Charkha episode an all-out effort to promote Brand Modi, says Shashi Tharoor

Kolkata: Describing the replacement of Mahatma Gandhi’s picture from the 2017 calendar and diary of the Khadi Village Industries Commission (KVIC) with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s a “marketing exercise”, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said it was part of the all-out efforts to promote “Brand Modi”.

“My perception is that they (the Modi government) have tried to reduce everything to a marketing exercise. This is about promoting Brand Modi and putting the brand on everything the government has control of, overlooking the fact of not just popular imagination but a historical fact,” Mr Tharoor said on the sidelines of Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival.

According to him, the move was “inappropriate” and showed the government in poor light. “Gandhiji’s relationship with the handloom industry and khadi is so organic and so fundamental with the image of him and his charkha that it is deeply embedded in the public consciousness.

“You cannot just change the image so easily. To put it mildly, it was inappropriate. We should not give it too much importance because to my mind it suggests trivialisation of national iconography that does not stand to the credit of those who thought of it,” he said.