In May 2014, halfway through Narendra Modi’s first speech as India’s prime minister, I texted my friends that it feels good to have a leader who can speak. After ten years of Manmohan Singh, a technocrat with little oratorical skills, at the helm, it was a cautious embrace of a politician with a dark, divisive past, but promising reforms that would put India firmly on the path of becoming a developed country.
As we approach its seventh anniversary, Modi’s speeches are turning into vacuous drivel as Indians struggle to find hospital beds, oxygen cylinders or life-saving drugs for those who are alive. And the unfortunate ones are seeking firewood and a place to cremate their loved ones for a dignified goodbye. It did not have to be this way.
There is enough blame to go around in the second COVID-19 wave. As an autocratic prime minister, Modi deserves a lion’s share of it, but he had a good start. An infrastructure push that accelerated building highways, new airports, and expanding the train network. A Swachh Bharat mission to end open defecation. Improving electricity generation and distribution to reach every village. Redirecting cooking gas subsidies from the middle class to the needy. Opening bank accounts for
— source thewire.in | Mauktik Kulkarni | 20/May/2021