Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to mind while I watched the film Apostle lately. It's set in 1905, when a man sets out to rescue his sister from a cult, communing on an island near England, that has kidnapped her. It wasn't the heroic brother but the desperate cult leader that reminded me of Modi. As did another film about a cult, The Sacrament, based on the 1978 Jonestown Massacre in which the leader persuaded his brainwashed followers to drink the cyanide-laced, grape-flavoured Flavor Aid: 918 died. Then there is the web-series about Osho/Rajneesh, Wild Wild Country, in which the number two allegedly swindled big money. I was convinced: Modi is a cult leader.

The then USSR's premier Nikita Khrushchev spoke in 1956 against the "cult of personality", basically criticising Joseph Stalin and (by insinuation, Mao Zedong). Wikipedia defines "cult of personality" as where an individual uses flattery, praise, the mass media, propaganda, "the big lie", patriotism, and government-sponsored events and rallies, to create an idealised and heroic self-image. While we are neither a textbook totalitarian nor authoritarian society, the definition fits our Great Leader to a T.