On May 28, 2024, at around 8:51 am, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi shared a message via his Twitter account, condoling the lives lost in a flood in Papua New Guinea. He wrote, “Deeply saddened by the loss of lives and damage caused by the devastating landslide in Papua New Guinea. Our heartfelt condolences to the affected families and prayers for speedy recovery of the injured. India is ready to offer all possible support and assistance.” Around the same time, people in Mizoram woke up to incessant rain and a fury of landslides in the aftermath of Cyclone Remal.
Search and rescue operations, the public, volunteers, and everyone scurried about trying to retrieve bodies, as of today, twenty-eight bodies are recovered, and four are still missing.
The heavy downpour caused entire graveyards to slide in ruins, and men in the locality carried these coffins while liquid stench dripped from the dead bodies, preparing them for reburial under the pouring rain. Some looked around for the gravestones of their children, while some looked for their children buried alive in the landslide. Toys and books gathered amidst dirt and debris.
The damage of the cyclone and heavy downpour extends to Nagaland, Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya totalling a death toll of 38. In Manipur, more than 4,000 people have been affected by floods caused by heavy rainfall.
From 8:51 am on Tuesday till the afternoon of May 31, Narendra Modi has made 95 posts on his official X account but, there is no mention of the landslide or the floods. Out of these 95 posts, 6 pertain to tributes and visits to holy places during his campaign, one report on the praises towards the Delhi-Mumbai expressway, one celebrates the Agnibaan rocket launch and one, a wish to Goa on its statehood day.
Of the remaining 86 posts, 14 are snippets from interviews with OpentheMag, News Nation, Nation First, and ABP while the rest 72 tweets are about his political rallies in Odisha, Punjab and West Bengal.
On the evening of May 29 at around 5:37 when search and rescue operations were digging out two bodies in Hlimen and Melthum on the outskirts of Aizawl, Narendra Modi spoke about his dedication to the welfare of tribals in his X account. He wrote, “For the last 10 years, we are working with full dedication for the welfare of tribals in Mayurbhanj and across the country including Odisha.”
As a Prime Minister, Modi may be inherently busy, giving political speeches and expressing condolences for different tragedies across the world. But, what does not come as a surprise is that on July 23, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the loss of lives in a landslide in Maharashtra’s coastal Raigad district and announced compensation of ₹ 2 lakh for the families of the victims.
The landslide had unfortunately seen 36 victims. In October 2023, when six people died and 18 were injured when coaches derailed after a Visakhapatnam-Ragada passenger train hit a Visakhapatnam-Ragada train travelling on the same route in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district, the Prime Minister announced an ex-gratia of ₹ 2 lakh from the PM’s National Relief Fund for the next of families of each dead and ₹ 50,000 for the injured in the Andhra Pradesh train accident.
On May 25, 2024, when 33 people were killed in a fire that broke out at a gaming zone in Rajkot, Gujarat, India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh from the PM’s National Relief Fund for the next of kin of each deceased and Rs 50,000 to injured persons.
It is not fair to compare a tragedy, even one life lost is precious no matter what the cause is but it may be fair to compare the words and condolences offered for the said tragedies, when they are inherently different or totally absent, based on where the tragedy has taken place.
Because, no matter what kind of a person he is, good or evil, a Prime Minister is still the leader of his country and the people of his country expect a few good words from him when they are in the worst state of their lives.
While thousands of volunteers were gathered in the localities of Kanan, Luangmual, ITI, and the Upper Republic in Aizawl carrying coffins to safety from daybreak till night on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Prime Minister was giving speeches on how the government cares for the middle-class people.
While Loretta Lalngaihdami was sitting in front of five coffins holding her father and sisters, victims of the landslide, Narendra Modi was sitting on a private jet, taking short videos of his next rally destination. Today, while the Central Young Mizo Association has appealed for statewide volunteer work to seek the dead bodies still lost in the mess of the landslide, the Prime Minister has announced that he is going to start meditating for 45 hours till June 1.
But what can Mizoram or any other Northeast state expect for a few dozen lives it has lost when it took six months for the country’s beloved leader to speak out while Manipur was burning and has now seen a death toll of 221?
What is given precedence is the population that will vote for the central leadership, these eight states have a combined total of twenty-five Lok Sabha seats, and the other 20 states have a total of 518 seats. What is 25 compared to 500 that it should call for a minute of the Prime Minister’s time to write a line in his X account, “Deeply saddened by the loss of lives and damage caused by the devastating landslide in Mizoram.”
Also Read: Unfathomable pain: The tragedy of a Mizo family that lost five members