One month into a new term for the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance, and the optics couldn’t be worse. In his third term as prime minister, Modi is propped up by allies in a coalition government. But the self-proclaimed “non-biological” PM continues to promote his signature event management-style politics, even as disasters and gaffes pile up.
Over the last three weeks, as many as 13 river bridges have collapsed in Bihar, the state ruled by the BJP’s alliance partner, JDU’s Nitish Kumar. Engineers have been suspended for not monitoring the state of the bridges, but who is accountable for this crumbling of vital infrastructure?
It’s not just bridges, but the railways as well. Two weeks after the 2024 Lok Sabha election results, two trains collided in North Bengal. The automatic signalling system failed to function, and manual authorisation chits were wrongly issued to both trains. This suggests dangerously weak safety and security systems across India’s rail network. Train accidents continue to occur with terrifying regularity. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) observed that 50 per cent of the compulsory track inspections have not been completed so far. And in 2023, it was reported that over three lakh non-gazetted posts in the railways were lying vacant.
Medical students have been plunged into anguish over entrance tests. Days after the election results, NEET aspirants hit the streets to protest against irregularities in the country’s medical entrance examinations this year. Students formed a front against the National Testing Agency (NTA) that conducts the NEET, with protests across Delhi, Patna, Jaipur, and Bengaluru, to name a few.
The Modi government’s hyped Agnipath scheme—or four-year recruitment into the Army—ran into controversy yet again, with angry noises from youth and their families. Even former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash (retired) said that the scheme degrades the military’s combat capability because it does not provide the rigorous training that regular recruits undergo.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP government’s crowd management came up short when 123 people perished in a stampede in Hathras. Most of the dead were women and children.
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Rising complaints, no redressal
Unlike in 2014 and 2019, there has been no honeymoon period for the new Modi government. A spate of public grievances has exploded and the government looks besieged and unsure. There has not yet been a single announcement or policy measure that has genuinely reassured the public. Instead, a recent report by India Ratings pointed out three severe blows administered to the economy by Modi—the 2016 demonetisation, the hastily and shoddily executed 2017 GST imposition, and the sudden lockdown of 2020. These three shocks led to the shutting down of 63 lakh informal enterprises, 1.6 lakh crore job cuts, and an overall recession in the unorganised sector, costing India a loss of Rs 11.3 lakh crore.
A government that brought such untold miseries upon citizens has been given a fitting response in a 2024 mandate that has cut its arrogance and high and mighty-ness to size. But Modi and his party persist in misreading the mandate.
Modi is The Great Pretender, rushing from Italy where he took selfies with Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, to Russia where he enveloped President Vladimir Putin in a completely unnecessary bear hug while wearing a beatific smile. He was, perhaps, blissfully unaware that a NATO summit condemning Putin was underway in Washington, and that leaders of the Western democracies were strongly condemning Russia. US President Joe Biden has often referred to Putin as a “war criminal” while Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reacting to the Modi-Putin embrace, blasted Modi, saying he was disappointed that the leader of the world’s largest democracy was hugging “the world’s most bloody criminal.”
While Modi was on his foreign sojourn, Russia bombed a children’s hospital in Kyiv, sparking worldwide condemnation. To top off the disastrous optics of his overseas tour, the Indian PM was caught on camera referring to Austria as Australia, a gaffe which had to be corrected by the audience.
In the recently concluded Parliament session, Modi engaged in his usual bombast and aggression, insulting Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi as “Balak Buddhi”. He refused to engage with the LoP in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, even when the latter kept rising to his feet. The Modi government has now brazenly unveiled a “Samvidhan Hatya Divas” to commemorate the 1975 Emergency. This is nothing but an attempt to normalise the hatya (murder) of the Constitution by Modi and his cohorts today almost daily.
The worst excesses of the Emergency have been adopted by Modi. Activists, journalists and political opponents have been harassed and jailed. Truth-telling journalists have been persecuted under terrorism laws. NGOs have been forced to shut down. Pro-BJP media has served as the government’s propaganda tool and engaged in spreading communal hate. Agencies like the Enforcement Directorate have been let loose against the Opposition, working as washing machines when Opposition leaders join the BJP. Attempts have been made to turn parliamentary democracy into a rubber stamp in the name of majoritarianism. The Modi government has faced little resistance from the judiciary too. A government that passed three new criminal laws when 146 Opposition MPs were suspended, commits a samvidhan hatya almost every day.
In all this brutality, vindictiveness and incompetence, one characteristic, indeed a vital requirement from representative government, is missing: empathy. From NEET students to Agniveers to railway accident victims, there has been no systematic outreach toward suffering citizens. The human factor is entirely missing. The Modi government’s response to anguished NEET students has been to dismiss the irregularities in the exam as a “localised problem” and to set up a “high-powered” committee with a space scientist as its head. The Agnipath fiasco has been met with promises of bureaucratic reviews. We still don’t know how the Centre plans to bring the healing touch to Manipur, as Modi’s Manipur policy (if there is one) is shrouded in secrecy. Railway accidents are met with whataboutery about past accidents by the Modi government’s TV warriors. Where is the sympathy here and now for the children who have lost parents, or for those who have lost children? There is none.
Opposition stepping up
Opposition leaders, instead, are rushing to the rescue. Rahul Gandhi toured Manipur, and visited victims of the Hathras stampede. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee rushed to the accident site in New Jalpaiguri, listening to victims, organising relief work and talking to railway employees. Whether it’s the Aam Aadmi Party taking up the cause of Delhi’s water shortage or the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leading the charge on the inequities of the NEET exam, it’s the Opposition that is consistently flagging people’s issues.
The Modi government is still on an extended power trip. It has failed to grasp that verdict 2024 is emphatically not a mandate for ever more artful event management and projecting a larger-than-life Modi personality cult across captive TV channels. The year 2024 has delivered a mandate calling for less hubris and more reconciliation, which can only come from a genuine outreach to people. Instead of hugging Putin, the PM should hug a student who has suffered through examination paper leaks. Or a child who has lost a parent in a rail accident, or families of victims who died in the Hathras stampede. Empathy doesn’t require a 56-inch chest. Empathy requires an even bigger heart.
The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP, All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
India has a long tradition of engineering excellence. Dating back to British times. Technology, quality of materials, so many improvements. Niti Aayog should take a comprehensive national review, get things back on track.
Says the woman MP from a party filled with terrorists who believe in public beatings of woman, taliban style. And people wonder why Modi is found more trustworthy.