Drama in real life. The throbbing world of Narendra Modi’s followers on social media — 53.3 million on Twitter, 44 million on Facebook, 35.2 million on Instagram and 32 million on the official Twitter handle of the prime minister’s office — resonated with the agonized hashtag “NoSir” when the prime minister declared his wish to give up social media. Then he took one step back. Whether that was out of compassion for the stricken millions for whom his presence on social media is as necessary as that of the sun in the sky or because he or his bosom friends had thought up a brilliant idea that would profit him without his having to surrender his social media presence is not clear. Mr Modi decided to “give” his social media accounts for one day — March 8, International Women’s Day, today — to inspiring women whose message may mobilize millions. To facilitate this, people have been asked to identify women who are inspiring in their life and work under the Twitter hashtag, “SheInspiresUs”.

Once the immeasurable condescension in the prime minister’s plan to “give away” his social media accounts to women who will need them to communicate with Mr Modi’s millions is put aside, it has to be said that the idea is itself uniquely inspiring. It has a beautiful, rousing effect. Mr Modi and his image managers should be given the award for the world’s greatest and most original creators of publicity drama. They can draw a dazzling screen over anything — women left widowed, homeless, childless, fatherless in northeastern Delhi, girls fearlessly facing rampaging goons and baton-wielding policemen in their places of study, women killed or imprisoned for speaking their mind or for standing up for the rights of the poor, the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party has the largest number of legislators facing trial for crimes against women, that crimes against women jumped, reportedly, by 83 per cent from 2007 to 2016, with four cases of rape every hour, that in 2018 the Thomson Reuters Foundation reported India to be the most dangerous country for women in the world, and the list could go on. It is clear, however, from Mr Modi’s philanthropic announcement that he is not put off by such negative representations. There are surely enough inspiring women still left alive and sexually unmolested who will be willing to lend their voices to their prime minister’s social media accounts.

And who would the prime minister consider inspiring? Not the women of Shaheen Bag, evidently, or any of their like spending night after night on streets and squares across the country to show their own government, peacefully, that they belong. They inspire numberless Indians and people of many nationalities the world over, but they have not succeeded in getting Mr Modi to accept their invitation to come and see them. But it would be safest to be inspired by the prime minister’s choices — or else...