A Rejoinder: A tired pun of 'Vande Bharat versus Bharat ke bande'

In a recent piece, provocatively titled ‘Vande Bharat vs Bharat ke bande: Can Narendra Modi be losing his political touch?’ Shekhar Gupta makes an argument that the Modi government turns even a “routine activity” of bringing back Indians stuck in foreign locations into a headline-grabbing event.
 
It looks like someone made a tired pun of Vande Bharat vs Bharat ke Bande and that has been forcibly turned into an article, driven just by a provocative headline.
 
Recently, Gupta had tweeted a headline that said the Modi government wanted a study on whether gangajal can cure Covid-19. However, this was about an NGO writing to the government on studying the effect of bacteriophages in the Ganga which it merely forwarded to the ICMR. Gupta’s headline seemed to make it look like a regressive government was looking for quack solutions, showing who focuses on headlines more.

 

Gupta, in his Business Standard piece, says all of Modi’s messaging in the virus season is directed at the middle class. He says Modi’s politics is aimed at “balconied classes”. The truth is Modi’s “taali, thaali, diya” message mentioned balconies but also asked people to come out of their doors to show unity.
 
There were a number of pictures seen from across India, of people lighting lamps outside huts, tents and even on pavements. These were poor people who got Modi’s messaging, while Gupta did not.
 
Further, Gupta says Modi has no empathy for the poor and only caters to the middle class. However, a few weeks ago, Gupta had opined that Modi’s apology to the poor during his Mann Ki Baat would have melted tens of crores of hearts.

 
Gupta has accepted earlier that he had underestimated the reach of Modi’s schemes for the poor. He said just last month that Modi’s messaging is aimed at the middle class and not the poor because he delivers direct benefits to the poor.
 
In April, Gupta thinks Modi delivers benefits to the poor. In May, he thinks Modi has lost empathy for them.
 
Which Shekhar Gupta should we believe?
 
As far as the issue of migrant labour is concerned, if Modi does something, he has to bypass the callous approach of some states. Then Gupta may call it an overbearing and centralised approach. If the states, which are supposed to deal with this issue, are held to account, Gupta calls it tu tu main main. Either way, governments such as Maharashtra’s that are spectacularly mismanaging the crisis go scot-free, while op-eds are written about messaging of Modi.

 
Gupta brushes off the Vande Bharat Mission as a routine activity of bringing back stranded passengers that many countries have done.
 
Comparing it with taking back PoK to dampen the enthusiasm around a massive operation of a different kind is incorrect. Who called it a massive operation? Not the BJP or the government but international media such as BBC, SCMP and Channel News Asia.
 
By the end of April, the US had flown back about 70,000 Americans and the EU, as of May 7, about 60,000 EU citizens. As per a BBC report, if things go as planned, India could fly back about 200,000 people, more than the EU and the US put together.

 
Spare a thought for the much maligned Air India staff in highly uncomfortable hazmat suits, flying across the world, putting themselves at risk to bring back Indians including senior citizens, pregnant women and children.
 
Does a brave mission amid a global crisis appear small? If the government is trying to give risk-takers a sense of mission and pride, it is the right thing to do. In times of crisis, we need more doers. The writer is a technology professional and a commentator interested in media, research, politics and policy