For most 76-year-olds, a birthday means cake, a call from the grandchildren and perhaps a gentle argument about sugar. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it now means a month-long national exercise in seva.

The BJP’s Seva Sankalp Abhiyan marks 25 years since Modi first took public office as Gujarat chief minister. Ministries and state governments have been roped in, more than 500 locations are expected to participate, and the programme comes with 14 separate “modules” covering everything from health camps and cleanliness drives to overseas mahayagyas. Delhi has tied the celebrations to development projects worth around Rs 13,820 crore; Haryana has handed each deputy commissioner Rs 10 lakh for the campaign. There are diyas by the lakh, including a 5,000-diya portrait of Modi in Assam and 76,000 lamps at a midnight Ahmedabad event.

This is not particularly new. Heads of states have been finding creative ways to turn their birthdays into public spectacle across history. Ancient kings commissioned monuments and rituals. Medieval courts turned royal anniversaries into displays of wealth and divine favour. Modern dictators perfected the genre, with choreographed parades and compulsory adulation. Democracies have had their gentler versions too: public service campaigns and the occasional flattering newspaper supplement.

The difference, of course, is who is paying and what exactly is being celebrated.

Modi’s own birthday machinery has steadily expanded. As Gujarat chief minister, he generally kept the occasion low-key. After the BJP named him its prime ministerial candidate in 2013, the celebrations grew into week-long service drives; later came 21-day Seva aur Samarpan campaigns and fortnight-long Seva Pakhwadas. Now we have a month.

At this rate, the 80th birthday may require a fiscal year.

So, before the candles become a national infrastructure project, let’s take a brief tour through history to see how rulers and political leaders have handled the awkward business of getting older in public.

Broadly, they fall into three categories: the ugly, the bad and the good.

We begin, as history often does, with the ugly.

The ugly: When the birthday becomes state religion

Stalin, 1949: A museum cleared out for presents

When Joseph Stalin turned 70 on December 21, 1949, the Soviet state turned an art museum into a display of his birthday gifts. A government commission arrived at Moscow’s Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and, in a little over two days, removed about 1,500 works from 12 halls. The Western masters went into storage, and 30 staff members were fired after failing security checks. The space was needed for gifts — more than 23,000 of them, sent from across the Soviet Union and from fraternal parties abroad. The exhibition stayed open until 1953, the year Stalin died. The official story held that the leader kept only a warm blanket and a pillow from Siberia for himself.

Hitler, 1939: A four-hour parade

Ten years earlier, Nazi Germany had declared Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday, April 20, 1939, a national holiday. The announcement came only two days in advance. Joseph Goebbels built the day around Hitler himself. There was a military parade of 40,000 to 50,000 troops that lasted more than four hours, with 162 warplanes overhead, 20,000 official guests and several hundred thousand spectators. The parade was also meant as a warning to the Western powers. Less than five months later, Germany invaded Poland. 

The Kims: A calendar built around birthdays

North Korea made birthdays part of the country’s basic machinery. The birthdays of Kim Il Sung (April 15) and Kim Jong Il (February 16) are national holidays. On these days the state has traditionally handed out extra food rations and electricity, and children receive bags of sweets. Making all those sweets is a real burden. In 2021, residents told Radio Free Asia that provinces had been ordered to produce confectionery as birthday gifts from Kim Jong Un, and that the local price of sugar had roughly doubled. By 2024, the handout was limited to children aged six and under.

The current Kim’s birthday, believed to be January 8, has never been declared a holiday, and state media ignored it this January. Since 2024, Pyongyang has largely stopped calling his grandfather’s birthday the “Day of the Sun”. 

This April, party media used bland phrases such as “April holiday”. But in January 2024, citizens were reportedly made to take loyalty oaths on Kim Jong Un’s birthday. 

Tito: The relay that outlived the leader

Josip Broz Tito was born on May 7, 1892. Yugoslavia, however, celebrated his birthday on May 25. That was the date in 1944 when he escaped a German airborne raid on his partisan headquarters at Drvar. Starting in 1945, young people carried an ornate baton through every Yugoslav republic in a nationwide relay. It ended at a mass gymnastics display in a Belgrade stadium, where the baton was handed to Tito along with wishes for his long life and good health. In 1957 the occasion was renamed Youth Day. Tito died in 1980, but the relay continued for seven more years, until 1987. Four years after that, Yugoslavia itself began to break apart.

Mugabe: Elephant on the menu, drought outside

From 1986, Robert Mugabe’s birthday, February 21, was organised via the ZANU-PF youth League’s 21st February Movement. Its official purpose was to inspire young Zimbabweans to follow the leader’s selfless example. The selflessness did not come cheap.

For his 91st birthday in 2015, about 20,000 guests gathered at a luxury hotel in Victoria Falls, and the cost was estimated at around $1 million. Elephants were slaughtered for the feast. Seven huge cakes were on display, and one of them weighed 91 kg and was shaped like the falls. The party for his 92nd birthday the next year cost about $800,000. It was held in Masvingo province, where drought had destroyed three-quarters of the staple maize crop and three million Zimbabweans needed food aid. Villagers and rural teachers were reportedly told to contribute to the party fund, and diamond mining firms were asked for money. Posters for a special birthday edition of the state-run Sunday Mail compared his birthday to that of Jesus Christ.

Twenty-one months after the Masvingo party, the military forced Mugabe out. Then came the twist. When his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was sworn in in November 2017, February 21 was declared a public holiday: Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day. It is still one in 2026. 

Mnangagwa, on his part, has an annual public holiday too on his own birthday, calling it the Munhumutapa Day. It was introduced through a new regulation this year.

Iraq: Saddam Hussein birthday cake by students

For Iraqis who grew up in the 1990s, April 28 brought a strange mix of festivity and state propaganda: it was Saddam Hussein’s birthday. Even as sanctions squeezed the country, organised parties were held nationwide, and Baghdad’s bridges and squares were strung with coloured lights. State radio broadcast a steady stream of songs praising the leader, and listeners phoned in with poems composed on the spot in his honour. 

Schoolchildren were sometimes assigned to bake a cake for “Mr President,” a ritual that inspired Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi, 37, whose film drew international attention. Speaking to AFP in Paris, Hadi recalled that students tried everything to avoid being chosen, from slipping out to the toilet during the selection to feigning illness or even offering the teacher a bribe.

The bad: Cage fights and expressions of fealty

Trump: Tanks at 79, a cage fight at 80

If this section covered only dictatorships, it would be reassuring. It doesn’t.

On June 14, 2025, Donald Trump’s 79th birthday, Washington staged a military parade officially marking the US Army’s 250th anniversary. It involved nearly 7,000 troops along with tanks and helicopters, and the Army said it could cost up to $45 million. 

For his 80th this June, the White House went further. Trump had earlier announced that a UFC fight on the White House grounds would be held on June 14, even though UFC boss Dana White had previously said it would take place on July 4. The result was “UFC Freedom 250”: seven bouts in an Octagon on the South Lawn, with a flyover by Air Force Thunderbirds and Navy Blue Angels. Before the event, White had said that just replacing the lawn’s grass afterwards would cost $700,000. NPR noted that recent financial disclosures showed Trump had invested in UFC’s parent company, and that his family members were selling commemorative coins around the event. To be fair to Trump, he also marked the day by hailing an initial agreement to end the war with Iran.

Turkmenistan

Saparmurat Niyazov's birthdays were grand national holidays.

In 2002, Saparmurat Niyazov, who called himself Turkmenbashi (“head of the Turkmen”), renamed the months, including the one he was born in, though the decision was not taken on his birthday. January became Turkmenbashi. April became Gurbansoltan, after his late mother. September was named after his book of spiritual guidance, the Ruhnama. Most ordinary Turkmens kept using the old names, and after Niyazov’s death his successor restored them in 2008.

Human Rights Watch counts Turkmenistan among the world’s most repressive states. That successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, marked his 56th birthday in 2013 with a lavish celebration at a Caspian Sea resort, complete with a ride on a 350-seat catamaran — and a paid performance by Jennifer Lopez, arranged by China's state oil company, who serenaded him with “Happy Birthday, Mr President” before he “graciously obliged” the sponsor’s last-minute request, according to her publicist. She later apologised, saying she hadn’t known about the country’s human rights record. Berdimuhamedov handed the presidency to his son, Serdar, in 2022, while retaining the title “National Leader of the Turkmen People” for himself – a family arrangement that has, so far, kept the birthday celebrations, if not necessarily the pop stars, in-house.

Putin: No celebration, officially

Vladimir Putin has mastered the art of officially not celebrating. When he turned 60 in 2012, the Kremlin said he did not like big birthday parties. His supporters, meanwhile, produced a wave of adulation that the Associated Press likened to the world’s strangest personality cults. For his 62nd in 2014, months after the annexation of Crimea, Putin took a day off deep in Siberia. Back in Moscow, an exhibition portrayed his achievements as the Twelve Labours of Hercules, and 100,000 people marched in his honour in Grozny, led by Kadyrov. For his 70th in 2022, Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko gave him a gift certificate for a tractor.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, his birthdays have been deliberately dull. In 2025 he spent the day working, meeting the Security Council and taking calls. The Kremlin acknowledged the calls came from “friendly” countries. Narendra Modi was among the callers. 

In monarchies of all hues

The earliest textual evidence for birthday celebration comes from five Old Sumerian cuneiform tablets from Lagash, dated to the 24th century BC, which list temple offerings made on the occasion of births in the royal family of King Lugalanda.

The Roman tradition provides the most thoroughly documented case, with the dies natalis of the emperor integrated into the imperial cult alongside the dies imperii (accession anniversary), both celebrated with sacrifices, games, and panegyrics.

In Muscovite Russia, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich began celebrating his birthday from 1676, and Peter the Great from at least 1690, with Peter’s celebrations including target shooting with rifles and cannons after the feast.

Ottoman sultans also began officially celebrating their own birthdays in the 19th century, with Abdulhamit hosting banquets, granting amnesties, and rallying celebrations through embassies abroad.

More recently, the ruler’s birthday is not always part of how the system works in a monarchy, barring a few.

For example, the Gulf’s hereditary rulers have plenty of state pageantry, but little of it is timed to their own birthdays. In Saudi Arabia, the religious establishment has long been wary of birthday parties. But in Bahrain, there was a grand military parade for Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah’s 80th birthday. 

In Europe’s sovereign monarchies, which function merely as ceremonial constitutional systems, there are parades for the monarch’s birthday, but the actual heads of governance mostly keep their birthdays private affairs.

In constitutional monarchy Thailand, December 5, the late King Bhumibol’s birthday, is both National Day and Father’s Day. King Vajiralongkorn's birthday on July 28 is also a holiday. After Queen Mother Sirikit died in October 2025, the cabinet decided that her birthday, August 12, would remain a public holiday, observed as Mother’s Day. Thai Prime Minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, celebrated his 60th birthday this month, with a private ceremony with his family at his home in Samut Prakan province, alongside visits and well-wishes from politicians, public officials, and business leaders.

Japan, another constitutional monarchy, keeps the reigning emperor’s birthday, now February 23, as a national holiday. The public details of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s own birthday are quiet, barring wishes from dignitaries.

The good (or at least the boring)

In China, Mao’s six rules

The Chinese Communist Party saw the danger early. In March 1949, months before taking power, a party plenum at the village of Xibaipo adopted six rules proposed by Mao. The first was a ban on birthday celebrations. The others banned gifts, limited toasts and applause, and prohibited naming places after party leaders.

Mao, of course, went on to build one of the 20th century's most extravagant personality cults anyway. But the birthday rule has lasted. When the current president, Xi Jinping, presided over the 120th anniversary of Mao’s birth in 2013, the People’s Daily left it off the front page, and Xi said revolutionary leaders were human beings, not gods to be worshipped. When Xi, who marks his birthday privately, turned 73 this June, the most visible expression came from Pyongyang. 

In Germany, lectures and symposiums

Friedrich Merz is the first German chancellor over 70 since Konrad Adenauer. He treated November 11, 2025, as a normal working day, followed by an evening reception at the Reichstag. 

The current president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier celebrated his 70th birthday on January 5, 2026, by hosting a high-profile political symposium in Berlin.

Years before, as chancellor, Angela Merkel turned 60 on July 17, 2014, after an EU summit that had just agreed tougher sanctions on Russia. At the press conference, a German TV reporter started singing “Happy Birthday” and nobody joined in. Merkel joked that it might have gone better if she had sung along. That evening, at her party’s headquarters, the entertainment was a lecture on the time horizons of history, chosen by Merkel herself. It was followed by a reception for up to 1,000 guests, with beer and wine. 

Macron with the troops, Meloni with Hello Kitty

French president Emmanuel Macron spent his 48th birthday, December 21, 2025, at a military base near Abu Dhabi. It was the French president’s customary year-end visit to troops stationed abroad, and there he announced that France would build a new aircraft carrier. The birthday was incidental.

The Italian government did not officially mark Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s birthday. She turned 49 on January 15, 2026, during an official visit to Tokyo, and it was another government that marked the occasion. The next day, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi led her delegation in singing “Happy Birthday” in Italian, brought out a cake, and gave Meloni earrings and Hello Kitty gifts for her daughter. 

FDR: A birthday that helped fight polio

Franklin Roosevelt lost the use of his legs to polio at 39. In 1933, a public relations man suggested holding dances across the country on the president’s birthday to raise money for Roosevelt’s polio foundation at Warm Springs. According to one account, Roosevelt’s response was: “If my birthday will be of any help, take it.”

In 1934, the first year, 600 Birthday Balls in 4,376 communities raised more than $1 million. The effort grew into the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Its March of Dimes campaign, named by the entertainer Eddie Cantor, sent millions of dimes to the White House. The foundation went on to help fund the research behind Jonas Salk’s vaccine, which was announced 10 years to the day after Roosevelt’s death. Using the president’s name to raise money for his favourite charity was an obvious conflict of interest even then. Still, it is hard to find a leader’s birthday producing some good.

Some good and bad in the class of 2026

Brazil and Mexico: A cake in Kuala Lumpur, a cake at the morning briefing

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva turned 80 on October 27, 2025, becoming Brazil’s first sitting president in his eighties. He spent the day not in Brasília but at the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur. At the gala dinner, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim led him to the stage, the guests sang, and he cut a cake. Lula joked that he hoped to live to 120 and complained that nobody had brought him presents.

Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum turned 64 on June 24 this year, while Mexico was co-hosting the football World Cup. She marked the day at her daily televised press conference. Reporters and officials sang Las Mañanitas, and she cut a chocolate cake while the Beatles’ When I’m Sixty-Four played. Then she moved on to the day’s government announcements.

Indonesia: The president’s favourite dish, served by the state

President Prabowo Subianto marked his 74th birthday on October 17, 2025, with a modest thanksgiving prayer at the presidential palace, attended by family members and cabinet ministers. The government, however, also instructed every kitchen in his flagship Free Nutritious Meals programme to serve his favourite dish that day: fried rice with a fried egg. According to the head of the National Nutrition Agency, that meant more than 7,000 nutrition centres across 38 provinces. Nobody went hungry because of it. But it shows how easily the machinery of a welfare scheme can be turned into a birthday card.

Turkey: No party, but a song

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been Turkey's prime minister or president since 2003. By custom he holds no birthday party. When he turned 70 in 2024, supporters handed him a cake outside his Istanbul residence as he left for an opening ceremony. For his 72nd birthday this February, his AK Party released a song and a video about his rise from the backstreets of Istanbul, with a refrain wishing the “Reis” (chief) many more years. 

Taken together, these cases don’t divide neatly into rich and poor countries, or monarchies and democracies. Mexico and Brazil keep birthdays as low-key as Germany does, and many wealthy Gulf monarchies leave them off the calendar entirely. Among today’s incumbents, the exceptions are the leaders whose birthdays draw on the state’s own machinery: Trump’s South Lawn, Prabowo’s kitchens and, from September 17, BJP-run states.

Before anyone points fingers at only one party, it is worth remembering that Indian birthday politics are older than the BJP.

In 1957, the government issued commemorative stamps on then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday. On November 14, 1956, The Times of India had reported: “Nearly 100,000 children assembled at the National Stadium today to participate in a Children’s Day rally, which coincided with the Prime Minster’s 67th birthday celebrations.”

All of this happened while Nehru was still prime minister. 

Decades later, in 2014, on Modi’s first birthday as prime minister, he hosted Xi Jinping, who began his India visit in Ahmedabad that day. In 2021, India administered 2.5 crore Covid vaccine doses in a single day, beating China’s one-day record. P Chidambaram responded that “vaccination is not like cutting a cake on a birthday” and said he wished the PM celebrated his birthday every day. Modi replied that one political party seemed to have caught a fever. In 2022, he released cheetahs flown in from Namibia at Kuno National Park. In 2025, he turned 75 at a rally in Dhar, where he launched the Swasth Nari Sashakt Parivar campaign. 

But it’s up to you to compare Modi to Nehru, or to see how long the former is from Merkel’s lecture or Meloni’s cake.

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