Narendra Modi’s stadium monument is not quite cricket

What use is personal branding after you are dead? This, at least, seems to be Narendra Modi’s view. The Indian prime minister has just agreed to the renaming of the nation’s, and the world’s, largest cricket stadium — after himself.

The arena in Ahmedabad in his home state of Gujarat had previously carried the name of Sardar Patel, a leader of the Indian independence movement and the nation’s first deputy premier. Patel had been glorified in a colossal, 597-foot statue — another Modi project — which cleared the way for the stadium to take a new name. Modi’s party knew just the man.

Donald Trump must be fuming at the limits of his own imagination in this respect. A few hotels and golf clubs bearing his name are small potatoes. Had Modi’s example been available to the former US president, he might not have stopped at airports or sports arenas. Whole towns might have been renamed; states even. Around half of America’s presidents have at least a county named after them. There are 30 Washington Counties and 22 Jefferson Counties. But these honours tend to be bestowed posthumously, or at least after leaving office.

Such tactics are, of course, long established in feudal and dictatorial regimes. Monarchs — or their flattering courtiers — were terribly keen on the principle. Just two years ago, Kazakhstan renamed its capital Nur-Sultan after its still living ex-president (and “Leader for Life”) Nursultan Nazarbayev.

But, in general, democratic nations have tended to wait if not for death then at least for retirement before handing out such honours. This can even smooth the way for transition in nations with free elections, where the outcome is, shall we say, less certain. A birthplace may jump the gun on naming itself after a great local hero, but generally the judgment of history is considered useful before rushing to rename. A Richard Nixon stadium might have seemed a defensible idea in 1972. A couple of years later a committee to rebrand would probably have been hastily assembled.

And as the example of Stalingrad, now Volgograd, formerly Tsaritsyn, shows, the problem with such personal branding before the history is settled can lead to some rapid lurches in nomenclature. The use of a river is a safer bet for long-term stability. 

Where personal memorialisation of a living leader does occur it is best left as organic. The so-called “Boris bikes” dotted around London were not so named by Johnson himself though Britain’s premier is patently happy with the nickname (even more so since the plan actually originated with his predecessor as city mayor).

Societies are used to corporate sponsorship of buildings, events and stadiums but this is understood to be directly related to investment, and the names rarely stick beyond the cash flow. The home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team may officially be Oracle Park, but in the last 20 years it has also been Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park and AT&T Park.

Modi’s act of vanity is part of a wider effort to rewrite the country’s history and sense of self. And if you are building a cult of personality why not link it to the country’s sporting obsession? But the move might also be added to the growing list of warning lights that are already flashing about the state of Indian democracy.

For there is one other reason why political leaders start naming places after themselves while they are still in power. It is that they are not confident their nation will be quite so keen to honour them once they have gone.