Bibek Debroy, an economist, an author, a composer of limericks—a man who wore many hats and dispensed his duty with unmatched excellence, breathed his last on Friday (November 1) last week at 69. He served as the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council.
Debroy had a distinguished public life, having served in different capacities for the Modi government, most notably as a member of the NITI Aayog between 2015 and 2019, Chairman of the ‘Expert Committee for Infrastructure Classification and Financing Framework for Amrit Kaal’ of the Ministry of Finance.
While death is a sombre occurence, it can, ironically, be an incredibly effective tool for propaganda vultures, who often exploit grief, sadness, and fear to further their agendas. When a public figure dies—especially one whose death can be coopted to target their bete noire—propagandists seldom hesitate to seize the moment, twisting the loss to reinforce their ideologies or smear their opponents. They cast the death in a way that serves their narratives, celebrating the death through their negative portrayal.
What is notably pernicious is how they subordinate mourning to spin a story of cultural and moral decadence, using death to further their propaganda. Death, for them, isn’t a humbling event that reminds humans of their mortality but a powerful means to rally support and sow divisions. So, while humans process it as loss, propaganda vultures weaponise it, turning deaths into fresh fuel to assert their narratives.
This seems to be the case for The Wire columnist Apoorvanand Jha, who recently penned an article in the left-leaning rag following the untimely demise of Bibek Debroy. The fact that Debroy isn’t present to counter Apoorvanand, a shameless left-leaning propagandist who doubles as a professor at the University of Delhi, brainwashing his students with poison that he routinely spews in his columns for left-leaning portals or more frequently in tweets on X (formerly Twitter), where he restricts his mentions for fear of being exposed for his inherent bigotry, is enough to highlight how the writer and the portal don’t believe in according dignity in death except when the deceased belongs to the leftist fold.
Titled “How Should One Mourn the Death of a Person Who Served a Repressive Regime?”, the article published in The Wire and authored by Apoorvanand embodies an insufferably hateful rant by a perennial anti-government detractor who applies his twisted sense of moral compass to vilify others with loaded adjectives, labouring under the belief that he can weaponize gobbledygook to pass off as academic wisdom.
The central premise of Apoorvanand’s horrid piece spewing venom against Bibek Debroy lies in his singular misapprehension that the Modi government is a majoritarian and deeply Islamophobic regime and that Debroy couldn’t be decoupled from the administration he represented and was a part of. The article is replete with references where Bibek Debroy is alluded to being an enabler of the “fascist regime”, and that he worked “undisturbed” under a regime while his fellow citizens were being “persecuted”.
But for the likes of Apoorvanand, who wants the society to continue to be guided by seventh-century precepts, and casts modernizing reforms like the hijab ban, outlawing of repressive practices such as triple talaq, abrogation of Article 370 as an unadulterated display of “Islamophobia”, any progressive decision taken by the Modi government becomes yet another occasion to criticise them for being “anti-Muslim”.
Modi government has often presented itself as a regime that rejects “minority appeasement” to ensure equal treatment for all citizens, avoiding favouritism toward any specific group. Its policies have centred around treating all communities, be it minorities or the majority, with equality and non-discrimination.
However, Apoorvanand seems to be an integral part of a coterie that defames this approach as being Islamophobic, helping them to delegitimize policies that disproportionately benefit some communities over others, and thereby work against the interest of society by opposing measures that aim to address resentment and communal disharmony appeasement politics engenders. Eventually, when a communal conflagration flares up due to popular discontent and resentment, the same coterie is quick to pull out the Muslim victimhood card and accuse the government of “majoritarianism”.
In one instance in his article, he even attempts to discredit the democratically elected Modi government as a ‘majoritarian autocracy’ hiding behind the facade of democracy. These are preposterous assumptions and characteristics of sore losers who can’t bring themselves to stomach the fact that the country reposed its faith in leaders against whom they ran motivated campaigns interspersed with lies and falsehoods. As Indian voters have elected PM Modi for a third consecutive term, these kinds of mental gymnastics and intellectual dishonesty are employed to discredit the government and convince the public that the administration is misusing its mandate.
Debroy’s intellectual brilliance notwithstanding, Apoorvanand sought to judge him on his ability to “speak truth to power” and his association with a ‘majoritarian’ Modi government. Of course, this perception that Debroy failed to “speak truth to power” and endorsed majoritarianism comes from Apoorvanand’s mistaken beliefs not rooted in empiricism but prejudice and a haughty sense of condescension that those who don’t subscribe to his worldview are enablers of fascism, minority persecution, and so on. A person who is associated with the Modi government automatically becomes a “fascist enabler” even though there is no proof that the Modi government is hurtling towards authoritarianism. If it indeed was turning to authoritarianism, can propagandists like Apoorvanand continue spewing venom like they have been doing?
While people are free to harbour strong opposition to a democratically elected government and criticize its policies as anti-Muslim or Islamophobic, attacking someone posthumously simply because they worked under PM Modi is shockingly low, though not surprising from certain leftist circles. These detractors often fuel communal tensions by emphasizing narratives of Muslim victimhood. Reducing a respected economist, accomplished translator, and skilled writer to a mere ideological stereotype and portraying him as an indifferent supporter of an authoritarian regime shows the moral narrowness of The Wire and its columnist, Apoorvanand. References to Debroy as a man who enabled fascism, and looked the other way when “fellow citizens were being persecuted” serve as a convenient disguise for a subtle, underlying satisfaction over his death just because he worked for the Modi government.
But as The Wire’s past antecedents and Apoorvanand’s X timeline reveal, they have little to no qualms in exploiting the politics of communalism to peddle their agenda, even if it comes at the cost of truth and moral rectitude.
