Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave an interview to Deepak Chaurasia and Peenaz Tyagi of News Nation on May 11 but, unlike other recent interviews, this one was a little different. It was different because Modi made a few crucial errors while talking to them and ended up revealing some inconsistencies in his personal narrative.

Modi has this habit of indulging in self-aggrandisement and lying about the simplest of things. Things that he doesn’t even really need to lie about. This tendency was on full display during a casual sequence in the interview where he had to read out a poem. At one point, Deepak Chaurasia asked him, “I remember Manali today … I want to ask Narendra Modi if he has written anything (a poem) in the last 5 years.”

Modi is like, “Yes, yes. I wrote one today only. It’s in my file somewhere.”

“It’s a coincidence that I mentioned Manali today,” clarified Chaurasia, for some odd reason. Modi extended his hand and said, “Mind you, this is rough. I have written this in tedhe-medhe (topsy-turvy) handwriting.”

Both the interviewers urge him to show his untidy handwriting to the viewers, because maybe they thought it would add to his personal street-cred or something, but Modi said the audience wouldn’t like it. Then, he went on to read the poem.

At one point while this is happening, the camera fixated on the papers in Modi’s hand and, well, it was a printout.

Not just that, it even had Chaurasia’s question on top. News Nation, probably unknowingly, ended up exposing the ability of Narendra Modi to flawlessly lie about even a simple thing like writing a poem. Modi could have said, “Yes, I have written something and I have got it for you here. Get the printouts boys!” But nope. He had to turn it into a show about how random thoughts were casually scribbled onto a piece of paper, inspired by the mountains of Himachal Pradesh.

This tendency to weave lies out of nothing was on full display in different points through the interview. Another instance is when Chaurasia randomly asked him, “Do you keep a money purse on you?” No idea why that is relevant but it’s a casual enough question which should get a casual enough answer. Modi had to turn it into a thing.

He responded saying, “I didn’t have money before so I never felt the need to keep a purse. Something needs to be there to keep in the purse, right?” He then added, “I had no income before I joined the government.” Chaurasia clarified whether this was before 2001, when he became the CM of Gujarat and Modi said, yes.

According to Modi, the officials opened a bank account for him after he joined the government. Now he gives money to his staff for purchasing general provisions. “I have nothing in my pockets,” he said. This is the answer which made me do a double-take. Narendra Modi is currently 68 years old and in 2001 he was 50 years old. He just plainly admitted that he had no source of income till the age of 50?

For a normal person, someone who gets out of college and starts job hunting in their 20s, it’s quite incredulous to think that our current Prime Minister did no such thing till the age of 50. Modi was working for the ‘sangathan’, which is the RSS, and the party before he was hand-picked to be the Chief Minister of Gujarat. He probably received money from the leaders and the party before that, as most party workers do. To say that he had no source of income is unbelievable, to say the least.

Further building on this point, he even spoke about how he owned, perhaps, India’s first digital camera in 1987-88. For some bizarre reason, he added to that saying, “Very few people had email during that time.” Then he goes on to spin the tale of how he took a picture of LK Advani and “transmitted” it to Delhi, which was then printed in colour a day later.

Much fact-checking has already been done about this and people have pointed out that the first digital camera was sold by Nikon in 1987 and commercial emails were introduced in 1990-95. So let’s not get into that. But the larger point here, again, is how is he doing all this without any income? Did the RSS gift high-tech cameras to him and also gave him access to a future technology that was yet to be discovered?

He didn’t stop there because of course not. Modi went on to claim that he had a touch-screen tablet in the 1990s. According to Modi, this is a technology which he was using back then and something that’s commonly available now. Alright, again, how could he afford a touch screen device in the 90s when he is supposed to be a poor homeless party worker who was sleeping in Mandirs & garages across the country? It’s anybody’s guess why he felt the need to tell these inconsistent stories during the interview when he could have easily avoided those questions.

It was still okay till the point when he was telling stories about himself, but when it moves on to include matters of national security, it should worry everyone.

The interviewers asked Modi if he slept during the night of the air-strikes on Pakistan. It was a trigger for the Prime Minister to start this long-winded uninterrupted narrative of how the events unfolded on that particular night.

Sample this roughly transcribed and translated reproduction of that story:

I did the inauguration of the war memorial and came back by 9 pm. The weather was bad that night … I am surprised that all these pundits curse me and all but their brains didn’t work regarding this … At 12, it was cloudy so I was like will we be able to go? The general opinion at that time was that the date should be changed … I thought we should have secrecy. Second, I thought I don’t know this science and all, but there is cloud and rain, so it’s a benefit we’ll be saved from the radar. Everyone was confused. I said ultimately, cloud is there so let’s go. At 1.30, we started the movement. 2.55 was the best time. The satellite needs to be in position. 3.20 I got a report that everything went well.

Seeing this, two things come to mind. First, he admits he didn’t have the knowledge about anything related to flying fighter jets in a storm and dropping bombs. Modi still thought that he was the best person to decide the course of action. Second, the opinion from the armed forces and advisors was that the date should be postponed but he went ahead because of a flawed logic of being hidden from the radar. This is all by his own admission.

This whole story, if true, points towards an extremely dangerous tendency of ignoring people with the know-how and going ahead with a crucial decision which had the possibility of pushing two nations into a state of nuclear escalation. I really hope that this story is just made up and not true. In all of this, the fact that the air-strikes worked out with nil casualties from our end is, in fact, a fortunate occurrence.

Finally, there is something to be said about Deepak Chaurasia and Peenaz Tyagi’s interview attempt. It’s clear, seeing that printed poem page, that this was a scripted interview. But throughout the interview, Modi kept blaming the media for not doing their job, for giving undue attention to the Opposition and basically just being useless in general. None of the tall claims made by the PM were challenged or counter-questions asked.

Just moving on from one question to the other, casually. At one point, while talking about the Congress, Modi said, “All credit to you media people … Ruining my image is their (Congress’) objective, this should have been a point of discussion. But you people are helping them…”

And this was the reaction of both the interviewers.

Just a forced smile and a subtle nod. Says a lot about the state of our current media.

Their faces seem to be saying: #AayegaTohMudiHi