Modi’s speech at Bodh Gaya (given earlier) also highlighted a communication strategy deployed by Modi’s campaign, that is, to create a seamless link between terrorism and other issues. In Gaya, he linked it to ‘rozi roti’, that is, issues of livelihood and survival, by reminding the voters that an attack on the famous pilgrimage site would ruin the tourist trade and rob the locals of the means of employment.

Again, in Punjab, he forced drug menace—the single most important poll issue—into the terrorism frame by calling it narco-terrorism. ‘The people who cannot defeat us in wars, those who cannot destroy us by the bombs and bullets of terrorists, those who fail to break our country internally, such inimical forces have now taken to new route, which is very dangerous, and that is narco-terrorism,’ he said at an election rally at Gurdaspur (Indian Express 2014c).

Similarly, Modi’s campaign attempted to weld together corruption—an issue already in popular currency through the protracted anti-corruption movement and its domination in the media—and terrorism when he mocked that Indian Mujahideen (IM) and the CBI would fight the elections on behalf of the Congress.^{4Girri, Maheish. 2013. ‘Vote Bank Politics Assumes a Jehadi Avataar’. IBTL, 14 November. Available at http://www.ibtl.in/column/1394/vote-bank-politics-assumes-a-jehadi-avataar/, last accessed on 5 January 2016.}

For the first time perhaps, a political party put up election posters at the Indo-Pak border at Wagah. The BJP put up posters with the tag line: ‘Dehshat ko denge jad se ujaad, ab ki baar Modi sarkaar’ (We will root out terrorism; this time Modi government), with Modi’s finger raised in imaginary warning to the neighbours.^{5‘Modi Carries Warning to Pak Border’, 29 April. Available at http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/modi-carries-warning..., last accessed on 10 January 2016.}

He himself boasted in his Silchar rally: ‘The whole of Assam is disturbed because of the Bangladeshis. And on the other hand, the whole of Pakistan is disturbed because of me.’^{6‘Full Video of Rally at Silchar’, 22 February. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=973fB6fD1Bo , last accessed on 20 May 2016.}

Modi gave interviews to news channels detailing his plans to bring back the underworld lord Dawood Ibrahim from Pakistan, which so far—he was at pains to emphasize—other governments had failed to do. Modi’s singling out of Dawood Ibrahim amongst the other underworld figures—say, Chota Rajan, once Ibrahim’s trusted lieutenant before he branched off on his own and the two became sworn enemies—is not difficult to understand. Ibrahim, a Muslim, is said to have funded the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1990 and has been allegedly given refuge in Pakistan. Rajan, on the other hand, is projected as inhabiting ‘nationalist underworld’. Thus, discussions around Ibrahim travel comfortably between the frames of crime and terrorism.

His interviews became opportunities for further programming spin-offs, and this brief answer morphed into Modi’s ‘Operation D’ in the newsrooms, adding further to the persona of the omnipotent leader. One show on a news channel, known for its proximity to Modi and BJP, relayed how Dawood Ibrahim was reacting to Modi’s forceful enunciation of ‘Operation D’. Continuously, the anchor told the audience that Dawood, and indeed the entire underworld ‘from Karachi to Dubai’, was shaking in its boots at the impending victory of Modi in the elections. It claimed that Dawood had set up a media-monitoring cell to track the speeches of Narendra Modi because Modi had vowed to strike a deathly blow to Dawood’s dirty business. The channel was convinced that the fate of Osama bin Laden awaited Dawood under Modi’s coming reign: ‘Dawood is watching Modi’s interview repeatedly, Dawood is trembling with fear at Modi’s determination and intent, and, Dawood is glued to Zee News’.^{7‘Will Nab Dawood Ibrahim When I Come to Power: Narendra Modi’, 26 April. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMsBO3zdsbY, last accessed on 22 May 2016.}

In another studio interview, asked how he would have responded to the 26/11 crisis were he in charge, Modi had this answer:

…

Modi was able to skilfully establish the outgoing UPA government—indeed, all the secular parties—as comprising impotent, spineless sissies, and himself as a strong, decisive leader devoted to the security of the motherland, who was striking fear in the hearts of Pakistan, terrorists, and anti-national gangsters.

However, Modi’s decisiveness, strength, and capacity derived from the fact that, unlike his opponents, he was unencumbered by the demands of secularism. Even the names of his rallies had the resonance of drumbeats in a holy war: the rallies in Uttar Pradesh (UP) were called ‘Vijay Shankhnad’ (blowing of conch shells to announce victory).

Not only did he represent the Hindu nation and would undertake everything to defend it, he claimed to represent Hindus everywhere—a transnational Hindu community, whose homeland was India.

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