Selective sorrow | What Modi’s teary eyes tell us about his priorities

Narendra Modi is forced to avoid discussing economic issues to avoid any discussion of his accountability. Public attention is diverted to narratives that galvanise people emotionally

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, emotional, teary-eyed and with his voice cracking, accused the Opposition of abusing his mother. Gullible sections of the public — especially in election-going Bihar — are expected to believe that the insult was directed towards “every mother, sister and daughter of this country”.

The widely-used north Indian abuse was directed only at the prime minister. Modi and his party are trying to make it a rallying point for women voters in Bihar.

However, instead of amplifying the incident through a ‘Bihar Bandh’, Modi should really be more worried that abuse has moved from the limited echo chambers of social media to a public platform. Social media platforms, meanwhile, are cracking up, suggesting that a foul-tongued Modi has got as good as he has given, recalling his abuse of women, specifically Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, Shahi Tharoor’s former wife Sunanda Pushkar, and women political leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Renuka Choudhary.

Quite curiously, Modi has not objected to being called a ‘Vote Chor (Vote Thief)’ when the Opposition pointedly targeted him with slogans of “Vote Chor Gaddi Chhod” in Parliament. His attention is focused on the political drama and emotional narrative, which he thinks he can control better through his party and a captured media.

Modi’s eyes have not welled up for those who have died or whose lives have been destroyed by two major crises ravaging the country: death and damage due to ongoing cloudbursts, floods and landslides; and the massive job losses across several sectors of the economy due to United States President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs. He has not expressed sympathy to those affected, sought donations for the PM’s National Relief Fund or addressed the nation.

Large parts of the country are under flood, and more than 500 people have lost their lives. The death toll is still climbing with more than 340 in Himachal Pradesh, about 130 in Jammu and Kashmir (140 injured, 32 missing), 37 in Punjab,  five in Uttarakhand, more than eight in Chhattisgarh, and an unknown number in Delhi and Haryana.

In Punjab, 1.48 lakh hectares of standing crops have been destroyed, and 3.5 lakh people affected. In Himachal Pradesh, property worth Rs 3,525 crore has been damaged by 121 major landslides, 95 flash floods, and 45 cloudbursts. Four national highways are among the 1,337 roads blocked. In Uttarakhand, houses have been swept away in floods, and in Bastar, 495 houses and 16 bridges and culverts have been damaged.

The Srinagar-Jammu Highway and other vital roads in J&K, as well as the Chandigarh-Manali Highway are closed because of landslides. Schools in several states have been shut. In Delhi, thousands have been evacuated because of Yamuna floods.

Modi’s personal pain, meanwhile, becomes a national metaphor while the death and destruction of families and livelihoods recede to the background. His symbolic politics, as always, overshadows governance.

His radio silence on job losses stemming from punitive tariffs imposed by his one-time ‘friend’ Trump is equally shocking.

In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, nearly 1 lakh diamond cutter and polishers have lost their jobs in the Saurashtra region since April. Over a dozen suicides have also been reported since April, according to the Diamond Workers Union Gujarat. The diamond industry of Surat, which handles over 80% of India’s exports, is bracing for a 70% collapse in US-bound shipments.

The knitwear hub of Tiruppur, in Tamil Nadu, faces revenue losses of an estimated Rs 12,000 crore due to halted shipments. Tirupur exports knitwear worth Rs 44,747 crore annually with the US accounting for a 40-45% share. Of the nearly 1 million workers employed across 2,500 exporters and 20,000 factories, about 1.5 lakh jobs are at risk as factories scale back production.

Emergency also stares at the Noida apparel export units, which account for Rs 50,000 crore exports annually — of which 25% goes to the US. Nearly 1 million workers, of which 60-70% are women, face a precarious future as factories are stuck with unsold inventories. If the crisis continues, nearly a quarter of Noida’s apparel factories may have to shut down.

A similar crisis of livelihood is unfolding in the leather belt of Kanpur and Unnao, in Varanasi (Banarasi sarees and handlooms), in Andhra Pradesh where 2.8 crore people including farmers, processors, packagers, and transporters of shrimp are at risk as are workers in the chemical export industry in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu (dyes, pigments, and pharma intermediaries), Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (agrochemicals, and bulk drug manufacturing) as well as the chemical clusters at Vapi, Ankleshwar, Tarapur, and Vizag due to cancelled US orders.

Modi has neither chosen to acknowledge the pain of the people who have lost their livelihoods because of his foreign policy swings, nor offered significant alternatives. Nonetheless, he wants moral legitimacy — every issue with the Opposition is converted into a moral showdown designed to package him as the protector of Indian values.

Modi’s pivot to ‘vocal for local’ and self-reliance hardly has any appeal when he is himself so enamoured of foreign branded goods. He is no Gandhi in a loincloth giving a credible call for swadeshi.

Reframing the issue by deflecting from external causes and focussing on internal resilience is too much demand from people who have lost jobs and have no immediate prospects of sustainable livelihoods.

The mass layoffs point to his failure in providing the economic leadership India deserves, the disastrous consequences of his foreign policy, and the dismal performance of his flagship schemes such as Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Modi, therefore, is forced to avoid discussing economic issues to avoid any discussion of his accountability. Public attention is, therefore, diverted to narratives that galvanise people emotionally. By claiming that not only his but everyone’s mother has been abused, he invites everyone to join in his victimhood. Their collective redemption from victimhood will take place only by voting for him and his party.

But Modi’s attempt to convert personal abuse into a moral cause may only elicit a big yawn as he rapidly loses public sympathy. There are perceptibly less and less people who buy into his moral fables, especially those that are relatable and aspirational such as his own chaiwallah-to-PM life story. His lack of sympathy for the poor, the downtrodden, and the suffering win him no friends at a time like this. This indeed may then be the beginning of his comeuppance.

Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.