Dandwat pranam to my Rashtrapita, Vishwaguru, and Vishnu avatar
Dearest Modiji,
Jai Ramji ki. 🙏
Recent events have deeply pained me, reinforcing my long-held belief that our beloved Bharat simply does not deserve a mahan neta like you. Here you are, barely sleeping, tirelessly serving the nation – and what do you receive in return? Gaaliyan from haters.
As though the usual leftists, liberals, “sickulars” and other progressives were not enough, even the country’s youngsters have turned against you. I am fuming at the national tamasha stirred up by the Gen Z protesters. This spoiled lot reacted to leaked examination papers as though they were the first batch of students ever to suffer such a plight. Don’t they know that, year after year, for more than two decades, students across India have quietly endured this annual “tradition”?
And now, just because a few feeble ones took their own lives over the leaks, they expect you, Modiji, to do something about it. Thankfully, your years of composure in the face of repeated exam paper leaks is proof that you are not swayed by sentimental snowflakes.
Come to think of it, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) only determines the future of just about 2 million aspiring medical students. It’s not as if the Ambanis and Adanis, the mighty engines of our glowing GDP growth, were inconvenienced.
It is a crying shame that a class of Macaulay-influenced leftists, funded by foreigners, has raised this uncultured generation. No wonder they enthusiastically owned up to being called cockroaches, going so far as to make a national movement out of our Supreme Court Judge Saab’s stinging insult. Is it any surprise that they have this fanciful notion that a government crackdown on a peaceful protest with lathi charges and tear gas amounts to “sh*tting all over its constitutionally protected freedom of expression and driving a dagger through the heart of India’s democratic spirit?” Such melodrama!
But these Gen Z troublemakers are only the latest to test the devotion of your loyal followers. For years, Westernized leftists have mocked us as andh bhakts, desperately trying to shake our faith by pointing to your administration’s so-called failures — demonetization, distressed farmers, diplomatic humiliations, rampant unemployment, and broken promises. But, Sir, our faith in you remains unshaken. Failures come and go. Modi is eternal.
I feel sorry for the cockroaches and their parents who expected you to apologize after “peaceful” protesters got exactly what they deserved. What a gullible lot to imagine that you would cave so easily and ask their forgiveness! No siree. Protesting against the government may be considered a healthy exercise in silly democracies, but how can such indiscipline be tolerated in Modi Raj? Sometimes cracked skulls and bloodied bodies have to be the collateral damage to ensure that your image as a tough leader is not tarnished by unruly youngsters.
After a wholesome demonstration of “Democracy ki aisi taisi,” you turned your attention to what truly ails the nation: not the recurring exam paper leaks, not the despair consuming young people who have wagered their families’ savings on a competitive examination. No, the real crisis was badtameez bachche using foul language against you.
So you got down to business the way only a great leader would — fearlessly venturing into the enemy territory of Instagram Reels, hoping to reach these lost souls in a language they understood.
And then, bhai saab, kamal kar diya aapne.
Gaslighting Guru
Sir, Gen Z may have popularized the word “gaslighting,” but you showed that it takes a seasoned, shrewd operator like you to gaslight like a boss.
You lectured India’s young people on character, values, and decency with the same breathtaking chutzpah that Donald Trump would require to address the Boy Scouts on respecting women.
And why shouldn’t you? You, Sir, have always been a shining champion of courtesy, moderation, and statesmanship. One has only to see your BJP’s social media warriors on WhatsApp and your Bajrang Dal vigilantes defending religion and culture on the streets to appreciate the shuddh desi sabhyata unleashed in your name.
Your sanskars and nidarata were on sparkling display when — with all 56 inches of your mighty chest — you decided to make an example of a 15-year-old girl whose reel abusing you had gone viral, thereby teaching the country’s wayward youngsters a lesson they would not soon forget. Your ever-efficient law enforcement agencies tracked down this dangerous threat and charged her with breach of peace and criminal defamation. The message was received. In a video released after midnight, the visibly shaken girl appeared with folded hands, apologizing to you and the nation.
Lesser leaders might have felt uneasy about showing the nation a frightened child succumbing to the most powerful man in India. But you understood that national discipline sometimes begins with a trembling teenage girl staring into a camera and apologizing to the Prime Minister of the country.
Instead of applause for this swift justice, we started hearing the same old tired sound bites about how your trusted “Godi Media” kindly went into overdrive for you by turning the girl’s apology video into a national sensation.
And then — only after teaching the cockroaches a sakht sabak — you declared that punishment would not solve the problem and urged the nation to forgive its “misguided children.”
What a masterstroke! It is precisely this kind of bindaas gaslighting that is sometimes needed when you know you are the non-biological, divinely ordained one. Predictably, those who have made it their business to go after you got all bent out of shape. One even went so far as to allude to a “lethal combination of tone-deafness and God complex” responsible for your magnanimity.
Why do your usual critics find your magnanimity so dubious? After all, you have demonstrated an immense capacity for forgiveness and acceptance throughout your political career by welcoming into the BJP all manner of politicians facing allegations and criminal cases that might have given lesser leaders pause. Yet when you extend that same boundless generosity to a frightened teenager, your enemies have the audacity to blame you for gaslighting. Such cynicism!
Dadu of Diplomacy
Modiji, you shine brightest when jetting around the world in your finest silks, shaking hands with global dhurandhars. With your trademark “he-he-he” and the world-famous Hugplomacy, you turn them into fraands within minutes.
Even your critics concede that nations from all around the world are lining up to do business with India. But will they give you credit? Nooo! They theorize that interest in India is not due to your tireless globetrotting, but rather to its massive consumer base – one of the largest in the world. How ungrateful! Do these self-appointed experts not see the miles of red carpet rolled out for you?
Never mind the Soros-funded media pundits and policy experts in the ivory towers of Harvard, Cambridge and JNU. What do they know? They make faltu observations about how, despite your jaadu ki jhappi diplomacy and generous, unsolicited Vishwaguru leadership, India was overshadowed by — gasp! — Pakistan in efforts to defuse the recent West Asia crisis. Fortunately, your man, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, had the perfect muh-tod jawab when confronted with the inconvenient fact that Pakistan had emerged as a key intermediary between the United States and Iran: “We are not a dalal nation.”
Exactly, Sir! India is Vishwaguru, not some do kaudi ka dalal. We would rather watch from the sidelines while the “dalals” make deals affecting our economy, security, and international standing than be seen as a dalal. Naturally, the jealous ones dismissed this as sour grapes. They fail to understand that refusing to mediate after nobody asks you to mediate is the highest form of strategic autonomy.
If only the haters could see the brilliance of prioritizing doosti in diplomacy, the way you do. Look how far you went for your bestie Trump. During the run-up to the 2019 presidential election in the US, addressing a stadium full of 50,000 people at the “Howdy, Modi!” rally in Houston, you invoked candidate Trump’s slogan, “Ab ki baar, Trump sarkar.” And off the haters went, describing this soft endorsement as an act of electioneering, as though the prime minister of the world’s largest democracy publicly campaigning in spirit for the president of the world’s most powerful country could possibly carry awkward diplomatic consequences.
It is a different matter altogether that Trump turned out to be such an ehsaan-faramosh. Far from repaying you for sticking your neck out for him, he imposed steep tariffs on India and shared a social media post describing our beloved country as a “hellhole.”
The know-nothing “experts” are increasingly throwing shade on your foreign policy as well, claiming that, in the guise of “strategic autonomy,” it has become simply transactional, leaving us with few reliable allies. Almost no country, they make a point of noting, came out in support of India during last year’s Operation Sindoor. How insensitive of them to suggest that our lowly neighbor, Pakistan, the “failed terrorist state,” found more supporters during this conflict than the world’s largest democracy!
Modi hai to mumkeen hai!
Haven’t your critics learned anything from the more than 12 years of your term? Don’t they know that Modi hai to mumkeen hai? Anything and everything is possible under Modi sarkar. You — the master of slogans and promissory notes — have showered deshbandhus with optimism:
“Make in India.”
Two crore jobs every year.
“Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.”
One hundred smart cities.
Black money returned from abroad.
Achhe din.
But reasonable citizens should understand that just because something is mumkin does not mean it must also be accomplished. Why this tiresome insistence on delivery? Isn’t it enough that you raised the spirits of millions who placed their faith in you? If the faithful are inspired, why quibble over whether demonetization achieved its objectives, manufacturing lived up to its grand promise, 100 smart cities arose by 2020, farmers prospered, the promised jobs materialized, or black money came marching home from Swiss bank accounts?
Only a small-minded person measures a promise by its fulfillment. A visionary measures it by the size of the rally at which it was made.
With your undying optimism, you never tire of promising us achhe din, which are always around the corner in any given election. And so, we will wait — even if it takes an eternity. Because Modi hai to mumkin hai!
Om Namah Modi. 🙏
Shriman Chanakya Atichatur is a fictional character whom editor Parthiv N. Parekh had to channel to pen this article. We welcome your comments at editor@khabar.com.