Modi panics
It is panic stations for India and Modi
Policy Watch
25 May 2026
Image: CoPilot
By R N Bhaskar and Sakeena Bari Sayyed
Across the world, people have begun talking about how the government has panicked. And how Modi has started running away from people. At the time of writing, he appears to be seeking refuge in Italy.
Rough ride
His journey through the Netherlands and Norway was rough. A journalist, Helle Lyng, challengingly asked him to reply to questions from the “most free press” in the world (
). Modi hurriedly walked away, flanked by his officials – his body language stiff and awkward. He did not even turn to address the media.
The lady was Helle Lyng, who explained her behaviour in a tweet (
?s=20). Even the MEA’s attempt to explain why India was to be trusted and respected did not wash well with the media (
).
Stung by the global whiplash against Modi’s imperious disdain for the media, the Indian embassy reached out to the journalist and invited her to ask her questions at the embassy. CNN wrote both to her and to the embassy (
), but ostensibly got no response. Later, shockingly, Facebook and Instagram deboarded her from their respective channels.
In both Norway and the Netherlands, the respective heads of state asked the Indian prime minister why his country had been persecuting minorities and the media. Modi avoided the pointed barbs and remained silent.
India’s mainstream media did not report all this. It focussed on the award Sweden gave to the Indian PM (https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/pm-modi-receives-sweden-s-prestigious-award-royal-order-of-polar-star/ar-AA23qhXa ?cvid=887d07d052b040ede31f95e2f2786946). But go beyond the award, and the messaging was stark. India is glorious no longer.
Modi cannot stand proudly before people and talk about his vision or his dreams, or about how wonderful his government has been. Even the Financial Times wrote about this (https://www.ft.com/content/45d38a6f-bb79-42aa-a972-adb9781f7259?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-article-content).
Effectively, the government appears to be on the run.
Sickening disclosures
It began – coincidentally – with sickening exposures about how some of India’s leaders were hob-nobbing with sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. Before he died, he ensured that he had enough video and audio recordings of the sexual dalliances of global leaders. They were invariably at his private island or at his guesthouse in Manhattan. Disclosures that emerged after he was found dead (presumably killed by the Mossad of Israel) revealed that all these audio and video tapes were reportedly in the hands of the US government and even Israel and that they were being used to blackmail key people (
).
There is speculation that Trump too is being blackmailed by Israel to ensure that the US supports Israel in all its war crimes against Palestinians and Iranians (https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/trump-trapped). There is also speculation that Indian leaders are being similarly blackmailed. Two names that have emerged are those of Hardeep Singh Puri, union petroleum minister, and Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister.
While no evidence has emerged as yet (much of the evidence has not yet been disclosed by the US Justice Department --
), emails containing the names of Puri and Modi are being circulated. In the case of Puri, it became clear that he was lying. He did meet Epstein several times. He tried to tell people that he had contacted Epstein “just 3-4 times”, fresh email evidence showed that he was in touch with Epstein on many more occasions (
) .
Sickeningly, he also went on record stating that his friends were “jealous” of him. Jealous for what? For his dalliance with underage girls? Sexual relationships are not a terribly serious crime. They may involve moral turpitude, but strictly criminal activity. But cohabiting with underage girls is a crime – in most countries in the world, even in India. Was Puri suggesting that his alliance with underage girls was something to be proud of? That his friends were jealous of Puri’s ‘good fortune’?
The statements made it abundantly clear that both Puri and his friends were sick in the mind; that they were not fit to hold any public office. It was also sad to find a government talking about protecting the dignity of women, when many legislators had treated women almost like sex toys.
Blunders galore
Then there were other blunders. These got magnified when the prime minister warned people about an economic crisis that would hit them (
). He asked them to stop buying gold, and to reduce their consumption of edible oil and vehicle fuels. He advised school students to work from home. He claimed that the Middle East war was the cause for the coming crisis (https://www.ft.com/content/15792738-3b67-4c21-859e-12f1aafa822d?syn-25a6b1a6=1) .
But the real reasons for the crisis lay elsewhere.
Obviously, India’s petroleum minister was busy doing other things than focussing on building the strategic oil and gas reserves in India. As against a recommended three months’ strategic reserves, India had only 9.5 days’ reserves. Not surprisingly, when the crisis came, and the tide ran out, India was found to be swimming naked.
Ditto with India’s inability to produce fertilisers at home, and instead depending overmuch on imports. And while the prime minister exhorted Indian farmers to switch to organic manure, his ministry tried to downplay the fertiliser crisis.
Yet, on 18 May, India’s PIB came out with information (
) on social media (but not as a press release) showing Aparna S. Sharma, additional secretary, ministry of Chemicals & fertilisers. She is quoted as saying that more than 51% of total fertiliser demand was available for the kharif season and that additional fertilisers had already reached India’s shores. She was implying that the situation was not dire, but that the subsidy bill would go up. Once again, the government was trying to cover up its insufficient planning. It had focussed on ideological issues, on changing names of cities, and on pushing its Hindutva agenda, rather than focussing on economic issues.
Thus, even while the PM was talking about the impending crisis, his economy managers were trying to soothe fears.
The economic mess
That lack of planning resulted in the trade deficit shooting up. The government now admits that its subsidy bill would go up.
Its flawed policies ensured that India’s inward FDI kept declining even while outward FDI kept soaring. Result: India was being pushed into negative territory as far as FDI was concerned. Interestingly, the RBI has stopped giving out data on outward FDI. It prefers to provide data on FDI inflows only. The process of whitewashing has crept into the country’s central bank as well.
As Kaushik Basu, former chief economic advisor to the Indian government put it, “It’s time to move away from politics to actual policy. The Indian rupee lost 11.2% vis-a-vis the US$ over last year. This is not just because of war. Net foreign direct investment to India has been near 0 over 22 months. Left unchecked, this will cause inflation to rise” (https://www.businesstoday.in/india/story/not-just-because-of-the-war-economist-kaushik-basu-cautions-as-rupee-falls-to-96-25-531935-2026-05-18).
The Indian rupee continued its downward fall.
The gold blunder
India’s gold policy contributed to the rupee weakness. After reducing import duties in 2021 and then in 2024, the government suddenly decided to increase import duties to 15%.
Effectively, India was rendered vulnerable to even more smuggling in of gold (
).
Worse, India has opened up channels for the smuggling in of illicit arms and drugs.
What the government does not realise is that stanching gold demand in India is extremely difficult, given cultural and sentimental practices. And the age-old realisation that gold remains the best hedge against inflation. The arrest of seven people who were smuggling in AK-47s and drones into Mizoram, and training rebels in the use of drones was the proof of this actually happening. Everyone knows that India is headed for big time inflation because of flawed economic policies of the government.
So, while gold will now come to India through smugglers, it will accelerate the inflow of clandestine arms and insurrection – spurred on primarily by the ideology driven moves of BJP ruled states.
Expect that to bleed India even more excessively. If not checked immediately, it will push the country towards fragmentation.
FTAs under scrutiny
All of a sudden, almost every achievement that the government tried to take credit for came under intense scrutiny. One of them is the manner in which the government has entered into Free Trade agreements (FTAs). These FTAs were meant to make India stronger and boost its export potential. On the contrary, they have ended up weakening India.
According to a reply by the government on 20 March 2026 in the Rajya Sabha (https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/270/AU3236_bCcoVv.pdf?source=pqars&utm_source=copilot.com -- in case the government has moved the location of this document, you can source it from https://asiaconverge.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-03-20_Rajya-Sabha_FTAs.pdf ): “India has signed 16 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with its trade partners, six of which are signed in (the) last five years . . . In addition, FTA negotiations with New Zealand and the European Union have been concluded on 22nd December 2025 and 27th January 2026 respectively.”
Go through the list, and you will find countries which want little from India but desperately want India to purchase goods from them. Consider the way in which India has tried to find one excuse or the other to enter into an FTA with New Zealand, even though it was aware that this country was determined to wreck India’s dairy sector (https://asiaconverge.com/2019/08/indian-bureaucrats-almost-shortsold-the-milk-industry-at-fta-cpec-negotiations/). Is it then any surprise that India’s net FDI is turning negative?
Belatedly, India’s commerce minister, began talking about how FTAs must drive exports, not just imports (https://www.business-standard.com/economy/news/ftas-must-drive-exports-not-just-imports-commerce-minister-piyush-goyal-126051901549_1.html). But what do you do with the FTAs that have already been signed?
In fact, of all the FTAs, one of the few that have driven exports from India is the UAE (https://www.business-standard.com/economy/analysis/datanomics-modi-s-visit-may-further-boost-trade-ties-with-five-countries-126051901308_1.html). But that may also come undone, because the UAE made the mistake of allowing the US to stage wards on Iran from its territory. That in turn provoked Iran and its partners to attack UAE’s oil fields, crippling its oil production and exports. According to informed sources (20:01 to 20:10 from
), oil production has dropped from around 5 million barrels a day to just around 500,000 barrels.
Yet, India will continue to nurture good ties with the UAE for several reasons. One is the number of Indians who work there. Second is because UAE is close to Israel. India is wedded to Israel -- not merely because of its defence requirements, but because of its anti-Islam stand. The close ties between UAE and Israel have upset many gulf states – including Iran. There is a real danger of this country being attacked once again.
Ideology drives India
Sadly, India continues to be driven by ideology. That explains why it has persisted with its cattle slaughter ban even though there is enough data showing how it has weakened the states where gau-rakshak vigilantes have wreaked havoc. Northern states that have espoused the cattle slaughter laws have performed poorly in milk production, compared to states which rejected such ideological moves (https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/dairy-ruminations-that-make-little).
That also explains why it stupidly removed Mughal history from school textbooks, and why it persists on changing the names of roads that are in the memory of Muslim rulers (https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/the-one-eyed-vision-of-ncert). It has usually picked up vice chancellors on the basis of ideology. That in turn has weakened the academic discipline of most educational institutions. It refuses to get compared with educational standards of other countries by avoiding participation at PISA score tests (https://asiaconverge.com/2023/12/is-india-scared-of-the-pisa-truth/).
It has also corroded the educational testing centres.
That, to a very great extent, explains the rot in the conduct of examinations and the leakage of examination question papers. The manner in which examiners and key recruitments to the National Testing Agency (NTA) had been done – ostensibly for reasons other than pure merit – resulted in examination paper leakages.
The rot had obviously crept even into the premier investigation agency of the country – the CBI. The high court asked it to explain why it had chosen the close investigations into a similar paper leak in 2024 (https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/delhi-court-questions-cbi-closure-of-2024-ugc-net-paper-leak-case-amid-neet-controversy)
Finally, all the chickens are coming home to roost.
India’s politicians forgot that global clout comes only with economic strength, not just the number of people present at rallies. Global strength also depends on respecting merit, not mere ideology.
That explains why the prime minister of India did not dare meet members of the media who would have asked him sharp and embarrassing questions.
The crisis manifests itself in other ways too. Real estate sales have gone down, especially for affordable housing. Key spokespersons for this sector bemoan the huge setback India has experienced.
The government is on the run today because of the sharp downturn in economic performance. As unemployment rears its head even higher, and as inflation begins to hurt the purses of the middle class, there could be a whiplash of fury against the government.
Almost all border states are already on fire, with signs of insurrection clearly visible in states like Mizoram, Manipur and Jammu & Kashmir (https://asiaconverge.com/2026/04/india-embraces-russia/).
Can India rebound?
Yes, it can. But only if it takes remedial measures.
One way out is to rush investments into the country in huge dollops on an emergency basis. That will create jobs, wealth, and rekindle aspirations of the youth who see a bleak future.
Another way would be to abjure ideology. The latter will ease the plight of farmers. It will also usher in social harmony. Resultantly, the country can refocus its efforts on strengthening the economy.
Ideally both are needed.
Unless that is done, the country and its policy makers will be forced to run away from one battlefield after another. More blood could be shed. And more little fires of insurrection might become a huge blaze.
That is not what India should ever be allowed to become. It deserves better. It has huge potential. Someone must tell its policymakers not to sabotage the country with ideology.
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Do watch our latest podcast on why blockading Iran is difficult if not impossible. You can find it at
=============
Do watch our podcast on how India’s policies could make gold a nightmare --
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WE have a conversation with Parjanya and Lt Col Sodhi on India’s security and its neighbourhood. You will find it at
=============
Do also view the video telecast by Republic TV carrying my views on the Xi Jinping and Vladmir Putin. You can find it at
==========
Finally, do view our News Behind the News at
- India admits crisis amidst several blunders
- Collusion, corruption drive NEET to destroy student careers
- Fingers crossed as the US weighs options over Iran
==================Modi, panic, social harmony, ideology, economy, policy, Norway, Netherlands, Dutch, Helle Lyng, Hostage crisis, Manipur, Mizoram, wholesale inflation, inflation, Niranjan Hiranandani, housing, real estate, insurrection, jammu & kashmir, Ladakh, Middle east war, gold, Investigation, CBI, NEET, NEET paper leak, education, NTA, UAE, Milk production, FTA, exports, cattle slaughter, FDI, import duty, rupee fall, PIB, fertilisers, oil reserves, Epstein Files, Hardeep Singh Puri,
What's that India and Indians have got from the PM's recent worldwide trip? Price rise!?