The disdain within its own ecosystem for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to reject sectarianism in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that the Hindutva project appears to have outgrown control by individuals or institutions within its fold.
Among the instant responses to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Ramzan Mubarak!” on April 24 evening on Twitter was from a handle he follows. “Modiji, we pay the taxes, donate to PM Cares (Fund), follow the lockdown rules, but your government pampers those who don’t follow rules, get treated at government expense, beat up doctors and then take compensation… How long will this continue?” the tweet read. In 30 minutes, the PM’s post was retweeted 5,000 times, and the critical response 1,000 times. The same trend has roughly continued for days — for every five retweets of Mr. Modi’s post, the rebuff got one, though the PM outranks the latter in following by 1:2,000. The PM’s message that outraged so many people had said: “I pray for everyone’s safety, well-being and prosperity. May this Holy Month bring with it abundance of kindness, harmony and compassion. May we achieve a decisive victory in the ongoing battle against COVID-19 and create a healthier planet.”
This was the second meltdown in the virtual Hindutva universe within a span of five days. On April 19, Mr. Modi met with similarly ferocious animus when he tried to soothe Arab nerves frayed by an anti-Muslim tirade by people of Indian origin in the UAE. “COVID-19 does not see race, religion, colour, caste, creed, language or borders before striking… We are in this together,” he tweeted. Could anyone have disagreed? Turns out, many did, and vigorously so. A feted icon of the Hindutva camp, who counts Mr. Modi among her almost half a million followers on Twitter, declared: “We are NOT in it together @narendramodi sir. We are NOT the ones spitting at cops, we are not the ones hiding foreign nationals in mosques. We are NOT the ones pelting stones at doctors. We are NOT the ones hiding travel history. THEY are. And THEY have a name.” Another Twitter user, celebrated and followed by the who’s who of the nationalist band, declared that those who continued to “chant Modi, Modi” after reading his t