Reports have surfaced from the United States that UFC Freedom 250, a historic mixed martial arts event is scheduled to take place on June 14, 2026, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence.This event, not being held on July 4, the official ‘birthday’ of the US, but on a day that happens to be the US Flag Day holiday and, hold your breath, president Donald Trump’s 80th birthday, provides an opportunity for Indians to recall the number of official events or commemorations that have been held on September 17 in recent years, to perfectly align with prime minister Narendra Modi’s birthday.Modi’s birthday being celebrated in India as a national parv or celebration is unambiguously just a part of the project to glorify him and enhance the cult of Modi. This is the latest of the many commonalities between the two leaders of the world’s largest and oldest democracies, albeit greatly withered in character.Similarities in their personal characteristics, political traits, and leadership stylesThe similarities in their personal characteristics, political traits, and leadership styles began becoming evident within months of Trump entering the White House after the 2016 poll. It had not taken much time to realise that both leaders were modern day narcissists.If Trump has now decided to schedule celebrations on America’s 250th anniversary, there was a day eleven years ago when Modi wore a pin stripe suit with his name woven into it, while meeting the then US President, Barack Obama in full public glare at an official interaction during a State Visit to India.But, before delving into further likeness between the two populists, it would be appropriate to recapitulate a few points being highlighted by the American media on the watershed 250th anniversary of the US being commemorated on Trump’s birthday and that too on the South Lawn of the White House.One, it is unprecedented for a professional sporting event to take place directly on the South Lawn, which acts as venue for several official events.Two, the announcement that the 250th anniversary would be celebrated in White House was made by Trump personally in August last year, without taking the president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White – the organisers of the event, into confidence. White even confessed that he had no idea Trump would mention it publicly.Three, the event was initially scheduled for July 4 but was advanced for ‘logistical’ reasons. The perfect alignment with the president’s milestone birthday however, can certainly not be a coincidence.Modi’s birthday too on September 17 has routinely been used by the Indian government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a launchpad for major national developmental programs, environmental milestones, and public health campaigns.The intention clearly was to make Modi a synonym for the government and vice versa.Cunningly crafting personal annual milestone into a national fortnight with multiple eventsSince 2022, the BJP has observed the fortnight beginning September 17 and ending on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary as Sewa Pakhwara (Service Fortnight).Previously, the BJP marked Modi’s birthday with shorter service campaigns – such as Sewa Saptah (Service Week) or Sewa Hi Sangathan (Service is Organisation).By conjoining the birthdays of Modi’s with the Father of the Nation’s, the BJP has symbolically framed the two celebrations on common political, philosophical, and structural levels. The attempt is to consciously establish Modi’s connection with the foundational values of the Indian Republic as personified by Gandhi.Modi and the party have cunningly crafted his personal annual milestone into a national fortnight for performing manual labour, donating blood, participating in charity events to buttress his claims of being Pradhan Sewak and not Pradhan Mantri.Importantly in 2014, Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2 and very deviously co-opted Gandhi’s iconic round spectacles as its logo. Over time, the notion of cleanliness was routinely intertwined with Swadeshi and Vocal for Local (also Khadi) campaign.It is often overlooked that within this Sewa Pakhwara, the birth anniversary of another Sangh Parivar stalwart, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya also falls – September 25. This enabled the BJP to conjoin the Jana Sangh leader’s conceptual framework – Antodaya, with Gandhi’s core philosophy of Sarvodaya.Without playing any part in the national movement, the BJP deceitfully appropriated its icons and foundational principles of not just the freedom struggle, but also of post-independence India.By resorting to such devious tactics, BJP and Modi have ensured that his birthday is not a mere day for celebration in the national calendar.Instead, it is projected as an occasion to observe the day as a springboard, year after year, for a Jan Andolan (people’s movement), which concludes on an occasion of nation-building on October 2.Events on or around Modi’s birthday now make it evident that these are no longer mere PR tools, as used to promote the leader of several democracies.Instead the template is from authoritarian states, wherein the political choreographers take care to enhance the cult of personality. Additionally, it is emphatically conveyed that benevolence always flows directly from Modi’s hands and not from institutional governance.As part of its strategy to provide a ‘welfare’ character to this fortnight as well as complete identification with him, major schemes have always been launched by Modi.For instance in 2025, on precisely his birthday, Modi launched Swasth Nari, Sashakt Parivar Abhiyaan and the 8th Poshan Maah campaigns, with the government PR machinery, doubled up by BJP’s IT Cell, projecting these events as “marking a historic step towards strengthening healthcare and nutrition services for women, adolescent girls, and children across India.”Similarly, three years prior to that, in 2022, on his 72nd birthday, Modi personally, in a ceremony choreographed to the minutest detail, launched Project Cheetah and introduced the first batch of eight intercontinental wild cheetahs flown from Namibia into Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park.The list of programmes that have been launched either over the Sewa Pakhwara, if not solely on September 17, is long and wide: Odisha’s SUBHADRA Yojana in 2024, as also the central schemes of PM Awas Yojana (Gramin and Urban); the 13,000 crore PM Vishwakarma Yojana.Even in the time of national emergency, during the Covid-19 pandemic, there was time and drive to schedule administering a total of 2.26 crore covid vaccines on September 17, 2021.At a time when the fear of the pandemic was rampant and people were still dying (officially 300 per day although independent demographic and epidemiological studies published after the pandemic stated that the actual numbers were six to seven times higher), the PM and his coterie were busy focussing on maximising vaccines on ‘this’ day.This was little but a display of malignant narcissism and probably the first evidence of what eventually evolved into a ‘God Complex’ in March 2024 when Modi infamously told an interviewer that he was not ‘biological’ and but ‘sent by god’.The list of programmes and schemes launched on and around September 17 is far longer and would take far greater effort to make a comprehensive compilation.Modi is not depicted as an ordinary mortal but a benevolent ‘God’The intention here has not been to compile such a ‘list’. Instead, it is merely to demonstrate how an annual anniversary in Modi’s life has been misrepresented. He is not depicted as an ordinary mortal engaged in routine engagements with a break or two, to converse with visitors and attend to callers.Instead, Modi is showcased on every birthday as little but a benevolent ‘God’.These tools however have a political purpose. The occasions have also been used to humanise Modi’s public image. This was indisputably required from his first day in office, because his past from the 2002 Gujarat-riots remained strung on his persona.Modi has never been shown to be receiving ‘gifts’ on these occasions. Instead, he is shown as presenting to the nation, the proverbial ‘return gift’ in the form of welfare schemes, programmes and even cheetahs.Modi promotes himself as a tireless ascetic worker, albeit bedecked in choicest finery. On several accounts, he stands in contrast to Trump because they address different social constituencies.In contrast to Modi and the conversion of his birthday into a national observance, his predecessor Manmohan Singh was known for his low-profile and technocratic leadership style. He never used his own ‘presumed’ birthday (September 26) to launch government programmes and schemes.The government Singh headed, introduced schemes that furthered popular imaginations of iconic leaders from the past: For instance, Gandhi Jayanti was used as launchpad for rural employment guarantee in 2006.Similarly, the birth anniversaries of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were used to launch new schemes or buttress existing ones, in sectors that were particularly dear for them individually.The BJP however sees this as ‘promotion’ of a dynasty while overlooking how a cult has been meticulously constructed around a single individual over the past 12 years.Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a journalist and author whose books include Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times and The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right.