Does Celebrity Magic Work In India?  

In a report published in September this year, Bloomberg attempted to establish the fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been instrumental in driving a surge in consumption of certain commodities. However, it is not through some high-level policy changes that the Chinese premier has been able to achieve the desired result.

The article titled “When Xi Jinping buys something, sales tend to spike” offers interesting insights to drive home the point.

Sample this.

The sale of Russian ice creams shot up after President Vladamir Putin brought some frozen delicacy as a gift for his Chinese counterpart at the G-20 summit in Hangzhou in September this year.

Six years ago, Xi visited the Qing Feng Steamed Dumpling Shop in Beijing to have a meal consisting of dumplings, vegetables and stir-fried pig liver and intestines. The demand for the meal that the restaurant now serves as 'The Chairman's Set' has been instrumental in booming the business.

“After Xi visited a British pub with former prime minister David Cameron last year, sales of British beer spiked in Beijing.”

"Xi also impacting outbound tourism. Following his visit to New Zealand in November 2014, and the airing of a popular reality TV show in China featured New Zealand that year, Chinese visitor numbers leaped more than 34 percent in 2015 to almost 3,56,000," the Bloomberg report says.

With so many examples to quote, it's well established that celebrities with their lucky charm can be responsible for a turnaround in the growth of numbers. One starts wondering, is it not possible for our Prime Minister Narendra Modi to have a similar impact on people.

Let's make it easier for him. Why could not the PM, who has earned huge fan following owing to his radical ways, personal discipline and efficiently at work, get more people to keep the country clean in pursuance of his government's pet project, the Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) by sweeping streets himself? The calls by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to keep the national capital's streets clean have fallen on deaf ears. Using the mosquito repellant is the best sort of cleanliness people of Delhi have been resorting to in the wake of dengue and chikungunya deaths.

So, is it only the dining, dressing and drinking habits of big leaders that inspire people? Not really. Modi's stress on the use of Khadi does not seem to have made any revolutionary changes nor has his strict eating habits—the PM survived on warm water on his US visit in 2014 during the Navratras. Kejriwal's dressing sense has been nothing but a butt of jokes, on the other hand.

What is it that differentiates Modi from Xi? Or, does Xi stand as an exception? Whatever the reason be, Xi stands as an example that dynamic leaders of emerging economies could be the change agents of their nation's fate. Apart from working on other things, may be charisma-building should also be a key area of focus for our prime minister to make his ambitious plans Housing For All and Swachh Bharat Mission come true. More developers need to come on board to provide housing to every Indian citizen by 2019, every Indian has to instill in himself a sense of cleanliness to make India dirt-free.