Delusions of grandeur are undesirable. Unfortunately, the prime minister seems to be particularly vulnerable to such flights of fancy. His comment on the ‘success’ of India’s attempts to evacuate its students in war-torn Ukraine is a case in point. Narendra Modi has stated that the evacuation operation is a hallmark of India’s rising influence around the world. The truth is ‘Operation Ganga’, now in its last leg, could have been a smoother exercise for its intended beneficiaries — Indian students — if Mr Modi’s government had been awake to the gravity of the situation in the first place. Most students have complained that Indian embassy officials were far from fleet-footed when it came to issuing clear advisories. That is because unlike other nations, India’s directives to the student community to leave Ukraine before the conflict began were ambiguous at best. This led to countless entrapped students — is the Centre certain about their exact number — suffering shortages in basic amenities and, on occasions, even racial discrimination. Survival and, indeed, escape were often possible not because of Mr Modi’s mission but because of individual expertise: a group of medical students from Bengal, left to fend for themselves by the Indian authorities, received help from their senior peers. Shockingly, there were even attempts from members of the establishment to denigrate the stranded students. A Union minister attacked their merit, remarking, caustically, that an overwhelming number of these students fail to clear Indian medical examinations, even though estimates suggest that more than 80 per cent of applicants cannot afford private medical seats. The issue, clearly, is one of finances — not merit. The multiple failures notwithstanding, Mr Modi and his colleagues did not desist from turning the rescue operations into a political exercise. Several ministers rushed to greet the rescued students and remind them of the benevolence of the government.

Operation Ganga is a classic example of this government’s reliance on the perverse power of spin to conceal its own deficiencies. First, it failed to correctly read the fluid situation in Ukraine. Then, when war broke out, its guidance to Indian citizens left a lot to be desired. Now, it is using propaganda, with an eye on domestic elections, to brush up its battered image. But then, the line between public service and public relations was never meant to hold under Mr Modi’s regime.