Fauja Singh, the 114-year-old marathoner, was a biological wonder—he sprinted into eternity felled not by age, but by a tragic road accident in Jalandhar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, never a slouch in the PR department, swiftly fired off a tweet, calling Fauja a “unique persona and an exceptional athlete with incredible determination who inspired India’s youth on the very important topic of fitness”.
The nation paused, shed a tear, and scrolled on. But wait—rewind. Zoom out. Modi turns 75 this September, and the RSS has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about senior leaders stepping aside at that age. Is there a connection? Could Modi be flexing his own vitality, in a subtle nudge to the world—I’m still fit, still hot, nobody puts Modi in a corner?
The BJP’s unwritten rule—retire at 75—has been a guillotine for stalwarts like L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Both were swiftly shuffled off to the ‘Margdarshak Mandal’ once they hit the milestone. Recently, Mohan Bhagwat, while speaking at a book launch for RSS ideologue Moropant Pingle, recounted an anecdote where Pingle, upon receiving a ceremonial shawl at 75, quipped that it was code for “you are old, step aside”. The opposition and Twitterati immediately got excited, speculating if this was merely a moment of introspection (Bhagwat is also set to turn 75 in September) or a coded jab at Modi. “One arrow, two targets,” crowed Jairam Ramesh, with a smirk you could see from space.
Image: Shutterstock/Ai
Amit Shah immediately scrambled to clarify: “No retirement clause in our constitution!” Of course, Modi’s tweet for Fauja could be genuinely heartfelt or simply a tapping into the world’s current TikTok/Instagram fuelled obsession with fitness. Well-heeled, boomers and xers are chugging protein shakes, counting Fitbit steps, and spinning on pelotons—not just to be healthy, but to give mortality the middle finger.
From Bryan Johnson’s mission to erase his biological age to Elon Musk’s self-proclaimed status of ‘Ozempic Santa’, from Trump’s talk about a third term, to Nicole Kidman’s miracle pregnancy, to Tom Cruise’s ‘Mission Impossible’ to be fit forever, and locally, our trio of ‘bare’ly-hanging-in-there Khans, Rahul Gandhi’s one-palm push-ups, Neena Gupta’s glow-up and the grizzled beauty of soon-to-be-60 Milind Soman (who, btw, attended an RSS shakha as a child) we are constantly being told that #ageisjustanumber. Not that this shared, sweat-soaked dream is a bad thing—it may make us all fitter—cigarette-packet-like health warnings on samosas, jalebis and Modi’s very own pakoras are to be welcomed—even though the regime that implements them has not been very kind to our female athletes or athletes in general.
Nobody seems to retire gracefully in India—from cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar hanging on till his 100th century, to Sonia Gandhi helming the Congress from 1998 to 2022, to D.Y. Chandrachud clinging on to his official residence in Lutyens’ Delhi six months after retirement, everybody seems reluctant to yield their spot in the limelight. Meanwhile, younger, hungrier generations have to grumble, rumble and plot rebellion.
The BJP-RSS has always been an exception to this rule. One of the most praiseworthy things about the combine is their bench strength—the shrewd encouragement of rising stars within the system, especially when the sheen of the older order seems to be fading. It is in this context that Modi’s tweet needs to be studied. Will our 56-inch-chested biological wonder be able to prevail as long as Fauja? Only September will tell.
editor@theweek.in