One of the reasons many Indians love PM Modi is that he comes from a humble background, without any royal bloodline. That he has made it to where he is now on his own, without any ‘surname’ attached to his name. Which is also one of the many reasons the ‘liberals’ of India hate him.
You see, most of the ‘liberals’ in India are the elites who have always been rich, roam around in privileged circles and are ‘journalists’ and ‘columnists’ mostly because their influential parents, spouses were either politicians, owner of media houses or just very rich.
Here is an example:
Does he even know which cutlery to use? https://t.co/xNBxN3pzXp
— Rupa Gulab (@rupagulab) May 4, 2022
A Twitter handle by the name ‘Rupa Gulab’ who identifies itself as ‘writer’ mocked PM Modi when he met the Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II. You see, towards the end of the video, there is a frame where PM Modi and Queen of Denmark sit on a table and fine cutlery is placed in front of them for a meal. Gulab quips, ‘does he even know which cutlery to use?’
Keeping aside the fact that the Prime Minister of India would have a team to help him navigate through the courtesies, in India, where most people use their hands to eat, it will be quite normal to not know the ‘cutlery etiquettes’.
How many of us would find comfort in daal-chawal-ghee when we are feeling low? And how many of us will be eating the daal chawal with our hands? You see, most of us. Even if you don’t, you’d still know how to eat daal chawal with hands. Unlike the elites. Here is how they eat their daal chawal:
At around 10 minute 48 second mark, you can see senior Congress leader and Wayaand MP Rahul Gandhi mix a morsel of rice and daal with his hands and puts it in his mouth, only to have the grains of rice fly all over. Compare that with the way the two men sitting next to him are eating. Those men eat like that every day and know you’ve to bend forward and put food in the mouth so it does not fall, spoil clothes. But Rahul Gandhi doesn’t.
No one questioned if Rahul Gandhi knows how to eat with his hands.
Instead, everyone is in awe of Rahul Gandhi as the prince has decided to grace commoners in a village by his presence and ate with them. See how the camera focuses on him mixing his food with his bare hands. They want to show you how despite all the money and power he has, despite the ‘Gandhi’ family tag and even if his ancestors have been elite politicians of India, 3 of which were Prime Ministers of this great nation, ‘Rahul Baba’ is ‘down to earth’.
This is how the ‘liberals’ in India react to two different powerful politicians.
Modi, who rose the ranks in the party as an ordinary man from an ordinary background who sold tea on railway platform, gets mocked at, ridiculed because ‘he may not not know how to use cutlery’ but Rahul Gandhi, who had power, money, politics served to him on a platinum platter, whose father, grandmother and great grandfather were prime ministers (and came from illustrious families themselves) gets everyone mushing.
But even then they hate Modi. It is because barring the 1% elites in India, the rest of us are hustling. We are working hard to pay our bills. For most of us, pizza was once in a while treat. We’d find it intimidating waltzing into star hotels in Lutyens’ Delhi ordering pasta worth 2,000 rupees. Weekend brunches on The Claridges lawn is not something we’re used to. To be honest, I have never even been to one. The Khan Market elite crowd is likely aspirational for many.
But for ‘liberals’ that is the everyday thing. These very ‘journalists’ hang out at the fancy places and then gush over Rahul Gandhi’s ‘simplicity’ while mocking Modi’s humble roots.
Modi is relatable to most Indians because he is ‘one of us’, who’d happily eat khichdi-kadhi-bataka nu shaak-bhakhri as meal at end of tiring day. And not like a certain someone who goes to undisclosed foreign locations in secrecy at slightest discomfort in India.
Modi is relatable. Modi is aspirational. He gives everyone a hope that if one makes up their mind, a person selling tea on railway platform can become Prime Minister of world’s largest democracy. Not once, but twice.
This is why they hate him.
