On 2 September 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Bihar State Jeevika Nidhi Credit Cooperative Federation Limited through video conferencing. As feared, during the launch he did exactly what many had anticipated. Referring to an incident a week earlier, the Prime Minister said, “A mother is our world, a mother is our pride. What happened in Bihar a few days ago, I could never have imagined. From the RJD-Congress platform in Bihar, my mother was abused. These abuses are not just an insult to my mother, they are an insult to every mother, sister, and daughter of this nation.”
The Prime Minister was describing the incident of 28 August 2025 in Darbhanga, when after a public meeting ended, a pickup van driver climbed the stage and hurled abuses at him. The police arrested the driver within 24 hours.
Whether it is the Prime Minister or an ordinary citizen, no one should be subjected to abuse, threats, violence, or intrusion into their homes or workplaces. Yet, it is unfortunate that in India, quarrels often begin with abuses targeting mothers and sisters—even in police interrogations. Sometimes, even expressions of camaraderie or professional interactions start with such words. From Parliament to the streets to TV debates, we have heard leaders use abusive language. In such a context, for the Prime Minister to give so much importance to the words of a delinquent driver (who was already being dealt with by the police) reveals a weakness.
The Murders of Young Girls and the Silence
On the very day the Prime Minister was abused (28 August 2025), the body of a minor girl was found hanging from a tree in the Maner police station area of Patna. Her mother had died just days earlier and her father worked as a laborer in Hyderabad. The girl had gone to collect firewood near the Mehinawan Son embankment but never returned home.
On 27 August, in Patna’s Gardanibagh area, a fifth-grade girl was found burnt inside the toilet of the Amlatola Girls’ Middle School. These too were daughters and sisters. These incidents happened not in a remote village but in the capital city of Bihar. Yet, the Prime Minister did not utter a single word about them. If he could remember the insult hurled at him on 28 August in Darbhanga, how could he forget the deaths of these girls on 27 and 28 August?
On 2 September, while the Prime Minister was emotionally addressing the audience, tears were visible in the eyes of the Bihar BJP president and several women present. But why did they not hear the cries of Muzaffarpur’s Vibha Kumari, whose four-year-old daughter, Chandasi Kumari, was found dead in a field that same day? The child had left home on the morning of 1 September, telling her mother she was going to the Anganwadi, but never returned. Her father, Mintu Kumar, said he informed the police in the evening, but the child’s body was only found the next day, not far from her home. Prime Minister, the man who abused you was arrested within 24 hours, but Chandasi was only found 24 hours later as a corpse.
Neither the police nor politicians seem able to hear the voices of these girls. Such tragedies occur regularly. The question is: will leaders who grow emotional over insults ever show outrage over these brutal murders? Will there ever be a Bihar bandh or India bandh in their name?
A Political Weapon
On 13 November 2022, in Hyderabad, the Prime Minister had said: “People ask me, don’t you get tired? Yesterday morning I was in Delhi, then Karnataka, then Tamil Nadu, then at night in Andhra, and now in Telangana. I tell them, every day I consume two-and-a-half to three kilos of abuse, and God has made me in such a way that all this abuse gets converted into nutrition inside me.”
If earlier he claimed to draw energy from abuse, how has it now left him drained? This was not an election rally but a government event. Yet he said, “I know that the pain in my heart is shared equally by the people of Bihar. Today, as I bow before millions of mothers and sisters of Bihar, I share my sorrow with you… For them, power and the chair are their family’s inheritance. They believe only they deserve the throne. But you, the people of this nation, blessed the hardworking son of a poor mother to serve as your Prime Minister.”
By raising the issue of power and inheritance from the stage of a government scheme, he made clear the real purpose was Bihar elections. As part of this strategy, the BJP Mahila Morcha called for a Bihar bandh on 4 September.
The Prime Minister had also said in Hyderabad, “These people publish dictionaries of abuse against me. I tell BJP workers, don’t be saddened or angered by such remarks. Just enjoy them, drink good tea, and go to sleep with the hope that the lotus will bloom the next day.” Why did he not give his workers the same advice this time? Why turn insults to his mother into a weapon for political power?
During the bandh, the way BJP workers behaved with women exposed the hypocrisy. A woman teacher was mistreated on the road, a journalist was abused with “mother” slurs when asked to move aside for a photo, ambulances carrying pregnant women and buses carrying schoolchildren were stopped. When a journalist questioned the roughing up of a cyclist, Sonia Gandhi was called a bar dancer. The BJP, claiming to act in defense of women’s honor, was itself insulting women.
In politics, personal emotions are justified only when they serve the public good. When they become merely a weapon to consolidate power, it is moral decline. The question is whether, in democracy, leaders now exploit personal insults as a tool to escape their real responsibilities. If emotions are used in politics solely for electoral gain, not only does the level of language deteriorate, but the standards of politics collapse as well. That is why abusive speech has become commonplace from Parliament to the streets, including in many of the Prime Minister’s own statements.
Modi’s speech on 2 September is an example of using political and emotional sensitivities for electoral gain. He has turned personal slights into national discourse, making it a tradition. The cost of this tradition falls on ordinary citizens, as issues like unemployment, crime, education, and health are sidelined.
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