Serious question: Have you ever seen someone so arrogant and quick to take offence in public life as Nirmala Sitharaman?
I am not a psychiatrist or behavioural scientist, but her reaction to mostly perceived slights is bordering on some kind of imbalance or phobia. Why is she so paranoid that it would seem that all she thinks others do when they engage with her is somehow try and insult her, and all she could do in return is to retaliate with a public school debate type sarcasm, tone, and voice modulation, with appropriate head & hand movements and finger-wagging?
Honourable Finance Minister, I am not either wiser or smarter, or more powerful, or successful, or connected, or popular than you are, but I can tell you that if you think that from where you sit (as one of the most powerful elected officials of the world’s 4th largest economy that serves the world’s most populous country, and the one with the keys to the treasury), you should have any sort of insecurity or inferiority complex, I think it is safe to conclude that such a complex or insecurity is rooted not in the responsibility (and hence, stress and tension) of the position you occupy or the nature of today’s politics, but somewhere deep inside your own psyche, stemming from some real lack of something only you recognise.
This is not, as I am sure many have told you, probably as flattery or consolation, the Imposter Syndrome. It seems to be quite the opposite. I would not go so far as to call it the Dunning–Kruger effect, but I’d very strongly recommend you see someone at the earliest.
You seem like a very educated, cultured, and well-intentioned person. I’d hate you to be suffering from a wasting disease in service of the Motherland. Please, if not for us, for your country’s sake, see someone. Soon.
P.S: The video above is old, but you could take literally any video from any time since you have come in the limelight, Madam, and see how patronisingly condescending you sound, even when speaking to the most qualified, calm, patient people who, I have no doubts, must be totally nonplussed at your tone and language. Take a look at the comments too. There seems to be a universal consensus that you are being unreasonably condescending and arrogant to those who ask you questions that you, as the FM, are duty-bound to answer with humility, data, and seriousness. And now, take any other video of your press conferences and see how the pattern repeats.
P.P.S: There is another reason why we liberals, even while having noticed this, have refrained from commenting on it. And it is this: As people who have, for the lack of a better word, awakened to the injustices that women in power have had to suffer, and those who understand the hidden patriarchy and condescension in telling a woman to, “calm down and not take offence at every little thing,” we are wary of pointing out even the obvious to women in leadership roles such as yourself. But there are times when one finally must take the risk of being branded political incorrect or “less woke” and point out to the Empress that she really is not wearing any clothes. This is one of them. I am sorry to all the women in power who have been told to calm down, smile more, and other shit by men who thought they knew better because they had penises, but this one time, I had to call this out.
