{"title":"‘My countrymen have never disappointed me’: Politics of service in Modi’s speeches during Covid-19","authors":"Rahul Sambaraju","doi":"10.1016/j.dcm.2022.100594","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper I study discursive practices of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the pandemic, political leadership across the globe had to take tough decisions such as restrictions on the social and personal lives of individuals. This meant addressing concerns over ensuring compliance with these restrictions. I examine how Modi managed these concerns in his communication with the Indian polity over TV and radio broadcasts. I do so in instances where Modi gave specific instructions about following restrictions or other COVID appropriate behaviours. Using discourse analysis, I analyse data from two prominent ways of communicating in the pandemic, Mann Ki Baat and addresses to the nation. Analyses show that Modi developed two sets of non-electoral relations across his communication, which treated compliance as normatively expected: a) between Modi and Indians and b) among Indians themselves. These relations made way for treating audiences as those who are in specific social roles where duty and service were normative. Instructions and their compliance were embedded in these roles and treated as expected and consequently moral acts. Modi’s discursive practices worked to perform a politics of service and duty, where compliance is ultimately treated as expected service.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46649,"journal":{"name":"Discourse Context & Media","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9733435/pdf/","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Discourse Context & Media","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211695822000174","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
In this paper I study discursive practices of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the pandemic, political leadership across the globe had to take tough decisions such as restrictions on the social and personal lives of individuals. This meant addressing concerns over ensuring compliance with these restrictions. I examine how Modi managed these concerns in his communication with the Indian polity over TV and radio broadcasts. I do so in instances where Modi gave specific instructions about following restrictions or other COVID appropriate behaviours. Using discourse analysis, I analyse data from two prominent ways of communicating in the pandemic, Mann Ki Baat and addresses to the nation. Analyses show that Modi developed two sets of non-electoral relations across his communication, which treated compliance as normatively expected: a) between Modi and Indians and b) among Indians themselves. These relations made way for treating audiences as those who are in specific social roles where duty and service were normative. Instructions and their compliance were embedded in these roles and treated as expected and consequently moral acts. Modi’s discursive practices worked to perform a politics of service and duty, where compliance is ultimately treated as expected service.
在本文中,我研究了印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪在COVID-19大流行期间的话语实践。为应对大流行,全球政治领导人不得不做出艰难决定,例如限制个人的社会和个人生活。这意味着解决对确保遵守这些限制的关切。我研究了莫迪在通过电视和广播与印度政府沟通时如何处理这些担忧。在莫迪就遵守限制或其他COVID适当行为给出具体指示的情况下,我就会这样做。使用话语分析,我分析了疫情中两种主要沟通方式的数据,即Mann Ki Baat和对全国的讲话。分析表明,莫迪在他的沟通中发展了两套非选举关系,将遵守视为规范期望:a)莫迪与印度人之间,b)印度人自己之间。这些关系为将受众视为处于特定社会角色的人铺平了道路,在这些角色中,责任和服务是规范的。指示和他们的服从嵌入在这些角色中,并被视为预期的道德行为。莫迪的话语实践发挥了服务和责任政治的作用,在这种政治中,服从最终被视为预期的服务。