Dear Prime Minister, we don’t need tag lines and silly rhymes. We need a real leader who can own up to his mistakes. (Congrats to your speechwriter; but if we wanted flowery messages that make us feel warm and fuzzy, we would open a hallmark card every two weeks, instead of tuning in to your 8 pm monologue, which provides us with little more than obvious info and arbitrary guidance doused in practised empathy!).
We don’t need pep talks and motivational one-liners; we need practical solutions that tell us how to cope with the cost of this pandemic (The unemployment rate was already at an all-time high; who knows what figures will have to be muddled to hide the truth post lockdown!).
Millions of lives have been affected and the world is facing an unprecedented crisis; while it might seem like this pandemic-induced lockdown has united citizens across the globe, let’s not pretend that this unity is anything but an illusion.
We are now more poignantly ‘un-unified’ than ever before. Class divides are clearly visible, now that the veil has been lifted. As migrant labourers go hungry and die on railway tracks, Sonam Kapoor does a photoshoot of her Delhi home and shows us what decadence really means (I really think rich celebrities should stop using Instagram. All they do is remind us how truly oblivious they are!).
Within roughly two months of the pandemic, this lockdown has unearthed the painful contradictions that thrive in our society. Celebrities are ‘bored’ and so they take up bizarre challenges, while children are forced to walk hundreds of miles to reach shelter. (Just Google ‘celebrity challenges during lockdown’—but don’t blame me if you end up with high BP or a headache! Please also Google ‘migrant labour crisis India’).
Our Prime Minister acknowledges none of this. Why?
Because he is a showman, putting on the biggest piece of entertainment in his life. This is his moment of glory. As the cameras come on and the spotlight shines on him every few weeks, he is given the opportunity to address 1.3 billion people and remind them how ‘fortunate’ they are to have him as their leader.
Modi Ji, most of these people you’re addressing don’t have televisions in their homes, many don’t have electricity, and thousands are stranded under flyovers or on highways as they struggle to survive from one day to the next. Your ‘saathiyons’ don’t need your carefully worded, highly practised lectures. Your speeches will not feed them, won’t help them get home faster, won’t soothe their aching feet.
But, you know this already. Your words of ‘empowerment’ are designed to appeal to a particular section of society (the one that donates to your ‘crisis fund’)—your target audience is not the hapless, hopeless people, who have suffered the consequences of your ‘genius’ schemes, plans or attempts to weed out black money.
Your confident monologue has a singular purpose—to ensure that your followers remain in line. Because, what if they start asking the right questions, for a change? What if they want to know where their donations went? What if they dare to ask, does the PM really care?? (See, we can all rhyme!)
Your boisterous addresses to the nation are directed at those citizens who are hungry for a pep talk; the ones that sit in front of their television sets, dinner in hand, waiting to hear about your latest feat, your next big plan and your newest tag line. They need to be reassured that their allegiance has a sound ROI (return on investment).
Dear PM, our country doesn’t need a shayar (poet) at the helm and we are not interested in your shayari (poetry) (No offence to poets – I am sure most poets would make great leaders, it’s just that our PM is neither!)
We don’t need fancy schemes draped in marketing gimmicks and promises that seem golden but are actually smokescreens for the truth. We need a leader. One that can tell people where to find their next meal, how to get home safely and how to survive in the face of unemployment, hunger, illness, and destitution.
You may choose to ignore the true state of affairs in your country. You may choose to ignite the unwavering support of a few million people, who would follow you off a cliff, but how long will you pretend that your leadership hasn’t steered this nation down the path of divisiveness, desperation and despair?
We can all write alliterations and sound intellectual. Our 7th grade English teachers and college professors taught us how to do that. But you were elected to lead a billion+ people into a future marked with less unemployment, more stability, less hunger, more health. Don’t throw arbitrary terms at us, don’t try to beguile us with marketing tactics every MBA and no- MBA graduate is all too familiar with. We don’t need a campaign that makes it seem like you’re helping the citizens, we need you to actually help them.