PM #Narendra Modi wins hearts with simple Teachers’ Day speech.

As he completed 100 days as the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi let the country know that despite being a “tough task master”, in his own words, the child in him was still alive. PM Modi also said that children in the country should not lose their childhood in their pursuit to achieve things.

Modi seemed to enjoy the most when he spoke of the small pranks he played as a child. He kept his speech short and didn’t speak about his big plans and dreams, like he does otherwise. Instead he chose to keep time for “leisurely chat” with students. He spoke of his experiences in day to day life with particular emphasis on educating girls.

If beating a drum or playing the flute in Japan portrayed a certain spontaneity and youthfulness in his personality, today he gave an impression of a friendly family head or a loving teacher, someone who did not stress the students out by hammering on achieving goals. At the same time, he said he was testing his own governmental system and putting those manning it under stress to come up with new education programmes.

Perhaps no other leader has ever gotten, or worked towards getting, such a large audience of students to listen to them live and that too for so long. From a social or political perspective the sheer size of the audience and the length of time of their undivided attention speaks volumes. It was a masterstoke for Modi. He not only addressed current voters but also prospective first time voters in 2019 or later. It was probably for the first time that any other leader apart from Mahatma Gandhi or leaders from the Nehru-Gandhi family who got so much attention.

To a question, asking for tips to become Prime Minister, Modi’s response was clear in one aspect — that he didn’t think there was going to be a vacancy till 2024 and he was there for two terms. At least that was his current assessment. He may go asking for more like he had done successfully in Guajarat. “Prepare for 2024. Till then I don’t have any threat…,” Modi said.

But given the hype around the event, with crores of live audience — students, teachers, vast mass of his party workers, critics, political opponents, curious parents — the burden of expectation on Modi was perhaps too much. He had set the standard for himself, not so much from the public rally speeches, but from the speech that he had made on 15 August from Red Fort or his first speech in Parliament.

The overall intake from today’s event was perhaps a bit low and generated less talking points that it could possibly generate. He talked about the scope of energy conservation, mostly limited to saving electricity and reducing electricity bills, learning commonplace skills like plumbing, driving and so on, than producing a whole new generation that stressed on achieving something new to put India on the pedestal of most advanced nations in the coming decades.

Generation and supply of electricity is the government’s job, something that the Centre and most states have failed. Modi asked his audience, who get uninterrupted supply, to save electricity so that someone in a remote area of a country got power as well. He also spoke about water supply and explained the linkage with oil and coal. His overall take was more socialist than Modi has been known for, at least so far.

Since it was the first direct communication by any prime minister ever, Modi may have wanted to keep it simple so that the message went across to the nation, in the metros as well as in remote blocks and villages in the hinterland. He did not want to make it intellectually heavy but kept it simple, picking up commonplace examples from everyday life. He did ask students to sweat it out in the outdoors four times a day and inculcate the habit of reading, particularly biographies of achievers to draw inspiration — go beyond “Google Guru”, he said. He also said a few things to make the teaching community feel good and inspired. Teaching in schools is not particularly celebrated as a job, often giving teachers a low self esteem.

Modi knows that popular expectation from him was sky high. Before he could fulfill his tall promises made in the run up to the elections, which he won so decisively, he wants to begin with small changes in a household, in the neighbourhood, in schools, at the workplace and so on. He is into a confidence building exercise. The promises couldn’t be delivered in the short run but in the interim people would judge from his intentions. Thus he talks about working for long hours, driving his people to work harder and setting examples himself. “See I am a hard task master. I work for myself and make others work,” he said. In response to another question he said his “experience as chief minister” made him “know how to make bureaucrats work.”

Going by the response of students and teachers as shown on various news channels Modi won many hearts after his interaction. He kept his mantra simple. But the students would want the right environment to live a fuller life as they grow and Modi’s challenge lies in delivering them.