Philip Kotler congratulates PM Modi for award, but questions remain
After a couple of days of political sparring over Prime Minister Narendra Modi receiving the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award, marketing guru Philip Kotler himself took to Twitter to clarify that he had selected PM Modi for the award. The development comes after PM Modi was sarcastically congratulated by Congress President Rahul Gandhi for receiving the 'world famous' award. However, several questions remain.
READ: Philip Kotler's tweet congratulating PM Modi
The controversy started after congratulations poured in
On January 14, several BJP leaders and Union ministers started tweeting congratulations to PM Modi for winning the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award. However, investigations by news website The Wire revealed that the award had had no jury, and the World Marketing Summit (WMS) event where the award was handed out had been co-sponsored by PSU GAIL India, Baba Ramdev's Patanjali, and Republic TV, among others.
Accusations of corporate ties had been leveled at PM Modi
Subsequently, a political storm broke out, with many Opposition leaders hurling sarcastic comments at PM Modi, while others hinted at corporate interests and crony capitalism being the reason behind PM Modi receiving the award. Indeed, since the award, presumably for governance, was being handed out for the first time, that too by a marketing and advertising firm, questions were perhaps warranted.
READ: Rahul Gandhi's sarcastic tweet aimed at PM Modi
Those associated with the award are wiping their digital fingerprints
While the initial article by The Wire had pointed out that even Philip Kotler himself had not tweeted about PM Modi receiving the award, that deficiency has been addressed now. Still, several questions remain. For one, websites of the WMS event, and the unheard of Aligarh-based company, Suslence Research International Institute, which organized it have been taken down. WMS 18's Twitter page, too, has been deleted.
The award has Saudi ties written all over it
However, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Investigations by The Wire also revealed that both WMS India and Suslence were the initiatives of Tauseef Zia Siddiqui, an employee of Saudi government-owned petrochemical firm SABIC that is looking to make inroads into India. Interestingly, Siddiqui's LinkedIn profile failed to mention his role at Suslence, and after The Wire's report, even the LinkedIn profile was deleted.
What's the relation between SABIC and India?
For those unaware, SABIC entered India in 1993-94, and currently operates India's biggest petrochemical plant in western Gujarat. At the 2018 India Energy Forum, Saudi Arabia's energy minister Khalid-Al Falih met PM Modi and affirmed SABIC's interest to make investments in India's petrochemicals, crude oil storage, and the fuel retail sector.
The jury reportedly conveniently left out non-Saudi nationals
Further, the "award judging committee" for the Kotler Marketing Excellence Prizes - separate from the award given to PM Modi - had Siddiqui and two Saudi nationals on it, apart from Walter Vieira from the Institute of Management Consultants, and Gautam Majahan, the president of Customer Value Foundation India. Both Viera and Mahajan have revealed that they were never included in the judging process.
Several questions about the entire awards process remain unanswered
Even more curiously, perhaps, a large number of the Kotler Marketing Excellence Prizes went to sponsors of the event including Patanjali, WittyFeed, and GAIL. While Philip Kotler has said that the final decision to award PM Modi was his own, questions about the opaque nomination and voting process remain, as do questions about suggested Saudi ties, and the timing of the award ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
