A Nation Betrayed, A People Forsaken

Dear Mr. Modi:

Seven years after your election to the post of prime minister, I write to you, anguished at the state of our country. I do so with some measure of hope that you will realize how a country once respected for its open-door hospitality, its magnificent history, and its ancient culture has been diminished in stature and reputation under your rule. You, sir, are culpable, and need to answer for the hundreds of thousands of deaths that our country has suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic. You need to answer for the failing health of the nation, for its doctors and frontline workers who have perished in the line of duty, for the families who have been deprived of their breadwinners, for the millions who have been forced below the poverty line—75 million and counting. You, sir, need to account for the broken promises that fed the ultimate lie: that you are our leader and not a mere chowkidar, a watchful custodian of our people and our resources.

Today, as a nation, we feel shortchanged, cheated, and betrayed by one in whom we placed our trust, not once, but in two national elections. That we gave our vote to you, a man who came to us with a plethora of promises, that we believed your promise of a corruption-free India and universal development, that we nodded joyously when you spoke of free housing for the poor and ease of living, and when you assured us grandly that the money taken from our banks by corporate defaulters would be scrupulously returned—all this speaks not just of an intellectual susceptibility but also of a nation willing to give its most ambitious politicians a chance.