From Mahatma Gandhi to Narendra Modi: India's biggest brand ambassador is now the Prime Minister, says Shekhawat

New Delhi: Till 10-15 years ago, India's identity abroad was primarily linked with Mahatma Gandhi but that has changed and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is now the country's "biggest brand ambassador", says Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

The culture of India - its heritage, festivals and cuisine - is the country's identity too, the Union culture and tourism minister said in an interview with PTI Videos.

The way India was perceived in the world had been "somewhat lacking",he said.


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"Till 10-15 years ago, if you went to any country in the world and if you asked a person, based on his appearance, whether he was an Indian, he would hesitate in calling himself an Indian. He would introduce himself as an Asian.

"Then, if you asked him, where in Asia he was from, he would say that I am an Indian," the minister told PTI earlier this week.

Moreover, if a visitor would tell anyone abroad that he or she was an Indian, the answer would be, "India! Oh, Mr Gandhi", Shekhawat said, adding that the image and identity of India remained "stuck with Gandhiji".

"But today, and I say it with confidence, you can go to any country in the world... from the smallest Caribbean island to America, and from South Asia to West Asia, you can go anywhere, and if you tell someone that 'I am from India', you will see a bright smile on his face, and an exclamation, 'India! Oh, Mr Modi'."

The minister was asked what was India's bigger brand ambassador -- culture and tourism or Bollywood.

"Nowadays, the biggest brand ambassador we have is our Prime Minister," he replied.

"Otherwise also, this is not a political reply. I am saying this as a layman. Like we just said, till 10-15 years ago, Gandhiji was the brand ambassador of India for decades. And now Modiji is the brand ambassador of India. But the culture of India is the brand ambassador of India. And the culture of India is the identity of India in itself," Shekhawat said.

While culture and heritage will remain the essence of a country and its identity, the image of a leader changes the image of a country abroad, he said.

And when the image of a country changes, it inevitably impacts the country's tourism, and the attraction towards that country gets augmented, the tourism minister argued.

The change that has taken place gives India leverage and gives the confidence and conviction that foreign tourist arrivals in India will grow from 10 crore at present to 100 crore by 2047, Shekhawat added.

If there is any beneficiary sector in India's anticipated economic prosperity and the way world class facilities are being developed, it will be tourism.

Should tourism be treated as a strategically important sector, just like the IT sector is?

"If I compare, I feel that it has not got that much strategic importance, but the prime minister has worked at a very swift pace in this direction," Shekhawat replied.

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All the missions of India have been told that one of the parameters for assessing their performance will be the number of tourists coming to India from that country. So, now the missions are also on the job, and everyone is on their toes, he said.

If South Korea made K-Pop a brand identity and Thailand sold its hospitality sector as its identity, what is India's global tourism identity? "It is Incredible India. And, now we are taking it to Inevitable India," the minister said.