Modi’s Suit: Auction notwithstanding, Answer Awaited

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Auction of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name-striped suit stoutly suggests that people of India are dragging him to his size in appropriate manner in appropriate time.

Delhi, where people from all parts of India constitute the electorate, has given him glimpses of the national mood by thrashing his candidates to 3 in the 70 seated Assembly of Delhi.

People have not left him there. The moment the gigantic gorgeousness of his showy attires, particularly his name-striped suits came to public notice, they woke up to show him that they won’t tolerate being mocked at.

Had they not individually and collectively expressed in social media and group gatherings how shocked are they over ridiculous display of ostentation by the very same man whom they had relied upon because of his repeated recalling of his humble past of a tea-vending-boy, Modi would not have parted with the suit that has been sold at Rs.4.31 crores.

Ostentation on part of the Prime Minister of India is an offense of mocking at the people who thrive on subsidized cereal, who distress sale their paddy and food crops, whose children are wasting away due to hunger and undernourishment, where child labor is the source of livelihood for crores of abjectly poor families, where workers distress sale their labor, where mid-day meals in schools are offered from state exchequer as tricks to protect the ruling politicians from the exposure that in their administration school-going children die in starvation. Modi should understand this.

He should understand that he is the Prime Minister of a country, which is created with the supreme sacrifices of the martyrs, the freedom fighters whose ultimate leader was a “half naked” “Fakir” in the words of Winston Churchill, the powerful Prime Minister of the British empire to whom he had said in the Round Table Conference, “India demands complete liberty and freedom…the same liberty that Englishmen enjoy… and I want India to become a partner in the Empire. I want to partner with the English people … not merely for mutual benefit, but so that the great weight that is crushing the world to atoms may be lifted from its shoulders”. His being in tune with the simplicity of his countrymen had given him this strength.

For this oneness with the people in life-style and attire, notwithstanding differences in approach, in political economic concepts, all our emancipators from the British yoke were revering him as Mahatma. Mahatma Gandhi.

He was the greatest leader India has ever produced.

“Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe, that such a man as this one, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth”, the great Albert Einstein had said on his 70th birthday.

His attire in which he won the hearts of his entire countrymen and led our freedom struggle to force Churchill to the round table in matter of our freedom – the same freedom that the Englishmen enjoy – was the same as of millions of his fellow beings in India.

Of course, Modi is not a Gandhian. Gandhi had said, planning must be addressed to the poorest of the poor. Modi has done away with planning. His administration is wedded to the greatest men of avarice, the greatest accumulators of wealth, the ultra-high-net-worth individuals and advantaged.

It would be, therefore, a folly to expect that he should understand the romance of sacrifice for the country and the splendor of simple dress in tune with the maximum majority of the countrymen who cherish their leader to be like them in nature and attire and concern for fellow beings and manners.

But, it would be legitimate to ask, who the person that gifted this suit to Modi was, and what his/her purpose was, and whether or not there was any favor-seeking design behind gifting of the name-striped suit, the first of its kind, to Prime Minister of India.

It would be better if the Prime Minister reveals the name of that man and help people locate him with whether or not he/she has any business link – directly or remotely – with the Government of India; because, after he obliterated people’s right to say ‘No’ to land acquisition in interest of private industry, the people are in natural agony over suspected role of compradors in administration.

Removal of this suspicion is most important for the country at this moment. So auction of Modi’s name-striped suit is not enough, the government should reveal, who had given the suit and why and whether or not he/she has any commercial interest that power corridors can better serve.

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