There appears to be a fifth columnist in the Prime Minister’s inner circle. This thought came to me when I saw him jubilantly striding across that college stage in Vadodara last week. The event seemed part of his Gen-Z seduction crusade, and what he strode, smiled and waved to was the tune of We Will Rock You. Luckily, it was only the tune that played. Had he been aware of the words, Modi may have fainted. Here is a line: ‘You got mud on your face, big disgrace. Somebody better put you back into your place.’

See what I mean about a fifth columnist working in the innards of the PMO? Also, the song is from 1977 when people of my generation were young and rebellious, and the cockroaches who have now got so badly under Modi’s skin were not even specks on the horizon. More seriously — who was the idiot who advised the Prime Minister to attend this joyous event at a time when a PG (paying guest) hostel had just crumbled in Delhi University’s south campus, killing young students and their dreams? Among the dead was eighteen-year-old Arpit Jaj, whose taxi driver father worked overtime to send his son to college and struggled to pay the exorbitant rent for his PG hovel. I heard Arpit’s story in Barkha Dutt’s Mojo Story. It brought tears to my eyes.

We in the mainstream........

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