Mukul Kesavan: The Absolutely Justifiable Renaming Of Stadium After PM Modi

By Dilip -

The largest stadium in the world by capacity is the "Rungrado 1st of May Stadium" in Pyongyang, North Korea. Oddly enough, it isn't named after Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Representative of the Korean People. Luckily for us, the Supreme Representative of the Indian People, unafflicted by bashfulness, stepped up to rename the second-largest stadium in the world (by capacity) after himself.

To make room for Narendra Modi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was taken off the marquee and given the important supporting role of naming the sports enclave in which the stadium is set. There is a nice metaphor in that: Sardar Patel as the setting for the solitaire that is Modi, the Loh Purush as warm-up act for Non-Stick Narendra.

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Napoleon Bonaparte famously crowned himself Emperor of France; Narendra Modi at Motera went one better: he had himself elevated in absentia with the President of the Republic in close attendance. To time the renaming of the stadium so it was done just before a Test match which 50,000 spectators and hundreds of millions of television viewers had turned up to watch ranks as one of the great event-management coups of our time.

The extended Shah family commercials that played during the breaks were particularly well-made. There was Amit Shah genially leading the President through the team introductions. Even as the players stepped forward one by one to be greeted by the President, the Home Minister took the opportunity to wave, Caesar-style, at the assembled spectators. It was just as well that this was a captive audience with cricket in prospect; else, the sight of Shah surveying a crowd and benignly raising a hand might have emptied the stadium.

But it was his son, Jay Shah, who was the star of the 3rd Test between India and England. In the little documentary promo for the stadium, there was an extended shot where the camera panned around the magnificent stands, empty, save for a solitary figure, the Secretary of the BCCI, surveying his surroundings. Its atmospherics were straight out of a Western: this could have been a shadowed Clint Eastwood at sundown, squinting at a desert landscape...different silhouette, but the same mood….

https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/the-absolutely-justifiable-renaming-of-stadium-after-pm-modi-2379464

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