Divided by Ideology, United by Beards: Ascetic Imageries in Indian Political Discourse

Beards have been an indelible feature of India’s social and political landscape. While an almost entirely bearded cricket team represented India at the World Test Championship in 2021, the country has seen four bearded men in the prime minister’s chair over the past three decades. The semiotics of beards across the political spectrum in India — asceticism and masculinity — are ubiquitous. Although India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the opposition politician Rahul Gandhi come from contesting poli­ tical camps, the invocation of ascetic imageries is a common strategy in their respective political guidebooks for popular appeasement.

Prime Minister Modi spor ted a full­grown flowing beard between 2020 and 2021, which was seen by many to have given him a sage­saviour persona during one of the most devastating periods for the country when COVID­19 infections were surging and lockdown induced a brutal economic slump. The initial speculation that it may have been a message to promote physical distancing behaviour quickly proved unfounded when Modi continued to grow the beard well after the national lockdown was lifted. This image transformation generated a range of reactions from Twitter users and seasoned political commentators alike. Modi’s new look inspired an array of comparisons — from Plato’s philosopher king to poet­philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, and from a masculine strongman to a Hindu nationalist ascetic. Keen observers viewed the Prime Minister’s newfound ‘fleecy magnificence’ as an attempt at ele­ vating his status from a populist politician working at the whims of the electorate to a more spiritual leader who could lead the people out of a national crisis and onto the proverbial path of light.

Arguably, the image of Modi as a Hindu nationalist ascetic has been carefully curated over the past several years by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is said to have left home for the Himalayas at the age of seventeen to live with ascetics for two years who taught him ‘to align himself with the rhythm of the universe.’ In 2019, the BJP shared pictures of the prime minister wearing saffron robes, meditating in a cave near the Kedarnath temple — a shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva, one of the Gods of Hindu Trinity. Leaving his wife self­profiteering tendencies. For instance, while addressing a rally in 2016 on the issue of corruption, the Prime Minister famously quipped, ‘arey hum toh fakeer aadmi hai, jhola leke nikal lenge (I am a hermit, I will exit with my little belongings),’ almost as if reassuring the gathering — and the nation at large — of his selflessness and good intentions. daughter Indira Gandhi, and its youngest Prime Minister in Indira’s son and Rahul’s father, Rajiv Gandhi. Recently, conversations have been brewing around the bushy, unkempt beard of Rahul Gandhi while he was on the 150­day long Bharat Jodo Yatra — a “Journey Bringing India Together” against hate and divisiveness — until January this year. only a short while after getting married to pursue a public life, Modi’s separation from his spouse also bolstered his ascetic image, playing into the broader trend in Indian politics in which having no spousal or familial ties is interpreted as a complete devotion to public service. From a moral­ethical lens, the popularity of these leaders can be attributed to an appreciation for values such as celibacy and sacrifice in Indian culture. Moreover, the bachelorhood of politicians also seems to inspire a sense of confidence among voters that their leaders would not be motivated by nepotistic and

Furthermore, Modi’s persona has closely been associated with that of a Karmayogi — one who works without desire for the fruits of their labour. Elements of Karma Yoga or Karma Marg (Yoga of Action or Path of Action) have been found in Vedic and post­Vedic scriptures. It was, however, the Bhagwad Gita — part of the famous Indian epic the Mahabharata — which lent recognition to selfless action as a means of attaining spiritual liberation. In December 2022, senior leaders of the BJP lauded the prime minister as a ‘true Karma yogi’ for ‘putting the nation first’ despite suffering personal loss, as he continued with his official engagements right after performing his late mother’s last rites. Additionally, the Prime Minister’s victory speech after the 2019 elections was a performance of ‘ascetic humility’ aimed at amplifying the narrative that his humble origins are in sharp contrast with the dynastic politics that have operated at the helm of power centres in India for several decades.

Often at the receiving end of such derogatory attacks of dynastic privilege is Rahul Gandhi. Gandhi is a prominent leader of the Indian National Congress and scion of the Nehru­Gandhi dynasty which gave independent India its first Prime Minister in Jawaharlal Nehru, its first female Prime Minister in Nehru’s entrant to the Indian political scene, Gandhi sported stubble when protesting for tribal rights against land acquisition by the global natural resources conglomerate Vedanta Group in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha. This constituted a pivotal moment in Gandhi’s political evolution. Championing an alienated community not only won him fanfare, but also granted the Congress Party a strategic advantage in actively reaching out to a social group that had once been a significant vote bank for the party. Gandhi’s Che Guevara­esque appearance seemed suitable for the purpose of projecting him as the messiah — further demonstrating the political power of ascetic imagery in Indian politics.

With his new bearded look, Gandhi drew all sorts of comparisons as well — including Karl Marx and Saddam Hussein. Image experts, however, have referred to this attempt at reinventing his image as the ‘Forrest Gump approach’ — an attempt to invoke the image of a wandering mendicant. Seen sporting a white T­shirt throughout the Bharat Jodo campaign, Gandhi and his salt­and­pepper beard also seemed to exude a ‘son of the soil’ look, as opposed to the clean­shaven look which to many gave him an appearance of an immature youth. This strategy may help him break free from the label “Pappu” — one who is naive and inept at doing things — which has been used to mock Gandhi since the run up to the 2014 national elections. Addressing a press meet during the Yatra, Gandhi claimed that, ‘India is a country of ascetics, not of priests,’ and went so far as to call himself an ascetic. Notably, in 2010, as a relatively new

Asceticism and the use of its imagery is not new to the Indian political scene. Mahatma Gandhi’s ascetic activism is an early example of this usage dating back to India’s anti­imperial nationalist struggle. The ‘half­naked, seditious fakir,’ as Winston Churchill once described Gandhi, propagated ideals such as truth, celibacy, self­sacrifice, non­violence, non­violent resistance, and non­possession as tools of not just political action against the British, but also social and religious reforms in Indian society. One of Gandhi’s biggest contributions to Indian political thought was popularizing a synthesis between the two inherently opposing ideologies prescribed in Vedic philosophy: nivritti (renunciation) and pravritti (worldly engagement). In attempting to reconcile the dichotomy between these two divergent worldviews, he made use of verses in Bhagwad Gita, which to him made it clear that ‘man cannot exist even for a moment without pravritti.’ Gandhi advocated the use of aus­ tere discipline and corporeal suffering required for sexual renunciation — otherwise a very private ascetic religious ritual — as a tool for non­violent public action, the most sponses to the British colonial imagination concerning Indian asceticism. The British saw ascetics as representative of what was problematic with Hinduism and a hindrance to their modernizing and “civilizing” ambitions in India. The idea of attaining a higher state of being and world renunciation, which called for “wilful idleness” and so­called “political apathy,” were seen as a social and political challenge to the British vision of “humane imperialism.” to fanaticism. The wandering “fanatic fakir” who refused to lead a sedentary life, as well moral and highest form of political engagement, for Swaraj or political self­rule. The deployment of such means of political resistance were re­

Fakir­Sanyasi Rebellion of the 1770s which inspired the novel Anandamath. Published as a part of the novel for the first time was a poem called ‘Vande Mataram,’ which later became the national song of India. Ascetics, therefore, have been an integral part of the nationalist struggle against colonial rule since its early days.

A popular subject for magic lantern show readings, the Indian ascetic and his way of life was stripped of its original cultural context and sensationalized by the British for the sake of entertaining audiences in the Western world. Taking a reductionist view of Indian spiritual traditions, the British defined the ascetics as “miserable men” and attributed their practices of austerity and bodily mortification as a few highly organized ascetic militias who controlled many of the trade routes, posed a nuisance to the British administrators and their obsession with control, orderliness, and profits. The criminalization of ascetics after the British conquest of Bengal in the eighteenth century led to several clashes, including the

In today’s globalized and multicultural context, which promotes a profound appreciation for different spiritual and cultural traditions, the image of an ascetic might not appear to most people as the ‘male iconography of primitiveness’ they were once deemed to be. Seen in their unique contexts, it becomes apparent that both pogonotrophy and asceticism have been and will continue to remain central to India’s socio­cultural milieu and national identity.