Aakar Patel

“In the face of the calamity, the Modi government froze.
In the seven months from March to September 2020, Modi made 82
public appearances—physical as well as virtual. In the next four
months, he made 111 such appearances. From February to 25 April
2021, he clocked 92 public appearances. From 25 April, after he
called off the Kumbh and his Bengal rallies, Modi disappeared. He
made no public appearance for 20 days.147 The prime minister of
India fled the field when his people needed the government most.
Through all of April and much of May, upper class Indians
flooded Twitter with calls for help to find hospital beds, oxygen
cylinders, drugs like Remdesivir and ventilators.148 The Union did
not think to set up a helpline to guide those who needed this help.
Into this space strode the youth Congress leader B.V. Srinivas
(@srinivasiyc) who, with a team of volunteers, began to help people
reaching out for aid on Twitter. He was so effective in the absence of
the State and any government presence that even the embassies of
New Zealand and the Philippines contacted him for help when
staffers fell ill with Covid.149 Focussed on the government’s image,
Jaishankar tweeted: ‘This was an unsolicited supply as they had no
Covid cases. Clearly for cheap publicity by you know who. Giving
away cylinders like this when there are people in desperate need of
oxygen is simply appalling.’ The New Zealand embassy staffer who had received oxygen
from Srinivas on 2 May died 18 days later.”
― Aakar Patel, Price of the Modi Years

“BRAND VERSUS PRODUCT


The Modi brand was built on the promise of delivery. The 2014 campaign was promoted under the theme ‘Achche din aane
wale hain’ (good days are on the way). It assumed that Modi would
bring change. It was not an empty promise: it came from his
certitude and his reductive understanding of the problems that India
and its government grapple with.
The Modi view of the world is also the view of the middle
classes, generally speaking. It can be understood thus: the system is
bad, but it cannot be fixed because politicians are corrupt. India’s
poverty and inefficiency was the product, therefore, of bad
politicians.
The view also is that India’s potential has been kept suppressed
and the people, especially the middle class, have suffered for this.
The nation had not become developed though it was full of people
who were talented. The politicians had let the rest of us down.
The system had failed because of the party which had created it
and run it. The Congress stood for corruption and socialism and
dynasty (this last bit is less damaging than is assumed, in a society
where such things as a ‘good family’, meaning virtue spread through
genes, are believed to be true). The Gandhis were nepotistic, and
people like Rahul Gandhi are not equipped or qualified in any way to
lead India to its deserved greatness.
A good man, an honest man, a strong man who means well is
the thing needed to fix this system because the system is the
problem and needs to be fixed. Once that is done, this great society
will be able to take its destined place in the world.”
― Aakar Patel, Price of the Modi Years