If you missed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann ki Baat on Sunday, allow American musician Bobby McFerrin to summarise it for you with this beautiful song:
“Here’s a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don’t worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry, you make it double
Don’t worry, be happy
Don’t worry, be happy now”
In a way, this answers all the questions people might have about why the Prime Minister hasn’t spoken a word about Manipur since violence first broke out on 3 May. McFerrin was inspired by a poster of the Indian mystic Meher Baba, which carried a “don’t worry, be happy” quote. Incidentally, Baba was said to have kept a vow of silence for 44 years.
Don’t worry, be happy
My colleague Sonal Matharu sums up the situation in Manipur in this report: “So far, at least 100 people have been killed, more than 300 injured, and over 50,000 displaced from their homes. Over 3,000 weapons…looted…more than 200 churches and 17 temples destroyed…numerous houses and properties burnt or razed to the ground.”
It’s not very often that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological patron, publicly appeals for peace, which might not be in sync with the government’s common all-is-well refrain. “The continuous violence that is going on in Manipur for the last 45 days is extremely worrisome,” RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said in his call for peace, tweeted by the RSS official handle.
Union minister Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, the Inner Manipur MP whose house was set on fire, said the state’s law and order situation has “totally failed”.
A retired Lieutenant General from Manipur, L Nishikanta Singh, tweeted: “The state is now stateless. Life and property can be destroyed anytime by anyone, just like in Libya, Lebanon, Nigeria, Syria, etc. It appears Manipur has been left to stew in its own juice. Is anyone listening?”
The last time PM Modi spoke about Manipur was in the 100th episode of his Mann ki Baat on 30 April, just three days before the commencement of violence. Here, he spoke to Bijayashanti Tongbram, a Manipuri entrepreneur who makes clothes from lotus fibres. About 30 women worked with her, and she informed Modi that she received orders from the US.
On Sunday, when my colleague in Guwahati, Karishma Hasnat, spoke to her, Bijayashanti sounded shaken: “Home Minister Amit Shah paid a visit, but violence still continues. We are in a curfew, and we are not safe. My village, Thanga, in the Bishnupur district, is 50 km from Imphal, and we live without security. At night, we can hear gunshots. Women in the village volunteer to guard houses.”
Also read: In Manipur govts have manufactured dystopia for decades, not peace. It’s showing now
Why Modi won’t speak on Manipur
If you’re wondering what else it would take for the PM to speak on the Manipur issue, McFerrin has an answer: “In every life, we have some trouble, but when you worry, you make it double.” That’s what Modi explained in the 100th episode of Mann ki Baat: “We celebrate positivity”.
So, don’t worry about Manipur. You will be happy if you look away from the Northeast, a glimpse of which was available in Sunday’s Mann ki Baat – people’s fight against Cyclone Biparjoy, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s governance and management skills, tuberculosis-free India by 2025, Japan’s Miyawaki technique for greenery, dairy farming in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district, Jagannath’s Rath Yatra and Raj Bhawans becoming the “flag-bearers” of social and developmental works (over and above their ‘political’ works, one would assume). These are just a few subjects PM Modi flagged in his radio programme.
Think of India’s growing global stature. Modi will lead Yoga Day celebrations at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Wednesday. The Bidens will host a private dinner for the PM the same evening. The next day, he will address a joint meeting of the US Congress, followed by a State dinner.
That’s why one doesn’t see BJP leaders being much perturbed by the happenings in Manipur. In a virtual meeting with party parliamentarians last week, BJP president JP Nadda gave a rap on their knuckles for not doing enough to publicise the Modi government’s achievements over the past nine years.
He never felt the need to tell them about the happenings in Manipur. As if it was none of their business! Nadda himself hasn’t reacted publicly, not even after the state BJP president’s house was attacked.
Amit Shah spent four days in Manipur last month only to see his efforts go to waste in terms of their impact on the ground. The Union home minister wouldn’t allow violence in a Northeastern state to bog him down, though. He was in Sirsa on Sunday to address a rally. Ahead of it, as ThePrint reported, Sirsa police issued notices to 130 sarpanches, farmer union leaders and opposition politicians, asking them to execute bonds of good conduct for six months.
About two dozen Indian Police Service (IPS) officers and 3,000 police personnel were deployed to maintain law and order and security protocols at Shah’s rally, The Indian Express reported.
It’s nobody’s argument here that such security arrangements at a Union home minister’s rally in a BJP-ruled state, barely 260 km from the national capital, paints an unflattering picture. The fact is that BJP hasn’t allowed Manipur to distract it from its preparations for elections. So, how does the ruling party manage to get such peace of mind to focus on political agendas while a state burns? Is it coming from McFerrin’s—or rather Baba’s—philosophy of life? Maybe, maybe not. What we know is that BJP can’t admit failures. That would make PM Modi just another mortal who can make mistakes.
Given that he personifies the party’s politics and governance in public imagination, nobody appointed by him or under his authority can be seen as making mistakes either. Therefore, he is unlikely to act against Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh—not so long as it would seem like punishment for his failures. It’s not about Singh, though. It’s about Modi and his infallibility.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)