The trending of #ResignModi on Indian Twitter this week may have been a sight for some sore eyes. But it was much more than that. It finally signalled that the Covid pandemic had become political.
In the first year of its devastation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ever the strongman, had prevailed over the pandemic. Survey after survey demonstrated eye-watering popularity ratings that no other democratically elected political leader on the planet let alone in India could rival. This was not because the first Covid wave was any less challenging. But rather Indians had responded with collective conformity to resolutely affirm Modi.
India’s latest world record of over 3,00,000 fresh Covid cases in a single day will perhaps be less forgiving of the Prime Minister. Less-than-flattering Twitter trends, irreverent memes and widespread helplessness are the first, if unreliable, indicators. Fury now seems to be competing with, if not replacing, fear. Tellingly and perhaps sensing this shift, Modi appealed for national discipline in his latest national address.
Also read: British govt to Modi govt — How Kumbh Mela has been organised through epidemics
Bacteria-spurred politics
Historically, pandemics and catastrophic disasters have had an uneven and unpredictable relationship with politics. The British empire’s devastating legacy in its peak years of unalloyed power was the cycle of deathly famines — notably the Deccan Famines of 1877-78 in the 19th century — infamously dubbed the ‘Victorian holocausts’ that killed millions. Through a battery of draconian measures including then newly enshrined sedition law, the colonial state sought to depoliticise a restive Indian society. The Indian National Congress emerged in this context. Yet, this politics was largely polite and ultimately unthreatening as no single organisation or individual was prosecuted under the sedition law between 1870 and 1890.
By contrast, in the Bombay plague of 1895-96, with its epicentre also in western India, far fewer people died. Yet that pandemic was a turning point for India’s political history, inciting and inaugurating mass politics. It finally broke the long passive impasse of Indian politics.
The famines had been deathly and dehumanising. Yet, it was the visibility of plague deaths and hospital camps strewn across the urban centres and peripheries of India’s commercial capital and beyond that created a consequential anti-colonial convulsion. Unlike famines, neither social entitlement of caste, class nor religion protected against the equality of the attack of the killer bacteria.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak emerged as the first mass leader during the plague years precisely because he articulated an anger that had trumped obedience. In doing so, Indian politics was irrevocably transformed with the end of empire written on it. The key instruction from the past is that death by bacteria was an equaliser like no other.
Also read: If cholera, plague, influenza pandemics have taught us anything — don’t celebrate prematurely
Modi and national obedience
Ever since he became Prime Minister in 2014, Modi has been the touchstone of emotional events and elections. His own rhetoric, always delivered in the form of a monologue from the high and distant pulpits of the stage or the screen, chooses piety and polemics over the dry direction of policy. Whether it was the demonetisation in 2016 or the national lockdown in 2020, the PM’s dramatic declarations have demanded national obedience.
This national obedience knitted Indians into a new bond forged out of shared suffering and sacrifice. Modi had prevailed precisely because he instrumentalised this emotional grammar of nationalism equalising suffering, which demanded individual sacrifice in the pursuit of higher and loftier sentiments of national duty to fight corruption or Covid.
Last year, when Covid-19 first struck, millions of India’s migrants and labouring poor made long and difficult journeys back to the rural hinterlands because the city, economy, and political process united in abandoning them overnight. Such a mass exodus had not been witnessed since the blood-soaked year of India’s Partition and Independence. Yet, in the continuous election cycle of India’s politics, Modi held sway even in the migrant heartland of Bihar, which delivered his ally to political power.
Also read: PM Modi’s speech was short – on answers that Indians demand of him during second Covid wave
A tipping point
The recent call for the Prime Minister to resign trended on the very day that images of funeral pyres of those killed by the virus overwhelmed screens and collective senses. This imagery alone of mass funeral pyres burning across the country as the BJP held political rallies to sway voters in a state election represents a tipping point.
The very potent sentiment of collective suffering that Modi commanded had been rendered sectional. Death by the equalising force of the coronavirus, combined with callous neglect, has finally tipped the pandemic as a political issue. The pandemic is no longer about only its management. One year on, the pandemic is set to extract a political price.
Shruti Kapila teaches modern Indian history and global political thought at the University of Cambridge. Twitter: @shrutikapila. Her podcast on the politics of the Bombay Plague with Sir Christopher Clark can be heard here. Views are personal.
Edited by Neera Majumdar
We all forget Modi is nothing but a product of all the things Indian rural/ semi-rural didn’t have in the 1960s/ 1970s.
You can’t blame him for (maybe?) believing an animal head can be put on a human body. True Vedic symbolism and Vedic-based mythology is as removed to him as it would be from someone who has only read the Kabal or Scientology all their life.
Plus it is not as if he or more than 50% of this country ever went to science class. That’s not his fault. We forget he had to learn to read, to read and speak in Hindi, then to read and speak in English, to try and understand engineering and science and health studies without having any proper education. As a young adult, likely. His first education was RSS. That should tell you everything.
The lack of education in the North of India is squarely the result of hostile British rule and then God knows how many years of dynastic politics that encouraged vote banks.
This country needs more Western-based education and empirical medical science, not less. More English, not less. More translations of English material into our 54-plus main mother tongues, not less. The burden of education has been squarely on Christian convents and missionaries. And some schools that only some maharajas started, on their own, in the small towns. Why do you think the South is so much better off than the North? They had better maharajas and more English schools, that’s why.
My main problem with the BJP. Is actually they don’t push western science or education, though their children go out of the country, to Western universities, asap. Hindu theocracy is fine, for all you angry Bhakts reading this. But it’s just you’re blind to the fact (measurable) that they only USE you to get votes, they don’t HELP you (faithful Hindus) any more than anyone else. It’s all just money money money, commerce, no science or education or even religious research. No money given to Archaelohical Survey of India. No money given to restore old Hindu temples or forts. NO money given to restoration or conservation of Hindu antiquities. Only Ambani Ambani Adani Adani and road/mall/city projects that will bring in huge tenders and money.
We all forget Modi is nothing but a product of all the things Indian rural/ semi-rural didn’t have in the 1960s/ 1970s.
You can’t blame him for (maybe?) believing an animal head can be put on a human body. Vedic symbolism and vedic-based theology is as removed to him as it would be from someone who has only read the Kabal or Scientology all their life.
Plus it is not as if he or 50% of this country ever went to science class. That’s not his fault. We forget he had to learn to read, to read and speak in Hindi, then to read and speak in English, to try and understand engineering and science and health studies without having any proper education. As a young adult, likely. His first education was RSS. That should tell you everything.
The lack of education in the North of India is squarely the result of hostile British rule and then God knows how many years of dynastic politics that encouraged vote banks.
This country needs more Western-based education and empirical medical science, not less. More English, not less. More translations of English material into our 54-plus main mother tongues, not less. The burden of education has been squarely on Christian convents and missionaries. And some schools that only some maharajas started, on their own, in the small towns. Why do you think the South is so much better off than the North? They had better maharajas and more English schools, that’s why.
My main problem with the BJP. Is actually they don’t push western science or education, though their children go.out to study asap. Hindu theocracy is fine, for all you angry Bhakts reading this. But it’s just youre blind to the fact (measurable) that they only USE you to get votes, they don’t HELP you (faithful Hindus) any more than anyone else. It’s all just money money money, commerce, no science or education or even religious research. No money given to Archaelohical Survey of India. No money given to restore old Hindu temples or forts. NO money given to restoration or conservation of Hindu antiquities. Only Ambani Ambani Adani Adani and road/mall/city projects that will bring in huge tenders and money.
BTW, Madam a word of advice. You are after all not in any sanctioned post or substantial post to put it in Indian terms at Cambridge.
Just a Fellow, not even a lecturer.
Trust me, no matter what your network says, attacking Modi doggedly will not get you permanent post at the university.
Stop attacking scholars. Look to your own, cow-urine cures or what not. Funnily enough, you’re the sort that disproves her point in this article. Even if 3 million are dead by the end of monsoon, your types will ensure you vote for BJP/Modi again come 2024 – or Shah, if that’s who Modi puts up next. Likely Mr Modi will devolve to Gujarat CM for life after this pandemic dies down. Cushier job, no critics at all. Just the sort of blind obedience and chest-thumping hubris your type gives so proudly.
If Modi is to blame for everything then why should he not take credit for everything as well?
He had been taking it for 7 years for everything that happened or not.
Random thoughts in pandemic times in the wake of media reports such as this one, which serves no purpose in the fight
It is a pandemic, not an epidemic or common flu. Things that will move the needle the most—are things that past events give us little to no guide about, especially a viral pandemic mutating fast and tomorrow it may mutate faster than the speed of light (figuratively) and be able to travel in the air. Hopefully it will not come to that and humanity will survive this pandemic. There will be unprecedented events. Their unprecedented nature means we won’t be prepared for them, which is part of what makes them so impactful. It is in each one’s hands to look after the self.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in his book Fooled By Randomness:
“In Pharaonic Egypt … scribes tracked the high-water mark of the Nile and used it as an estimate for a future worst-case scenario. The same can be seen in the Fukushima nuclear reactor, which experienced a catastrophic failure in 2011 when a tsunami struck. It had been built to withstand the worst past historical earthquake, with the builders not imagining much worse—and not thinking that the worst past event had to be a surprise, as it had no precedent.”
Good decisions are not necessarily about making good decisions, they are about repeatedly not screwing up. The most impactful part of a plan, especially in conditions like a pandemic, is planning on the plan not going according to plan. It is hard to maintain a mindset that can be paranoid and optimistic at the same time Seeing things unfold takes less effort than accepting nuance. But you need short-term paranoia to keep you alive long enough to exploit long term optimism.
Dependence or reliance on past data as a signal to future conditions in a pandemic is a direct trap. We need to be proactive to events unfolding. That which can be technically true can be contextually nonsense. For instance, it may be, technically, a good decision to vaccinate all above 18 at the earliest. But contextually chaos will unfold at vaccination centers from May1, with unprecedented rush – registration notwithstanding.
In your fight against the pandemic, start with the self, family, community you live in, people who depend on you and on who you depend and so on. Have close WhatsApp groups. In your groups, carry honest stories on the pandemic that is happening in your area of influence, how people act and react as prevention, what they do for their work, etc… There are more relevant lessons to take away from this kind of close observation than there are in studying the extreme characters that tend to dominate the news.
Tail piece: Nothing is as good or as bad as it seems
Wishful thinking! Day dreaming ! Poor attempt to manipulate perception sitting in London.
Why there is no mention on…
State leaders ,CMs who were supposed to implement plans . Same situation was there 7 months back .there was declaration by State minister to install 10 oxygen plants ,where are they ? Why midia is not looking at these issues which are more serious for india’s committment towards Indians . Why these states could not manage ? It is always one inefficient create pressure on system . Media should take stock of these actions
U need to resign modi. Ur destroying India.
I think you must realise that every negative comments on Modi ji will give more popularity. You must carry on your agenda . 100 percent it will converted in Modi’s favour. You and your masters who have hired your for the purpose will all be frustrated.
Shamelessness soaring to heights! You still probably didn’t loose any of your loved ones to realize the fact of failed and apathetic central governance.
When you were roaming without mask, and partying hard inspite of COVID, did you ask Modi’s permission?
If the party which ruled India for many years was in power. Conditions would have been more worst. Those leaders who are blaming modi now & if they were so intelligent why did not they did it on there level to help people of India. when you point 1 fingure at others remaining 4 fingures are pointing towards the person who pointed the finger.
THE BUCK STOPS HERE
Harry Truman (1884-1972), the 33rd President of the United States always had a note on his desk:
“The buck stops here”
That phrase essentially meant that when Truman made decisions, he accepted full responsibility for the fallout from these decisions. He did not deflect blame either towards others, his political rivals, his subordinates or his bureaucrats. He readily admitted that he was on the hook for getting the job done. He asserted that “end to end” responsibility was an integral part of his job description. More importantly, even when he was not directly responsible for tragic events in the country, Truman stepped in and assumed leadership responsibilities. Like his predecessor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had done before him.
All American Presidents have been tested by internal and external crises. And all of them picked up the gauntlets and took ownership of the problem. The notable exception to that tradition being the racist demagogue Donald Trump who categorically declined to take ownership of the COVID crisis. Trump famously said:
“I do not take responsibility at all”
Equally importantly, until the Trump era, most Americans held their elected leaders fully answerable for the decisions they took and the consequences thereof.
Now take the case of India and PM Modi.
When Mohammad Akhlaq was brutally lynched in Dadri in PM Modi kept silent on an incident that was reported all over the world. Finally, 8 days after the event, PM Modi limply said whilst the BJP did not condone such acts, the Centre could nonetheless not be blamed for it. Rather than accept the fact that it was the BJP’s relentless attacks on Muslims and baseless accusations of cow slaughter that had led to the lynching, the PM refused to accept any responsibility. Worse still, he did not send a word of condolence to the bereaved family nor did he take upon himself the task of preventing such lynchings from happening.
But the true extent of the rot is only evident at the reaction of the public towards the government in power and PM Modi. The mass radicalisation of the Hindu voter is so complete that they refuse to take the PM to task many of his decisions – be it demonetisation, GST, lynchings, the bungled response to COVID, the fiasco at Golwan, the Rafale corruption scandals, the crony capitalism that favours Ambanis, Adonis and their ilk and so on. Additionally, when you also have a press that kowtows to the ruling party and practically worships at Modi’s feet, the death knell of Indian democracy has already sounded. And the Indian public is equally responsible for this descent into dictatorship – albeit an elected one.
Clearly, Modi does not have to say “the buck stops with me” when he has members of his rabid personality cult pinning the blame on everything but on this flawed Gujarathi demagogue.
English novelist & essayist George Orwell (1903-50) said:
“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices”
Truly frustrating isnt it?
He will win and you will lose again.
You talk about Akhlaq but where were you when a school teacher from France was beheaded…..leave France aside, where were you when the ‘peace loving’ Muslims were rioting in Bangalore due a single FB post (which was in response to the derogatory remarks made on Hindu gods), where were you when 2 days ago muslim crowd *LYNCHED* BMC officials who were asking them to comply with guidelines, where were you when Muslims lynched Ankit Sharma, an IB office, in Delhi riots?
Hindus have had enough of hypocrisy and of being treated as second class citizens in their own country when these violent mfs can get away with anything and everything
and now have put their foot down and is exactly the reason why Modi is winning election after election with a thumping majority.
The day you will condemn Akhlaq and Ankit alike, will be the day people actually take you and leftist portals like print seriously…
Mr Varad: I fail to understand how you could claim that Hindus are being treated as second class citizens in “their own country”. Well aren’t Indians who are Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, atheists etc. not in the own country ? Or do Hindus have a greater claim to india than the others ?
The Sachchar Committe report comprehensively demonstrated that Muslims lag behind in almost every socio-economic indicator in india. Admittedly, the blame for some of that should be pinned on Muslims themselves but the bulk of their problems emerge from their being treated as second class citizens in India.
You talk of lynchings and point to the odd examples of Muslims attacking Hindus. Well, in the Ankit Sharma tragedy, the parents of the dead lad refused to let the RSS and the BJP to capitalise on it to stoke riots and regarded it as a classic case of an Indian “love marriage” drama with the traumas associated with crossing religious boundaries.
But, the vast majority of lynchings in the Modi era have been lynchings of innocent Muslims by your gaurakshak friends. And that is an undeniable fact. Likewise, the gang rape of the 8 year old nomadic Muslim girl Asifa Bano in a temple by the priest and his buddies is something that got brushed under the carpet didn’t it ? And your RSS buddies defended the perpetrators of this horrific crime by talking like you: Where were you when Muslims did this or Muslims did that.
All violence is wrong. But in India under Modi, the violence of Hindutva is the worst sort of violence. And Hindus like you seem to love this violence, especially when the victims are innocent Muslims.
In yet another bizarre manifestation of the “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” mantra, the Modi government is also tampering with statistics on the number of COVID deaths.
Doctors and crematorium workers are now being forced to record cause of death as a generic “illness” or “bimaari” when the real reason is Covid. Despite the fact that India’s supine, spineless press dare not criticise the flawed Gujarathi pogromwala, it is increasingly hard for Führer Modi to conceal to the rest of the world the tragedy that has befallen India under his watch and thanks to his mismanagement. This can have deep consequences for the credibility of the country and the regime.
Fact is, despite catchy slogans like “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” the Modi government is not only highly centralised, it is also extremely autocratic. By choice and by design the Modi-Shah duo who have reduced every other Minister to being an errand boy. Foreign capitals know that decisions are not taken by Foreign Minister Jaishankar but by India’s 7th Standard graduate Modi. Likewise, just about every foreign country knows the power structures of the Modi government, its backers, stakeholders, the competence of key players like Modi and Shah, the crony capitalist linkages of Mo-Sha and so on. And they exploit these weaknesses ruthlessly.
But the populace does not care. They still believe that Führer Modi will deliver “achche din” and Rs 15 lacs will magically find ist way to the accounts of Indians. At least those Indians who survive Covid.
As Adolf Hitler said:
“Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
Criticism is good for development but at what cost? When we need to be united against a common enemy Covid, some so called brilliant people are making politics out of it. Remove Modi if you can but let’s fight through this pandemic together. And one more thing, apart from Covid there are many other national security issues going on which the PM and his team are handling. So rather than blaming the government please help them.
Criticism is good for development but at what cost? When we need to be united against a common enemy Covid, some so called brilliant people are making politics out of it. Remove Modi if you can but let’s fight through this pandemic together. And one more thing, apart from Covid there are many other national security issues going on which the PM and his team are handling. So rather than blaming the government please help them.
Indians will throw Modi out if they know there is a replacement available who is better. Unfortunately there is none.
You really want to use this argument of not alternative? Can you imagine a worse bumbling response than what we are seeing here with modi? Can you imagine someone so high in arrogance that as oxygen shortages were building up on the country, he was shouting ina rally in West Bengal to at he hasn’t seen huge crowds like that?
Nothing can be worse than the mess this modi has wreaked in India. Anyone else will do a better job. Esp Rahul, since he doesn’t seem to want all the credit everywhere for himself, says sensible things and is willing to let to the experts do their job.
Rahul gandhi is a joke. you must be a in fools paradise
Every Indian is responsible for this situation. Some people are trying to use this situation for profiteering and self gains. Where were these shameless media during the Farmers agitation, and different rallies. You were trying to get masala out of it. I think,the media should stop giving judgements and start self introspection.
You keep gloating and orgasming, you will fail
Concept of Mahamati is relevant
There is nothing special mentioning by Print in this article. If Modi is a failure, so are all the other world leaders, what is so special about this article. How difference a congress or any other political leader would have is not specified. Just for heck of criticizing if this article is made, then its of no use.
It’s not a matter of contrast between leaders since people with arrival of the pandemic people have gotten wiser .
Will modi improve his approach or not
The author ‘s attempt to build up a narrative .with references to Tilak and then narrowing the focus to our Honorable PM….betrays
-An attempt at self promotion…What a clutter of words ..big sounding and conveying nothing.. high on rhetoric and low in content
– a presumptuous and gross misunderstanding of the average Indian….As if her words will galvanize a movement .to unseat this Pro Hindu government. After all how can any government be anything but Secular(if you can define it)…That this government is anything but Partisan is besides the point …
Wake up…Such botched up Hatchet jobs don’t work.any more …The People know what they want…Period ..
Y r u so hell bent to beat modi everyday… This is the only reason I hate #ThePrint.. It seems ur publication has only one agenda dethrone modi… Shameful I Hever see any article from u which doesn’t codemn modi..
Well I hope they succeed, because Modi’s actions and decisions are always so anti-people.
Tired so soon? It’s not even half of his term yet. I mean 7 and a half(out of 15 and that too minimum ?). Nonetheless i hope you have become habitual of using burnol coz you clearly don’t seem habitual of accepting the fact that Modi ji is here till 2029.
There is no dearth of Andhe Bakhts (rats) led by their Pied Piper Modi to their CORONA funeral pyre. All bad things must come to an end. Sooner the better. Brint on the 3RD WAVE
U shld take care of Cambridge..dont worry. Modi nd bjp to stay here.
Is she suggesting Boris Johnson should have resigned when people were dying in hundreds? Boris is now warning people about the third wave.
Many of us Indians who have voted for Modi
overwhelmingly in 2014 and 2019 may not survive the brutal pandemic to see the ? crowning of him as PM in 2024. That will be real tragedy.
and the state govts. will not pay any price is it? their actions are all above board is it?
even today 15 covid patients died in maharashtra not because of covid, but because of fire which was caused due to corruption and negligence.
i am just fed up of people like you who are keen on blaming only modi govt for everything and anything.
From 2002 Italian Mafia and it’s stooge media engaged in character assassination of Narendra Modi.But as Modi himself told several times that he build stairs from bricks and stone thrown at him.No people on earth can defeat him.He is god gift to India.He is incarnation of Kalki.He will eliminate all enemies of india.
No matter what “The Print”, you may carry such articles which articulate the resentment on the policies and functioning of the present Govt,may not be successful in bringing a sway in the opinion of the people of the country. We get so upset when one of the members the family goes unwell,just imagine the kind of pressure on the person who is working tirelessly without taking a single day off for the last 6.5 years from 130 crore population. I think no other Govt on the planet would have done anything different to ease the situation for this sort of population ( uneducated with education ,who think they are the elite) who just don’t seem to alaign with National interest but instead persue their own self interests by drumming up and inflating the current scenario for their political and economic gains,causing great collateral damage to the image of the country during difficult situation. Nationalism cannot be taught but needs to be imbibed. Criticism needs to be constructive and positive to usher in better standards of living. Atleast for the last 6 years we haven’t heard the fence itself grazing the grass which ought to protect. Day in day out we see the handiwork of people in higher echelons who enjoyed free money by their acts rendered insignificant (farmers strike unsuccessful and Govt bringing a brilliant move of DBT to farmers,which has thoroughly exposed the influential and the mighty and taken them offguard). This is the performance shaping up slowly but irreversibly ,things being put in correct perspective which were wayward for the past 65 years. It’s better for writers be it PIO or foreign press to just shut nasty mouths and offer their comments and suggestions only when sought far,as people of India are well informed and can definitely make informed decisions.
Thanks for this. Beautifully articulated.
What? You mean to say in India only PM Modi tirelessly and others are enjoying their holidays over the last six years. It’s not number of hours, it is important and how well and for whom. All I can say is working tirelessly for his party at the cost of tax payers money
Very true
Very well said Mr N Nagarajan !
Soon, after the expensive Central Vista is built and the 2 – not 1 – custom Boeing 777 planes have been delivered to Führer Modi will be able to work even more, regardless of the latitude, longitude and altitude he finds himself in !!