Dear Readers,In India, every politician secretly wants to be a nayak (a hero), one with a following, a theme song, and preferably, a statue. The democratic process may have reached the grassroots, but the cult of the hero remains firmly top-down.What’s even more entertaining is the scramble to be called jan nayak, the hero of the people. It’s the political equivalent of getting a verified tick on X: everyone wants it, few earn it, and some just claim it anyway.So when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in Bihar on October 4, accused his rivals of trying to “steal” the honorific jan nayak from former Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur, it sounded less like a warning and more like a trademark dispute.“Karpoori Thakur wasn’t made jan nayak by social media trolls,” Modi declared. “He was made jan nayak by the people of Bihar, and they did so after observing his life. I urge the people of Bihar to be vigilant. Nowadays, people are trying to steal even this title of jan nayak. Be alert so that this honour bestowed upon Karpoori Thakur by the people is not stolen.”Karpoori Thakur, a leader from the nai (barber) caste among the Extremely Backward Classes, served briefly as Chief Minister in the late 1970s. He is remembered for the “Karpoori formula” of layered reservation, which extended benefits to the most marginalised among the OBCs. In 2024, the Modi government awarded him the Bharat Ratna, projecting it as proof of its concern for marginalised castes in Bihar’s famously stratified politics.Modi’s remarks were widely read as digs at Opposition leaders who recently called Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav jan nayak.During Rahul Gandhi’s Voter Adhikar Yatra, independent MP from Purnia, Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav—once critical of Tejashwi for trying to sideline him—shared the dais with Yadav and hailed him as jan nayak, “the real hope of Bihar”.Rahul Gandhi’s supporters have gone further, running a parody account on X titled “Jan Nayak (Rahul Gandhi)”. Bihar Congress president Rajesh Kumar shot back at Modi, saying it wasn’t for the Prime Minister to decide who was a jan nayak, and insisted Gandhi was being called jan nayak and nyay yoddha (warrior for justice) by the public. After his Bharat Jodo Yatra in June 2024, several Congress leaders announced: “He is a jan nayak, no doubt.”On Facebook, a page titled “Jan Nayak Rahul Gandhi: One Man Army” shared videos of Gandhi’s parliamentary interventions and his Voter Adhikar Yatra. Some observers read this as a rebranding exercise by the Congress—to recast Rahul as a leader of the masses, shift focus from Opposition leadership squabbles, and blunt the BJP’s long-running “Pappu” jibe.As the title wars heated up, I went digging into the genealogy of jan nayak. Former MP Arjun Singh, now in the BJP, posted in July this year a tribute calling Chandra Shekhar, who was Prime Minister from 1990-91, jan nayak. In Haryana, when Dushyant Chautala split from the Indian National Lok Dal to form a new party in 2018, he named it the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP). Apparently jan sounded more people-friendly than lok, though the meaning was the same. The JJP won 10 Assembly seats in 2019, and Chautala became Deputy Chief Minister. Five years later, voters forgot the party, and it was wiped out in 2024.Even literature joined in. A 2001 novel on tribal freedom fighter Tantya Bheel, published by the then Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, was titled Jana Nayak Tantya Mama.Which brings to mind another nayak moment—actor Sanjay Dutt, the nayak of the 1993 blockbuster Khal Nayak, recently saluted the RSS on its centenary, praising its “100 years of dedication, discipline, and nation-building”.That didn’t go down well with Congress loyalists, given his father Sunil Dutt’s long career as a party MP, and his sister Priya Dutt’s continuing role in the party. Congress leader Surendra Rajput hit back with a parody of Khal Nayak’s famous song: “Nayak nahin Khalnayak hai tu, apne pita ka nalayak hai tu” (You’re not a hero but a villain; the unworthy son of your father).It also recalls Anil Kapoor’s Nayak: The Real Hero (2001), where a journalist becomes Chief Minister for a day and changes the world in 24 hours. Congress-turned-BJP leader Jagdambika Pal once lived a similar cinematic moment—he was Chief Minister for precisely 31 hours in 1998. Journalists teased him as the “real-life Anil Kapoor”, and he never seemed to mind.For reasons unknown, Kapoor’s movie is far better remembered than Satyajit Ray’s 1966 Nayak: The Hero—a subtler, more elegant film that had nothing to do with politics.Kapoor’s Nayak continues to haunt politicians. At a Federation Of Indian Chambers Of Commerce and Industry event on October 7, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis confessed that the film inspired him—then added, “It also brought me a fair share of trouble! Wherever I go, people say, ‘Be like Nayak! He changed the world in a single day!’”The nayak franchise didn’t stop there. The 2013 Telugu action film Nayak, starring Ram Charan in a double role and revolving around the murder of a Union Minister’s brother, was another crowd-puller. There are probably more nayaks out there that I’ve missed—but you get the drift.In the political canon, Jayaprakash Narayan (JP)—hero of the anti-Emergency movement—remains Lok Nayak. No one else has dared claim that title. Filmmaker Prakash Jha even made a 2004 biopic Loknayak on JP’s life.And in Odisha, the Naik family has turned their surname into political legacy: Biju Patnaik and Naveen Patnaik—the State’s real-life nayaks.Indeed, politics and cinema share a fascination with the hero figure—with or without the jan or lok prefix. But no politician wants the opposite, the khal prefix, even as every election campaign turns into a battle of heroes and villains.Cinema, at least, is more forgiving—a Khal Nayak can still become a superstar.I’ll rest my nayaknama here. The question remains: are we looking for heroes in politics, or—without belittling them—just delivery boys who deliver results?Until the next newsletter.Anand Mishra | Political Editor, FrontlineWe hope you’ve been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! 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