Listening to Narendra Modi's speeches is nothing less than a trial. And an ordeal. How can anyone endure nearly two hours of such tedium, a speech full of falsehood, empty boasts, puffed-up bravado that – most pernicious of all – is saturated with the poison of hatred?

But why are these speeches delivered with such audacity, repeated for 11 years? If they continue, and the speaker thinks that there are people ready to receive them, the responsibility lies not only with the speaker but even more so with those who keep listening to such demagoguery.

For, in truth, it is we who have allowed this. We have sustained – and re-elected, not once but twice, this man as our prime minister for over a decade. We have done so fully aware that his only mastery lies in one trade: the trade of hate.

Perhaps we tolerate Modi’s bluster, his swagger, his lies, because behind all of it lies a single undiluted truth that we love and want: this hatred.

In the official press release that followed his speech, the Prime Minister’s Office spoke of fortifying our defences with an expanded security envelope, of fostering strategic sectors, of repeating the mantra of an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ in technology and industry. Youth and entrepreneurs were urged to embrace swadeshi.

All this is stale stuff. Those fortunate enough to secure employment in the private sector were promised Rs 15,000 – a sum intended to absolve the government of its fundamental responsibility to provide work. It is now for you to secure work, and if you are lucky enough, then the government rewards you with a paltry sum of Rs 15,000.

But the central point of the speech was Operation Sindoor and a demographic task force. Operation Sindoor was presented as a watershed moment in the history of independent India, a new normal in the war against terrorism. Or against Pakistan.

And yet, we know that respected security experts have called it a costly and pointless folly. India failed to mobilise support for this foolhardiness even after spreading scores of MPs across the world. It left India looking pitiable. Defence experts warned that calling this “new normal” a doctrine was not bold – it was dangerous. What he is promising to his constituents is a continuous war. Only that will keep them enthralled.

An official press release talked about the mundane:

“Prime Minister's address focussed on self-reliance, innovation and citizen empowerment … Every Indian must contribute to nation-building, whether by buying India-made products or participating in scientific, technological and entrepreneurial ventures to ensure a prosperous, powerful and Viksit Bharat by the nation’s centenary of independence.”

These phrases – self-reliance, “Vocal for Local”, indigenous and so on – have been repeated ad nauseam over the last 11 years and they have worn thin. Modi’s record is stuck, static – the needle refuses to move forward. These words no longer excite his supporters – they know that they are recited as ritual.

What can move them, then? Not ideas. Not hope. The only thing cutting through this tedium is hatred – each shot a higher dose than the last.

But these words have to be spoken, for his civilised apologists to find something positive in his speech, the mainstay of which is actually division and hatred.

That hatred becomes a stimulant, injecting enthusiasm into his disheartened audience. Their blood pulses faster; life recedes until it finds purpose again in rage.

Long ago, Sonia Gandhi called Modi the “merchant of death”. She was criticised – but the sobriquet fits, because the result of this hatred is indeed death. After his coronation as the promoter of hate in 2014, Pune witnessed the murder of Mohsin Sheikh. His killers gloated, “the first wicket has fallen”. That was but the beginning. Death and destruction have followed in a daily, unrelenting stream.

Muslims and Christians are the targets of that hatred – and they alone bear its consequences. Most Hindus don’t even notice. When Muslims or Christians object, they are told: ‘You are over-sensitive, too touchy, too fragile, too reactive. You are making a mountain out of a molehill.’

But the BJP leaders – including Modi – and dozens more associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) promote hate and violence day in and day out. Their foot soldiers execute violence across India.

And now, the state – its police, its bureaucracy – has joined in, emboldened by the prime minister and the chief ministers, confident that this is now the state policy. Worse, many in the police and the administrative ranks themselves believe in the ideology of hate.

The courts, too, remain indifferent, as if violence against Muslims or Christians is no big deal.

The media marches ahead – in both promoting and legitimising this hatred and violence.

Yet hate wounds even the hater – it just reveals itself much later. Initially, the hater feels powerful. History is witness to this – and yet, how rare it is for us to learn from distant countries.

We believe that by understanding the price the German people paid for choosing Hitler, we will save ourselves – a naivety. When, after 1945, Germany emerged from Hitler’s terror and declared “never again”, it was not just a declaration for themselves – the world needed to hear it. India, in arrogance, believed that we too were immune to the charms of demagogues like Hitler. But there was an organisation – the RSS – that claimed inspiration from Hitler and Mussolini. And among its members is one Modi.

In 2025, the RSS completes a century of existence. It has been complicit in inciting violence against Muslims – before and after independence. The organisation keeps no records of its members, so it can always distance itself from their actions – yet everyone knows its role. Former members have testified how the RSS has plotted violence.

The RSS isn’t just one organisation: the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad are its branches. Evidence of their involvement in violence across India stretches decades back.

On Independence Day, the prime minister sang the RSS's praises. For him, a volunteer, it was natural – maybe even right. But he is the prime minister of India. That the chief of the state  should engage in such praise of an organisation which has a Hindu rashtra as its ideal is shameful.

Modi spoke about ‘infiltrators’ in fierce terms in his speech, saying:

“Under a deliberate conspiracy, the country’s demography is being changed … infiltrators are stealing the livelihoods of our youth … targeting our daughters and sisters … deceiving innocent Adivasis and seizing their land … this will not be tolerated … when demographic shifts occur near our borders, they become a threat to national security, sow social discord … no country can hand itself over to infiltrators … that is why I announce from the Red Fort: we have decided to launch a high‑power demography mission … this mission will address the grave crisis.”

This is not the first time. Since 2013, the fear of infiltrators has been planted in the Hindu psyche. In the Jharkhand elections, he talked again of outsiders eyeing Adivasi land and women. In Bihar, voter roll purges in the name of a special intensive revision (SIR) justified as removing infiltrators was deemed necessary.

Very recently at Sitamarhi, home minister Amit Shah attacked the opposition for speaking against the SIR. Infiltrators must be removed from the electoral rolls and have no right to vote, but are the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress opposing the SIR because these infiltrators' names are being deleted, he asked.

The Election Commission removed 6.5 million names from the state's draft voter rolls. But it does not cite even one person that was removed for being an infiltrator. Infiltrators need not be real. Even without them, the fear of infiltrators can be made real.

Today, every Bengali-speaking Muslim is branded an infiltrator. They are pushed across borders, detained and their homes demolished.

The prime minister’s words could fuel this violence – they do not merely evoke disquiet, as an editorial suggested – they are actually dangerous. The consequences are real, and they fall upon Muslims and Christians.

In his speech, the PM pledged to save the nation’s ‘daughters’ from infiltrators – a spectacle of “love jihad” dressed in a new uniform. But it is also jaded.

Many noted that fatigue had set into Modi – there was repetition, hollow rhetoric. But has anyone ever tired of hatred? One person might turn away, but for many, hatred remains fresh, alluring. That is why even though people leave the RSS, its ideology of hate and division continues to draw new followers.

Hate existed within Hindu society before, but in 2014, we liberated ourselves of our inhibitions  when Modi was accepted as prime minister. India began walking – no, sinking – into the mire of hate and violence. Better to say: it stepped into that morass.

But perhaps even that is incorrect. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs – they refused to go to that morass. Yet, the power of the Hindu majority dragged them in. They are bearing the consequences of the decision of the majority of Hindus. They are paying the cost of majoritarian decisions.

On Independence Day, the chief propagandist of this hate played his tried-and-tested record. When we hear it, do we feel disgust? Or do we wonder if there is still some authentic hate we are craving for – something more visceral, more real?

Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University.

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