Modi narrative: no takers

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being slapped around by friends and foes alike, perhaps for the first time in his premiership. A parliamentary debate on Tuesday quickly saw the Modi government's propaganda around the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor crumble, as Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi and others slammed Modi's use of India's military for political optics and the disinformation campaign about all aspects of the war, which has made India's foreign ministry and media into laughing stocks.

One opposition member said that Modi should prove his claim that no Rafale jets were shot down — a fact confirmed by international media and French officials — by having all 36 of India's Rafales lined up for a photo op. Gandhi said Modi should back up his claim that he did not agree to a ceasefire under US pressure by calling President Donald Trump a liar. And in a 'response' to the convenient claim that three "terrorists" recently killed in Kashmir were the Pahlgam attackers, Home Minister Amit Shah said he had solid evidence of a Pakistan connection, because the men allegedly had "Pakistani" chocolates in their possession.

Later, one of the Pahlgam attack survivors — whose husband was murdered in front of her — also criticised Modi for failing to even once reference the 26 victims in whose name Operation Sindoor was conducted. Though she did not go as far as accusing him of using the victims' deaths for political gain, we will. For his entire political career, Modi has happily used the blood of his fellow Indians for political gain.

Unfortunately, because of Modi's success at turning India into an oligarchy where all media is run by his billionaire allies and dissent is crushed through a combination of draconian laws and violent Hindutva mobs, most Indians are unaware of the world around them, including the fact that the Indian economy has severely underperformed, relative to what economists had projected before Modi took office, or that it is sliding on several human rights indicators. All the while, Modi remains unassailably popular and sits on his throne atop a tower of lies.