In next week’s address, Narendra Modi is going to ask all Indians to laugh out loud for nine minutes to fight the coronavirus pandemic with nothing but their good spirits. Hey, which of us hasn’t heard that laughter is the best medicine? I write this in jest, but the government’s chaotic and farcical response to the COVID-19 crisis makes it more plausible than funny.

Two weeks ago, Modi announced a complete lockdown of the nation’s 1.3 billion population, on less than four hours notice. On day two of the lockdown, a 32-year old man was killed – not by coronavirus, but by lathi-brandishing police brutally enforcing Modi’s curfew. Within a week, at least 24 more died because of the Indian government’s callous disregard for the welfare of vulnerable migrants.

With no information about food or housing, millions began walking back to their villages on the sides of highways carrying all their belongings on their backs. Starvation, road accidents and fatigue will get to them before the virus does.

Orchestrated spontaneity

Modi has always had a flair for the cheaply dramatic, and a fondness for surprise midnight decrees above all. We are now trapped in a ‘PM CARES’ challenge, with Modi upping the ante each week, in a battle of spectacles.

Earlier this month, he urged the public to applaud health workers by banging on pots and pans. Without understanding the dangers, people congregated in large numbers in building lobbies and neighbourhood squares; some even held parades. Modi has now asked everyone to turn out the electricity in their homes and light candles for nine minutes this Sunday. Nonplussed power departments around the country are scrambling to ensure the reliability of grids, fearing outages due to a sudden change in voltage.

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These half-baked schemes crowd out the shocking images of those most left behind: kilometre-long lines of migrants and overcrowded hospitals, all now drowned out by the din of pots and pans. One thing is clear: Modi is trying to co-opt what began as spontaneous, popular symbols in other parts of the world for propaganda under the guise of solidarity. Orchestrated spontaneity may sound like an oxymoron, but it seems to be having the desired effect.

“Don’t talk to your dad like that!”

In his addresses, Modi claims that he reaches out to the public as a ‘family elder,’ rather than a head of state. At least this bit is entirely true. Modi’s approach to this crisis (and others before this) has been one of an admonishing parent. What’s surprising is how many Indians seem eager for such a figure, especially in this moment.

In turn, anyone who chooses scepticism over celebration, asking questions about testing or procuring personal protection equipment instead of lighting a lamp, is deemed in need of disciplining. The portrayal of dissenters as a brood of mischievous children is cultivated by the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose general secretary B.L. Santosh tweeted on Friday, “Usual suspects are disappointed…They are the same people who can’t manage the single kid they have or the pet without a maid. He [Modi] has to manage a country of 130 Cr people & most disruptive liberal eco system”.

WhatsApp forwards notoriously replicate this language to millions of Indian households: “A 70-year old man bearing the weight of 130Cr (1.3bn) people and expectations many times that without flinching, without digressing, without levelling accusations at other[s], and without giving excuses…Imagine.”

Of course, ministers, civil servants, opposition leaders and even home minister Amit Shah are absent from this narrative and the entire machinery, it would seem, is on poor Modiji’s back. In this Orwellian state, the Newspeak of emotions (a revised dictionary meant to reduce the capacity of human thought in Orwell’s 1984) has deemed only optimism and awe permissible, with despair and anger relegated to the working poor.

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Yet his manic approach of grinding the country to a halt and, over time, presenting piecemeal solutions keeps up the illusion that more is always to come. In this view, those asking questions are merely impatient. Meanwhile, the vaguer the prime minister’s statements, the more rein his fan base has to run with bogus PR campaigns. The lamps? “Oh, it’s really a masterstroke of using heat to kill the virus.”

During Donald Trump’s recent visit, he too called Modi India’s Father. Could you imagine if Modi were your father? On the eve of Father’s Day, he would barge into your room at midnight, declare the money in your piggy bank his, buy a mug that says “Best Dad,” only for you to publicly gift it to him the next day. This mug would then sit on his desk, a testament to his loving family. In this game of parenting, Modi alone is the good cop, and everyone else is to blame. We, the people, above all.