Rise of the celebrity politician: India’s politics enters a new performance era

A viral picture and video of politicians Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Supriya Sule — daughter of Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party — and actor-MP Kangana Ranaut of the BJP performing a choreographed dance to a Shah Rukh Khan number at the wedding of the daughter of Navin Jindal, billionaire industrialist and erstwhile Congress leader now in the BJP, has generated huge chatter within their parties and sparked outrage among the public.

While the TMC has restricted itself to saying that Moitra’s participation was “unseemly and unnecessary,” especially since she has already been expelled from Parliament once for her alleged links to a billionaire in another scandal, public reaction has been far more scathing. Comments range from “sab mile huin hai jee” (“they are all involved”), once Arvind Kejriwal’s war cry, to anger that politicians who bitterly abuse each other (Moitra and Ranaut) are apparently such good friends that they can share dance practice and a stage. “They only fool us” is the bitter refrain, especially among some Congress supporters.

So why does this Bollywood number — distinguished by political leading ladies — merit a SWAT analysis? Well, my beloved readers, I want to focus on a new trend in Indian politics based on a very American model: the celebrity politician who cuts across party lines. You would be forgiven for craning your neck to look for Shashi Tharoor in the dancing picture — also one of the new celebrity politicians.

Remember when we were kids and India was not divided into small marketing segments? A well-known quiz contest on television was helmed by Derek O’Brien, the original quizmaster of India. Derek today is a hugely hardworking and self-effacing TMC MP. His self-deprecatory manner has erased his celebrity status; he has devoted himself to full-time party politics. His forum is Parliament. He does not even give television interviews, let alone appear on shrieking news panels.

Or take Kamal Haasan, one of the original superstars of South India. The actor has again used his new pulpit in the Rajya Sabha to begin a serious political innings without a trace of his former celebrity wafting around him.

These are just two examples of actual celebrities who became serious politicians, while most politicians today seem desperate to be celebrities. It is no coincidence that Moitra and Tharoor have both studied and worked in the United States — a country where celebrity is prized above everything, and a billionaire reality-television star, Donald Trump, became President. The US is where the famous artist Andy Warhol, who captured the zeitgeist like no one else, said, “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” He conveyed that in a modern media-driven — and now social-media-marinated — world, everyone will be fleetingly famous (virality) only to be forgotten. A meme one minute, forgotten the next.

This viral fame is what the new breed of celebrity politician seems to chase. Look at Supriya Sule, heir to Sharad Pawar. You see her at every party, displaying giant bonhomie across party lines. Pawar, considered the shrewdest player in Maharashtra politics, faced a split in his party when his nephew, Ajit Pawar, refused to accept Sule as his future boss because she is simply not seen as a serious politician in the state. The public senses she is in politics because she is Pawar’s only child, while videos of her partying across India — whether at BJP politicians Nishikant Dubey’s or Anurag Thakur’s private dos — keep circulating.

A Mumbai-based social media user commented caustically on the dancing video, “these people broke Saheb’s party and she is dancing with them.” A more charitable view may be that Sule fancies herself as a brand ambassador for Bollywood, representing Maharashtra. Perhaps representing Maharashtra’s beautiful textiles would be a better idea, since distressed weavers need help — just as her father transformed Baramati, his constituency. Sule is not looking at legacy; she is looking at celebrity.

Tharoor, often described as the “rockstar of literary festivals” in India, prolific writer and brilliant speaker, has left his party speechless after attending the presidential banquet for President Vladimir Putin last week. Tharoor was delighted to go, despite the Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge not being invited — a significant snub. Tharoor was also at the Ramnath Goenka Awards, sitting in the front row and clapping delightedly as Prime Minister Modi tore into the Congress party. He tweeted warmly about both events, making his party see red. But Tharoor is the quintessential celebrity politician, unbothered by mere party politics. He feels hard done by, ignored and neglected by the Congress — not even considered for his dream job as the Kerala Chief Ministerial face — and is busy burnishing his celebrity for when, not if, he switches camps. A delighted BJP keeps using him to play politics with the Congress.

Moitra has no time for the frugal-living precepts of her leader, Mamata Banerjee, who chooses to make a statement with her simple cotton saris and rubber sandals. Moitra is happy to flash her designer bags, and I actually find her lack of hypocrisy refreshing — even though her party colleagues cannot stop attacking her. That is the one common feature among all our neo-celebrity politicians: apart from commanding bold-faced recognition, they are widely disliked within their own parties.

Moitra had sharp exchanges with Ranaut yet was happy to share a stage with her, as angry party members and social-media users pointed out, calling it hypocrisy. But good relations across the aisle are actually healthy in a democracy, where a political opponent is not your enemy. Unfortunately, politics has recently become so toxic that celebrity status has replaced parliamentary cooperation, with precious time wasted as the House is disrupted — while the same politicians party together outside.

Perhaps the peril of celebrityhood is the inability to adhere to ideological or party discipline. After all, celebrity cuts across party lines and finds welcome everywhere — political or otherwise.