Earlier yesterday, at the Republic summit, Prime Narendra Modi regaled the audience with an amusing joke about a professor fussing over the spelling of a word after his daughter pens a suicide note saying she will end her life at the Kankariya Lake.
PM Modi’s lighthearted comment was in response to a speech in Hindi by Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, which was unexpected since he typically prefers English. He expressed pleasant surprise and joked that he was so surprised by Goswami’s use of Hindi that he found himself more focused on searching for mistakes in his speech than actually listening to its content. Essentially, it was a self deprecating joke and not one that mocked suicide victims or those who are depressed.
And quite predictably, the joke was lost on low-IQ liberals, including opposition politicians, who tried to seek political mileage out of it, feigning outrage and attacking the Prime Minister for what they claimed was a suicide joke.
Priyanka Gandhi took to Twitter to hold forth on how suicide and depression are not matters to laugh at. If there ever was an example of how some people cannot comprehend jokes, it is this. The Gandhi scion cited suicide numbers from 2021 and pontificated the audience of creating awareness of ‘mental health issues’.
Depression and suicide, especially among the youth IS NOT a laughing matter.
— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) April 27, 2023
According to NCRB data, 164033 Indians committed suicide in 2021. Of which a huge percentage were below the age of 30. This is a tragedy not a joke.
The Prime Minister and those laughing heartily at… pic.twitter.com/yoPt5c8Kx7
Ms Priyanka Chaturvedi, who shares not just her first name with Ms Gandhi but also her appallingly low levels of IQ, also jumped on the bandwagon of faux outrage, attacking the Prime Minister over a joke that she manifestly appeared hard-pressed to comprehend and make sense of.
Respected PM,
— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) April 27, 2023
I won’t share the triggering video where you cracked a joke on suicide while the audience laughed at the insensitive ‘joke’, however I’d definitely like to remind you that 2021 NCRB data shows that over 1.5 lakh Indians committed suicide, also deaths by suicide… pic.twitter.com/nWysoJSIRL
And quite naturally, the loyal sycophants of the Gandhi family followed suit as they fell over themselves to corner the Prime Minister over his self-deprecating humour at the Republic TV summit.
The loud and boorish Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate cited a report that shone the light on the alarming figures of suicide reported in the country in 2021.
आत्महत्या को लेकर इतना भद्दा मज़ाक़?
— Supriya Shrinate (@SupriyaShrinate) April 27, 2023
• इस देश में आप ही के सरकारी आँकड़ों के मुताबिक़ 2021 में 1,64,033 आत्महत्या के मामले दर्ज हुए.
• मतलब रोज़ लगभग 450 लोग आत्महत्या करने पर मजबूर हैं.
• इनमें से 18-30 वर्ष की आयु में लगभग 34.5% थे – मतलब हर घंटे 6 से ऊपर युवा आत्महत्या… pic.twitter.com/jCi0UvdhG0
Similarly, other Congress leaders and ‘pliant’ journalists too partook in the effort to middle the context, shift the narrative, and project the Prime Minister as insensitive toward the scourge of suicide and self-harm afflicting the society.
'We Have Become a Sick Society': Outrage Over PM Modi's 'Joke' on Suicide https://t.co/ixCd5N1dic
— Siddharth (@svaradarajan) April 27, 2023
Far from mocking suicide or depression, PM Modi’s joke was a self-deprecating take on his own obsession with checking someone’s Hindi rather than focusing on the content. In a sense, it was an honest confession on PM Modi’s part that he, like many others, was more vulnerable to scrutinising one’s language than concentrating on the substance of the matter.
In fact, on social media platforms too, there have been numerous occasions when people have mocked about fussing over the grammatical errors in a suicide note.
Shameful pic.twitter.com/lbGSYIf2Lj
— Gabbar (@GabbbarSingh) April 27, 2023
So essentially what PM Modi said at the Republic TV conclave was not a new joke, but a variation of an old joke that is on the internet since time immemorial.
Moreover, the ‘joke’ PM Modi recalled at the Republic TV summit did not mock suicide or treat the serious issue of self-harm with levity. Rather, it was a poignant reminder of how, as human beings, we are prone to focusing too much on small details and miss the larger picture or main point of something. Human beings, by their nature, get so preoccupied with minor details or individual parts of a situation that they fail to see or understand the entire situation as a whole. In essence, it refers to the act of getting lost in the minutiae and losing sight of the big picture.
In this case, PM Modi tried comparing his fixation with Arnab’s Hindi, which admittedly took the Prime Minister by surprise, to a professor who is so punctilious and attached to his teaching profession that he fails to grasp the gravity of the situation and instead laments on the spelling mistake made by his daughter in her suicide note. The object of ridicule in such jokes is not the victim but the man who was more concerned about correcting the grammar and spelling mistakes than the suicide.
While one may be inclined to dismiss the allegations against PM Modi as a figment of low-IQ brains, they, nevertheless, reveal the extent of desperation among the opposition ranks to dislodge PM Modi from his office that they don’t mind taking a leave of their senses and capitulating to the irresistible lure of attacking their opponent, even if it that renders them as brainless dafts.
But more significantly, the opposition’s conduct in the case is a scathing indictment of its inability to dazzle voters with an alternative political vision, a clear, definite, and unambiguous roadmap to take the country forward if chosen to power. PM Modi’s popularity, on the other hand, continues to soar as he fulfils promises made to the people, and charts out confident, coherent, and quantifiable milestones his government intends to achieve in the foreseeable future, thereby inspiring confidence and trust from the people.
