emperor of India) and the two ends after his two friends (or should it be minders, for every King has a minder or two in attendance) entirely appropriate.

In any case it tells me many things about this regime and not all of them very flattering. First and foremost, I think Narendra Modi is in a hurry to go down in history and immortalise himself -- and what better way to do that than to name a stadium after himself?

One also senses of late a bit of vulnerability in Narendra Modi’s demeanour. Particularly since he grew that flowing beard to conquer Bengal, he seems to me less like a saint and a lot more lost and unsure of himself with a sense of mortality. For nothing seems to be working for him during his second term. His Citizenship law did not go down well with the people nor did the lockdown of Kashmir brought him any kudos from people other than the already converted. The Coronavirus crisis got massively mishandled, losing him much support among the masses; the farmers' issue has brought his government universal condemnation and the government's reaction to a few tweets by some teens and twenties has brought India much ridicule and international opprobrium. So, one might as well immortalise one's self in a cricket stadium, mustn't one?

It is almost funny to find his government proving Rahul Gandhi right on every count – from the mal-effects of demonetisation to the GST, to the neglect of India's vulnerability to Coronavirus, to its mishandling of the tanking economy to the farm laws and now the government belonging to ‘Hum do, Hamare do’. Why else would the stadium have two ends named after the two most successful industrialists Ambani and Adani, and under a cricket regime presided over by Amit Shah's son? Everything belongs to these cherubic four, of course.

But most important of all is the fact that the RSS-BJP finally have an icon they can name something after. Ever since they came to power, they have been condemning the Nehru-Gandhis for paying scant respect to other freedom fighters. But various Congress regimes did name several institutions after their other leaders, besides Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi.

There are any number of stadia across the country and an airport named after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose; there is an arterial road in Bombay connecting the south end to the far north named after Sardar Patel, even though it is popularly referred to as just SV Road. Various schools, city squares and memorials and a police museum are also named after Patel, in deference to his contribution as the first home minister of India.

The training academy for the Indian Administrative Service officers – is named after Lal Bahadur Shastri apart from various other educational and training institutes, roads and airports. At least one stadium and one university, apart from several educational institutes, have been named after Maulana Azad, though that may not go down too well with the BJP. Apart from these, the maximum number of statues in India after Mahatma Gandhi have been not to Nehru or Indira Gandhi but to Dr BR Ambedkar, unveiled at various times by different Congress regimes – and Dr Ambedkar was not even a Congress leader and did not even quite care for the party or its leaders.

But while these two have been national icons that the RSS could not mess around with or misappropriate, they probably thought Sardar Patel could be moulded in their image simply because of his roles in Junagadh and Hyderabad. But through it all, I guess, they never really forgot his role in banning the organisation after their own role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and forcing them to declare themselves a cultural organisation and eschew politics – otherwise they could have turned India into a travesty as what it is today at least fifty years before they finally could. So, Patel served their purpose well, but now that they have their own icon, it was time to dump him.

Even if the RSS may not have liked Narendra Modi for visiting Nagpur thrice but not dropping by the RSS headquarters to bow his head before the Sarsanghchalak, no one has implemented the RSS' divisive agenda better than Modi – not AB Vajoayee, not LK Advani, not Rajnath Singh as home minister in the previous regime, not even Nitin Gadkari, their favourite mascot for whom they had the BJP rules on party presidentship altered. But the Modi government has crushed Muslims, alienated all but the Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan flag bearers, has emasculated all institutions in the country, including much of the superior judiciary and the election commission (which even Vajpyee and Advani didn't dare do), rendered the mainstream media into puppies who can be crushed under Modi's wheels anytime (and I am sure he will feel very sorry for the poor pups) and otherwise cleared the route to a takeover by fascism in the country.

Of course, Modi is their first and so far, only exemplary achiever in this country, so why should they not name a stadium after him?

Anyone who believes the RSS-BJP had any fondness for Patel is only fooling himself and if you think they are insulting the iron man of India, they are not. In their eyes, Patel was worth only a few rusty tools belonging to farmers and those tools have far outlived their utility.

(The writer is a senior journalist and commentator. Views are personal)