Opinion: No, Modi did not mock dyslexics

The Twitter-verse erupted recently on Modi’s video that went viral on an issue related to a solution for dyslexic at a student interaction in IIT Roorkee. Ranging from ‘distasteful’ to a fervent desire for an ‘educated PM” to Siddaramaiah calling him ‘insensitive’. Political scores apart, when I saw the video, I cringed at Modi’s sense of pedestrian humor and his need to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the voting public.

But, no. I don’t think he mocked dyslexics. He used the question to score a political point, however distasteful it may be. He wanted to convey to the audience, and to the rest of India, that RaGa is equally challenged, and that his mother will be gladdened if the tool is able to cure RaGa.

It is extremely juvenile to believe that Modi, as the prime minister of the country, will actually ‘mock’ any part of his constituency. On the other hand, it is equally juvenile to believe that during election time, he will leave any opportunity to mock his opposition, intellectually or otherwise. To assume that just because he mocked RaGa, and subsequently, SoGa (my own acronym), he is mocking the hundreds of thousands of dyslexic children in India, is a stretch only the left of the center can manufacture.

Twitter, however, went berserk. There were tearful stories of mothers with dyslexic children, who have struggled and are now heartbroken because our PM laughed at them. The central theme was ‘Modi laughed at dyslexic’. Unless the twitterati, the Left and 10 Janpath want to say unequivocally that RaGa was, and is, dyslexic and has a learning disorder (which may not be incorrect), Modi’s comment was at worst a lousy joke (over which only he and Amit Shah laugh), or at best a very lousy joke.

So, what’s the fuss?

Remember ‘3 Idiots’? Aamir Khan had a great laugh (along with the rest of the country) about ‘balatkaar’ and I don’t recall any of the Twitter worthies criticizing him for it. Of course, the movie made millions, after which he wanted to leave the country. Remember Akshay (Mr Bharat) Kumar in the Holiday movie, where he is harassing a woman in a basketball court? But that’s okay. Right? Because it is only in the movies. Except the fact that Aamir khan, actually made fun of the word ‘rape’ and nobody had the gumption to call him out. Akshay Kumar has made movies so sexist that nobody even wants to remember. But hey, they are heroes.

You know why? The Left intellectual English press doesn’t give a damn about Khan or Kumar. It is just simply petrified of Narendra Modi. It is called an existential threat. And hence the tribal breast beating. (oops, I am going to be wronging the ST/OTFD groups?)

Next time I call someone ‘Gandu’, ought I be scared of hurting the LGBT community?

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