modes not showing in status bar of vim

I installed vim version 7.4.1689 in my linux mint 18. I opened any file with vim but after switching between modes on the status bar it is not showing anything like which mode I am currently in. I searched everywhere for the solution found one but it did not worked. The solution given was to use the command: :set showmode

in /.vimrc file, I did that but nothing happened, can somebody please help me to solve this issue.