Marketing offence as self-defence

Mr Modi's marketing mavens have now flipped Mr Gandhi's stinging missile of "Chowkidar chor hai"

Offence is the best form of defence. So goes the epigram, and there’s no more striking instance than Narendra Modi’s progress from chaiwalla, a tea-vendor, in 2014, surrounded by the clutter of teacups, to the self-appointed, baton-wielding chowkidar, or watchman, of 2019. 

Chaiwalla-to-chowkidar — the most quoted coinage of the week — tells us many things about his transformation between two election campaigns. First, the leap from the local to the national stage: The tea-seller image harked back to the Dark Ages, of an apparently impoverished youth who rose to seize control of the Bharatiya Janata Party and become prime minister;