Recently, the Delhi Court accepted the “ED Closure Report” against the former Congress MP Shri Suresh Kalmadi regarding the alleged corruption and money laundering activity during the 2010 Commonwealth Games held in India. It seems there was no scam, no corruption, and no accusation stuck to either Kalmadi, his aide, Lalit Bhanot, or anyone else.
It reminded me of another time. Another hot summer month. Another May. Long ago.
I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember, or wise enough to realise, that there was a time, not long ago, when we marched for a girl whose name we didn’t know. We called her Nirbhaya, because even in her brutalisation, we wished to believe she was fearless. It was 2012. Delhi was on fire for over a year already, not from a riot, but from a public conscience finally stirred. For once, it felt like the nation had reached its tipping point.
But something else was also happening in the background. Whispered accusations turned into front-page screaming. CWG. 2G. Coalgate. Scams, they said. Lakhs of crores, they said. A government too spineless to stop it. A Prime Minister too silent to lead. Baba Ramdev threatened to fast. Anna Hazare threatened to die. Kiran Bedi held press conferences. Vinod Rai held spreadsheets. Kumar Vishwas read poetry. The police read the riot act. The middle class lit candles and, quite conveniently, set fire to their common sense, which Arnab used to roast his chapatis.
Image: AI-generated
The UPA-II collapsed under the weight of both grief and gossip. The Congress lost power. The Manmohan era was over. In strode Narendra Modi, self-proclaimed saviour, challenger of dynasties, wielder of brooms, slayer of scams, harbinger of achhe din. A new India was born, or so we were told. One that would be clean, safe, strong, rich, and proud.
And out of the same bonfire of outrage, rose chhota Modi, aka Arvind Kejriwal, who swapped the efficient and responsible Sheila Dikshit for a muffler and a microphone, and perfected the art of sanctimonious inaction wrapped in performative austerity. The Aam Aadmi Party became the moral placebo we were all too eager to swallow.
It’s now been a decade. And a half.
And here’s what we know: every single one of those scams? Thrown out. The courts, after years of scrutiny, found nothing. No corruption. No criminality. Just smoke and mirrors, and a nation too willing to believe the worst of itself if only someone shouted it loud enough.
So I ask: if these were real scams, where are the convictions? If they weren’t, why did you spend a decade campaigning on them? Either you were lying, or you were incompetent, or you’re complicit. Pick one. Because no matter which way you cut it, it doesn’t make you look good.
The same is true of terrorism. Remember the loud speeches from Gujarat about how the Centre controlled the borders, the army, the intelligence, the police, the banks, the satellites, the air? “If attacks still happen,” Modi asked, “who is responsible?” A good question then. A better one now.
Because attacks still happen. In Assam. In Bengaluru (2014 and 2024). In Udhampur. In Manipur. In Gurdaspur. In Pathankot. In Pampore. In Kokrajhar. In Uri. In Baramulla. In Handwara. In Nagrota. On the Indian Railways (2017 and 2023). In Sukma (2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021). On the Amarnath Yatra. In Pulwama. In Jammu. In Dantewada (2019 and 2023). In Gadricholi. In Rajouri. In Kochi. In Raesi. In Pahalgam. And these are just the major ones. You see, your rhetoric has aged poorly. But your excuses have not changed. It’s always someone else. The previous government. The Nehru-Gandhi family (which has not seen a PM or any post in the cabinet since 1989). George Soros. The Vatican. Pakistan. China. Actual Naxals. Urban Naxals. Leftists. Sickulars. Librandus. Anyone but you.
And the economy? Demonetisation, launched with all the grace and foresight of a drunken leap into an empty pool, wrecked the informal sector, killed livelihoods, and wiped out trust. GST, promised as One Nation, One Tax, has become the Gabbar Singh Tax of One Nation, Many Slabs, Endless Confusion. Capital gains are taxed, innovation is throttled, startups are gasping, and the only unicorns flourishing are those that make presentations for the PMO (along with the photo op).
What about the army? You starved recruitment during COVID. You pushed Agniveer down the military’s throat with no debate, no consultation, no long-term plan. You rattled sabres at Pakistan while letting China take picnic spots in Ladakh. You strutted into Doklam like a desi John Wayne, only to retreat with your tail between your legs. And then there’s the Rafale deal, which smells faintly of old Swiss bank envelopes, and now the F-35, an aircraft the Americans themselves don’t want but which we’ll likely buy just to impress someone at a G20 dinner (at best) or as buckling under pressure by a belligerent Trump (at worst).
But here’s the most important part.
This does not absolve the Congress, or mean that there was no corruption, no scams, no terrorist attacks, or no stupid decisions with bad consequences for the people of India. But then, if you remember, we voted them out, didn’t we? And brought you in. To correct this. As promised by you. In writing. Literally on the first page after your preface!
It’s May 2025. Eleven years since we voted for you to fix this.
And now, you turn around and tell us that “Well, the Congress did the same!”
Here’s the funny thing: I agree. And disagree.
What they did ended up feeling the same. The corruption, the insecurity, the paralysis, every bad decision. But there is a difference. The route to stumbling onto bad decisions was very different than the one you took.
You see, everything you blamed the previous Congress government for, they did within a coalition. They had to negotiate with allies, follow due process, take Parliament into confidence, operate within the boundaries of law and federalism. Their actions, however flawed, emerged from the slow, messy business of democracy. Even bad decisions weren’t one man’s shower thoughts that he made into a law by afternoon. They were taken in consensus. They were a result of discussion. They were a part of the way the system is designed to function.
And just to remind you here once again, we used the same system to punish them for their indiscretions. We made noise. We protested. We voted them out.
You, on the other hand? You have a majority (given, not to put too fine a point on it, by us). A compliant media bought off by your crony capitalists. An intimidated bureaucracy that has lost its spine, if it ever had any. A rubber stamp for a Cabinet. A President who has never held back her assent to your bills (unless they are beneficial to an opposition-ruled state like Kerala). No one is stopping you. And yet, you have either made things worse or simply shouted louder about things that no longer exist.
You’ve turned Muslims into terrorists, Sikhs into traitors, Dalits into quota-seeking freeloaders, Christians into conversion factories, and Kashmiris into a security problem to be solved by silence (and violence). You’ve spread the poison of envy against Dravidians who dare to speak better English or run better schools, all while trying to erase their cultural pride with a shallow Hindi-Hindu-Hindutva narrative pushed by men who cannot see beyond vegetarianism and Varanasi.
You’ve mistaken Brahminism for civilisation. Majoritarianism for unity. Fear for patriotism. You’ve sold Air India, toyed with LIC and BSNL, privatised railways, handed ports and airports and highways to cronies. You’ve crippled public universities, demonised scientists, mocked rationalists, and told children to believe not what is proven, but what is convenient.
You’ve gutted the judiciary. You’ve captured the media. You’ve bulldozed protests. You’ve jailed dissenters. You’ve criminalised journalism, student activism, and the very act of asking questions, even by comedians.
And through it all, you’ve kept asking us to look back. Always back. Look at 2G. Look at Nehru. Look at 1947. Look at the Mughals. Look at Aurangzeb. Anything but look at the pothole in front of us. Or the hospital that has no oxygen. Or the school without teachers. Or the farmer with nothing left to sell but his vote.
So, I ask again:
Are you incompetent? Are you malicious? Or was it all just a lie?
Because whatever the answer is, none of it exonerates you.
The truth is, the only real scam wasn’t 2G or CWG. It wasn’t Rafale or demonetisation. It wasn’t fake degrees, fake headlines, fake encounters, or fake nationalism.
The only scam was hope.
The hope we had when we believed you.
And the silence you now sit in, while the republic is quietly hollowed out, one institution at a time, is louder than any speech you ever made.
P.S.: I need to flex a bit here. I never ever fell for the Anna Hazare-Baba Ramdev silliness. In fact, I wrote against it even then. I do not believe for an instance, as I did not believe then, it was either spontaneous or well-meaning. It was a pre-planned, sponsored, and malafide movement that engulfed the nation, fooling even people like Harsh Mander, Yogenra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Adm Ramdas, amongst other stalwarts, but in the process of sparking a revolution of positive change, it led to an uncontrolled fire that led us all directly here, to this blazing inferno we find ourselves in today without succour or hope.
