COVID-19, lockdown miseries and now China-India standoff: Where is PM Modi? Why is he so silent?

During the COVID pandemic, Rahul Gandhi has stayed on the media headlines for repeatedly putting pressure on government on various issues. First case of CORONA in India was on January 30, 2020.

Rahul Gandhi started speaking on the issue since February 12 when he cautioned the government about the impending pandemic.

Since then via Tweets, video statements he has raised demands for rapid testing, cash transfers to migrant workers, transportation for those walking homes; he held four press meetings via web conference and five one on one conversations with subject matter experts Raghu Ram Rajan, Abhijit Banerjee, Ashish Jha, Johan Giesecke and Rajiv Bajaj on issues of health and economy.

In spite of total lockdown he also managed to meet a few migrant workers on the street and heard their pleas. Yet, a former Diplomat in his debut opinion column ended up asking the same old, “Where was Rahul Gandhi for days on end when common man's suffering played out?”

The Prime Minister has not done half of the public activities that Rahul Gandhi has done during COVID-19 pandemic.

“Where is he” is a strange question to ask. Unless the real objective is to hold those in power accountable by asking them where are the official statements, the press conferences and daily briefings? Those are valid thing to ask. When was the last time somebody asked PM Modi those questions?

Almost every nation during past few months have held daily press briefing to update public about the COVID Pandemic. Most State heads are meeting the press regularly and directly leading the nation from the front but not Mr. Modi. The Government didn’t even make any official statement until around March 19, the day Prime Minister addressed the nation for the first time, about forty days too late. As always the PM has not faced the press and have stuck to one sided communications via TV/Radio.

On the issue of Chinese incursion too, Modi is silent. Rahul Gandhi has been questioning the silence since May 29 but there is no response. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah made unofficial statements either mocking the opposition or making jingoistic claims but as Rahul Gandhi tweeted on June 8 "the media is muzzled and terrified. The truth seems dormant.”

What kind of State head remains silent and does not face the press on the issue of territorial invasion by foreign forces? Where is that voice Modi had when he was in opposition and questioned the then Prime Minister’s diplomatic strategy on China? Where are those tall claims of showing red eyes to China?

One is forced to wonder what exactly is PM Modi’s compulsion to be so silent and elusive and beyond public reach?

I am reminded of a terrible beast which often used to visit my grandma’s tin roof. Every few days, in the middle of the night the tin roof will creak and rattle and she will whisper, “bhamesheche (The bham has come).”

Soon the chickens and hens in the backyard will make terrible noises, hearing which the children will tremble in fear and hide their faces in mother’s lap. Next morning we’d wake up to find some of them missing. Apparently ‘bhaam’ was something that took away our poultry but what exactly was it nobody knew, because nobody has seen or heard it.

And that is a scary thing. There is no doubt that the scariest thing mankind has known are things that cannot be seen or heard with ordinary sensory perceptions but can still do terrible things to us. God will be one such example. Then there was Delhi’s monkey man. And then there is Narendra Modi. I must be mad, you’ll think. He is after all the most available, most communicative leader ever. One who works without taking a single vacation, conducted so many rallies and speeches, chai pe charcha, mann ki baat, 8 pm on TV, web conferences etc.

Modi, Modi everywhere but never the one to be really seen.

Think about it, out of the 1.3 billion people of India, how many has seen or heard Mr. Modi in the physical world without any kind of technological mediation? How many times Modi has walked on foot to a rural area and met the poorest of the poor people? How many times he could be seen eating at a Dhaba?

Modi is always ‘up there somewhere’ far away from ordinary folks – up on the stage, on TV, on web conferences, behind a Radio; even during natural calamity or other disasters he gets on a helicopter or private jet and looks down upon the lesser mortals through a window. From holding a broom for Swachh Bharat to photos with his mother, each and every public appearance of Mr. Modi is carefully orchestrated as a show, an event.

To convince the lesser mortals about the supernatural powers and wizardry one must be elusive and mysterious. Like the Wizard of Oz, whose large figure and strong voice mesmerized the audience from behind a curtain, there is always some kind of optical and psychological illusion and mystery surrounding Modi, yet, nobody ever asks, “Where is Modi?”

The views expressed in the article are the author’s own