Reality Bites: ‘Op Ganga’ Ki Saugand, Main circus nahi hatne dunga

In early 2017 the Dear Leader attacked Nobel Laureate and Harvard professor Amartya Sen for saying that demonetisation was a “despotic action that has struck at the root of economy based on trust”.

The Dear Leader’s riposte was, “Hard work is more powerful than Harvard,” and then he whined in his usual manner that he was just a poor man’s son who worked so hard, blah, blah… yawn.

Hard work, my foot! After eight painful years, most Indians have discovered that the Dear Leader’s real motto is, ‘No work, only PR’. The man merely flips through catalogues for clothes, planes, palaces, etc, while his PR agencies spread gigantic lies about his greatness.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the latest example. While countries like the US and the UK urged their nationals to leave Ukraine well in advance, it was only a week before the invasion that India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) advised Indians to leave.

They were reluctant to offer free evacuations too, till the Congress and a few other Opposition parties said they would bring our students back—this would have hurt the Dear Leader’s image badly.

It’s just too bad that the MEA had squandered the UPA-2 government’s Community Welfare Fund for Indians in distress abroad. The BJP government changed the guidelines in 2017, turned Indian embassies into RSS shakhas, and splurged that money on RSS-BJP propaganda, yoga, satsangs, etc, conducted by RSS leaders.

India’s airlines shamelessly took advantage of the sudden panic, and air fares trebled. The two-faced Aviation Minister Jyotir & Aditya Sinner should have immediately regulated fares, but nope. Which is odd because we’ve seen how promptly the BJP issues orders in farcical situations. Like the time Hardeep Singh Puri made domestic airlines ban comedian Kunal Kamra from flying after he embarrassed BJP spokesperson Arnab Goswami on a flight.

When the invasion finally happened, the Indian embassy/RSS shakha in Kyiv told frightened students to get lost, Google bomb-shelters instead, and stopped answering the phone. It’s just too bad that RSS shakhas don’t actually do the “sewa” they brag about, no?

The students posted videos of their distress which made the Dear Leader look like a heartless monster, and wham—the BJP government dialled its PR agency, and the shabby circus began.

Cabinet ministers rushed to airplanes to receive returning students. They had captive audiences because students were not permitted to “deplane” till the ministers fulsomely praised and credited the Dear Leader for their evacuation.

A few cabinet ministers were sent to countries bordering Ukraine as well (they were too cowardly to enter Ukraine to actually help evacuate students). One of them was Jyotir & Aditya Sinner, who made an ass of himself at an evacuation shelter.

The Romanian mayor bluntly reminded him that it was Romanian officials who had provided food and shelter, so why on earth was Mr Sinner hogging the credit? Of course, this is one video that Mr Sinner did not share on Twitter.

This grotesque circus reminded us of how the RSS-BJP ignored migrants as they walked many miles home during the Covid lockdown, and refused to lift a finger till the Congress party offered free transport.

We saw videos of students complaining after the Dear Leader’s ministers behaved like credit-hungry saviours. Many said, “They came after we crossed the border. But we actually needed them to help us cross the border.” Who can blame them? They got prickly thorns from the BJP in conflict zones, and meaningless roses when they returned.

Of course, none of these “ungrateful” students figured in the PR agency’s biggest event: Evacuated “students” in UP were invited to interact with the Dear Leader while elections were on, and my, how different they sounded from the real students we saw on videos and television—the scripts they were handed would make diabetics sink into comas!

This staged interaction allowed the sly Dear Leader to break the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct yet again, and he promised to build more medical colleges. Fortunately for him, the EC is blind, deaf and dumb—and I’m sorry to say this, but so are his loyal voters. They will merely get more statues and temples instead.

Heartfelt condolences to the family of student Naveen SG who was reportedly killed in a missile attack in Kharkiv. May he rest in peace.

(Any resemblance to real people or events is a coincidence)