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“How did a Somali tiger win the international cats’ beauty contest?”
“The jury mistook the starving tiger from the impoverished country for a cat!”
The black humour in the old joke throws light on the miserable conditions—hunger, poverty, high infant mortality, short longevity and extremely low human development index (HDI)—in the poor African country.
But, Narendra Modi’s comparison of Kerala with Somalia has not only thrown light on the Prime Minister’s lack of familiarity with Kerala’s socio-economic realities, but also deeply hurt the Malayali’s pride in their State topping most human development indices among Indian States. The outbursts of scorn on social media and condemnation by both the UDF and LDF against Modi’s `Somalia blunder’ were on unprecedented scales.
FACTUALLY WRONG
Modi had, at a BJP campaign rally at Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday, remarked that the infant mortality rate (IMR) among the tribespeople in Kerala was worse than in Somalia. Apparently, the remark was factually wrong—Kerala has the lowest IMR rate in India while Somalia’s IMR and children’s malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world. According to UNICEF, one out of every seven children in Somalia dies before they attain age five—under-nutrition is among the main cause for this. And, according to the National Health Mission, Kerala’s infant mortality per 1000 births is 10 while the national average is 40.
The remark—was attacked mercilessly on social media. The PoMoneModi (Get lost, Modi) handle on Twitter received tens and thousands trolls from Malayalis all over the world. Modi’s now-controversial educational background was raised to dub him as an ignoramus.
The `Somali blunder’ came at a time when the BJP is pushing hard to find a toehold in the Kerala Assembly. Over the past week, Modi came campaigning on three days and addressed five rallies. At least 10 Union Ministers have campaigned in the State in the past ten days. The BJP central leadership had sent the Union Ministers as well as party big wigs as part of its strategy to create `shock and awe’ in the last lap of the May 16 polling. The `insulting’ remark, which went viral from one social media platform to another, put the BJP campaign on the defensive and sent top leaders scrambling to paper it over. Keralites, across the party barriers, condemned the remark and Chief Minister Oommen Chandy called for an apology by the Prime Minister. Leaders of both LDF and UDF flayed the remark.
NO CORRECTION
On Wednesday evening, when Modi made his fifth and last campaign meeting, at Thrippunithura near Kochi, everybody, including senior BJP State leaders, had expected him to correct his remark. But that was not to be. An apology would have assuaged the hurt collective esteem of Keralites. Instead, he attacked both the UDF and LDF and accused them of fooling the people.
The Somalia remark has been compared to Modi’s `Bihari political DNA’ remark of July last year that reportedly hurt BJP’s performance in Bihar Assembly election. Will it stand in the way of the BJP’s opening its account in the Assembly? Will Tiger Modi be reduced to a cat?
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