Government’s response to issues like floods and landslides caused by extreme weather, examination irregularities like exam paper leaks, etc should reach the citizens instantly.
There is nothing wrong with a Prime Minister feeding peacocks, cows or any other creature. Compassion towards animals is a virtue, and a leader taking a quiet moment with nature is hardly a matter for criticism. But in a democracy, the question is not whether the Prime Minister should feed animals. The question is whether the nation is being given enough attention while the cameras are turned elsewhere.
On the morning of Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared a video of himself feeding cows and peacocks before leaving for the Red Fort. The images were peaceful and carefully presented as part of his daily routine.
The contrast is difficult to ignore. Across India, citizens are confronting problems that cannot be solved through carefully composed images. Ahmedabad has experienced severe urban flooding, with experts pointing to inadequate drainage, encroachment and the destruction of natural water bodies. Mumbai continues to face the familiar combination of extreme rainfall, flooding and fragile urban infrastructure. Delhi's own disaster-management authority acknowledges that recurring flooding is aggravated by choked drains, unplanned settlements and excessive hard surfaces.
And this is not a distant Delhi problem. We in Nagaland know what it means when governance meets extreme weather. This monsoon, flooding and landslides have disrupted communities across the state. Dimapur itself has seen low-lying colonies inundated, roads and connectivity disrupted, and, tragically, a young college student lost his life after floodwater entered his home. These are not images from some abstract national crisis; they are the lived realities of our own people. If the Prime Minister's photographs can reach us instantly through social media, citizens should also be able to see equally compelling evidence of governments responding to the problems that determine whether people can live safely and with dignity.
These are not merely weather stories. They are governance stories.
When a city floods, the poor do not experience it as an abstract climate event. They lose homes, livelihoods, documents, vehicles and sometimes lives. When roads become rivers after a few hours of rain, citizens have every right to ask whether urban planning, drainage and infrastructure have kept pace with the grand promises of a modern India.
Then there is the examination system: For millions of Indian students, competitive examinations are not simply examinations. They are years of sacrifice and the hope of social mobility. Yet paper leaks and examination irregularities have repeatedly damaged that hope. An investigation by The Indian Express found that among 45 major paper-leak cases involving examinations with at least one lakh candidates over two decades, only two had resulted in convictions. More recently, Parliament has had to consider stronger legislation after another wave of examination controversies.
A young person who studies for years only to discover that an examination was compromised does not need a motivational slogan. That young person needs an examination system that works.
The economy presents another uncomfortable reality: Retail inflation rose to 4.45 per cent in July, its second consecutive month above the Reserve Bank of India's 4 per cent target, with food inflation at 5.52 per cent. These numbers may appear manageable in macroeconomic terms, but for a household buying vegetables, cooking oil, school supplies or paying rent, statistics are ultimately experienced through the monthly household budget.
And then there is the question of corruption and accountability: Even the Ram Temple in Ayodhya has not escaped allegations of financial irregularity. An SIT investigation into alleged theft of devotees' donations found serious supervisory and administrative lapses, including repeated pilferage and failures to follow prescribed security procedures. Whatever the eventual legal outcome, the episode raises a deeply uncomfortable question: if even religious donations can be vulnerable to such failures, where is the culture of accountability that citizens were promised?
Against this background, the Prime Minister's use of the expression "dimaagi naxali" from the Red Fort deserves scrutiny. The phrase has generated considerable debate, with Union Minister Kiren Rijiju subsequently explaining it as a reference to ideological or "urban" Naxalism rather than armed insurgents.
But this raises another question: who exactly qualifies as a "dimaagi naxali"?
A democracy cannot afford political labels whose boundaries are unclear. If a citizen criticises government policy, questions an institution, protests against an examination failure, challenges corruption, or demands accountability, does that make the citizen ideologically suspect? Disagreement is not sedition. Criticism is not extremism. Asking uncomfortable questions is not an attack on the nation. In fact, the ability to ask uncomfortable questions is one of the clearest signs that a democracy is alive.
This is where the politics of optics becomes important. Modern political communication increasingly operates through images. A photograph of a leader feeding a peacock is instantly understandable. It communicates gentleness, simplicity, connection with nature and a human side of political leadership. Such images travel quickly because they require no complicated explanation. But governance is different. A photograph cannot repair a drainage system. A speech cannot by itself restore a student's lost examination opportunity. A slogan cannot reduce corruption. A carefully produced video cannot substitute for institutional accountability. The danger comes when political communication becomes more successful at showing leadership than demonstrating governance.
India does not need a Prime Minister who is constantly grim-faced and surrounded by crisis files. Leaders are human beings, and they are entitled to moments of peace. Nor should every personal image of a political leader become an occasion for outrage. But citizens are equally entitled to ask: What is happening beyond the frame? What happens to the family whose house is underwater? What happens to the student whose examination is cancelled because someone leaked the paper? What happens to the worker whose income disappears under rising costs? What happens when public money or religious donations disappear through institutional failure? And what happens to the citizen who asks these questions and is suddenly given a political label?
The Prime Minister's office is not a social-media studio. It is an office of constitutional responsibility. The Red Fort, especially, should be more than a stage for political messaging. It is a place from which the country's leadership speaks to its citizens about the state of the nation. Independence Day should therefore invite not only celebration but also accountability. India's problems are too large to be hidden behind either triumphalism or distraction. We need functioning cities, trustworthy examinations, affordable living, transparent institutions and consequences for corruption.
Feed the peacocks, by all means. But also feed the hungry. Protect the flooded. Restore the student's faith in merit. Answer the citizen's questions.
And above all, do not confuse a beautiful image of governance with governance itself. Because ultimately, democracy is not judged by the photographs a government produces. It is judged by the lives that the government improves—and by how honestly it responds when those lives are in trouble.
Mughalu T Kinimi