JOIN USThis time your vision failed: Kamal Haasan to Modi on lockdown
Actor-politician Kamal Haasan on Monday tore into Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the “ill-planned 21-day lockdown” that has pushed the poor and under-privileged to the wall and accused him of “securing only an already well-built middle-class fortress” rather than lifting those people at the bottom.
In a strongly-worded open letter to Modi that runs into three pages, the Makkal Needhi Maiam President minced no words in telling the Prime Minister that “this time your vision failed” and took objection to the branding of individuals who give constructive criticism and feedback as “anti-nationals” by “trolls of your army.”
Dubbing him as a follower of E V R Periyar and Mahatma Gandhi who believed in equality and prosperity for all, Kamal Haasan said his “biggest fear is that the same mistake of demonetisation is being repeated albeit at a much bigger scale.”
While demonetisation led to the loss of savings and livelihood of the poorest, the ill-planned lockdown is leading the society to a fatal combination of loss of both life and livelihood, he said.
“The poor have nobody to look up to except you sir. On one hand, you are asking the more privileged people to put up a spectacle of lights while on the other hand the poor man’s plight is itself becoming a shameful spectacle. While your world lit up oil diyas in their balconies, the poor are struggling to gather enough oil to bake their next roti,” he wrote.
Kamal Haasan also accused Modi of sliding into his “comfort zone” of unleashing a spirited election-style campaign idea every time there is a feeling that there is a chance to arrest the slide. He also said Modi seems “comfortable outsourcing responsible behaviour to the common people and transparency to the State governments.”
“This is the perception you are creating, especially amongst those who spend enough time working toward and intellectualising for a great today and tomorrow for India. I am sorry if I have offended you with the use of the word intellectual here, for I know that you and your government does not like that word,” he said.
The actor also said the Prime Minister’s two addresses to the nation did not give enough comfort to the poor whose contribution to GDP and nation building cannot be ignored even if they don’t make it to the front page news.
“I am sure you don’t want to be a balcony government only for the balcony people by completely ignoring the poor who are biggest constituent of our society, our support system and the foundation on which the middle-class, the well-to-do and the rich build their lives. He has a majority stake in the nation. History has proven that any efforts to destroy the bottom has led to the toppling of the top,” Kamal Haasan said.
Maintaining that he was asking the government to ignore the middle-class or any one segment, Kamal Haasan asked the Prime Minister to secure everybody’s fortress and ensure that nobody goes to bed hungry.
“COVID-19 will continue to find more victims, but we are creating a fertile playground for Hunger(H), Exhaustion(E) and Deprivation(D) of the poor. HED ’20 is a malady that is smaller in profile but far deadlier compared to COVID-19. Its impact will be felt long after COVID-19 has vanished,” he wrote.
He also said the shutdown was announced in four hours’ notice when the government had four months to prepare for the pandemic.
“When we eventually woke out of our slumber, you ordered an entire nation of 1.4 bn people to shut down within 4 hours. A mere 4 hour notice period for the people when you had a 4 month notice period! Visionary leaders are ones who work on solutions long before problems become big,” he said.
“I dare anyone to call me an anti-national this time. The common populace cannot be blamed for being ill-prepared for a crisis of this magnitude, but you can be and shall be blamed for this,” he said, adding the people are on Modi’s side despite them being angry during these testing times.