Why do we expect our prime ministers to never take a vacation?

I have a question: Why do we expect our prime ministers to never take a vacation? Have you observed how PMs are supposed to work 24x7, and there are memes coming up about how much Modi works, how much Nehru worked and so on?
PMs are public servants. Yes, they apparently have the highest duty to the nation, but they are paid for the job, and they are human beings.
In liberal democracies around the world, the heads of government do take occasional vacations, and the government does not shy away from saying so.
Because they are doing a JOB, and they are EMPLOYEES of the state, and they are HUMAN BEINGS.

Would it be okay if the people who expect the head of government to work without a break for five years, ten years, be asked to do the same at their job? Their defence would probably be that they don’t do a job as important as the PM’s. That might be true, except that soldiers who defend the country are also entitled to leaves. In this case, the public is sympathetic, after all, the soldiers are risking their lives.

But what about farrmers? Aside from the fact that an average Indian farmer cannot afford to take a break from work, would the public be okay if some farmers went on leave? This might be a childish question, found perhaps in a children’s storybook with no practical meaning. But it is a rhetorical question of importance.

I think the root of this attitude — that a prime minister must work without breaks for as long as he is in power — is the subcontinental, even Asian, culture which accords great respect to those who work relentlessly for society. In this sense, the head of government is not merely the chief operator but the real, biggest and final servant of the country. He is also supposed to be a fatherly figure, a leader whose term is dedicated solely to the welfare of his country. Indeed, the ideal Indian PM must never even think of a vacation. How could he, he is our teacher!

Political parties too play along with this. The party in power usually recasts the prime minister’s vacations as “important visits” abroad or to other parts of the country. Prime ministers spend half their foreign visits sightseeing or attending inconsequential events, again a kind of vacation that is not explicitly described as such.

Those who offer voluntary and continuous service to the country, particularly without expectation of reward or without compromise, are worthy of respect. But this principle is stretched too far in subcontinental, even Asian, societies. This also hurts our ability to look at heads of governments as human beings who can be praised or criticised depending upon their actions. Instead, we either build cults of personality around them, or try to deposit their memories into the dustbin of history. Sometimes, we do both.