When Hitler got elected in Germany with a thumping majority, he sent a dictate instructing for his photographs to be displayed all over streets of Germany and classrooms of Germany. He encouraged mass participation of his public addresses in every manner possible.

Is our Prime Minister Narendra Modi influenced with this leadership style? He has issued a dictate for his Teacher’s day speech to be telecast live and made it MANDATORY for every school student to watch it. “Where there are no television sets, we have asked to hire TV sets, and where there is no possibility of electricity, we have asked to arrange generators for that day,” a senior ministry official said. 52 news channels, radio, FM channels would broadcast the programme. The EDUSAT system, wherever available, will be utilized. Websites of the HRD Ministry and all state governments’ education departments will stream the programme. Every mode of electronic communication is going to be utilised to show the PM’s programme to every school-going child in the country. And top sources have also reported to have said that the PMO has informally directed that it would like to have data on the programme’s viewership!

Clearly seems to be a strategy to include mass participation. But giving students no choice but to listen to him, how fair is that? What kind of democracy are we talking of? No Prime Minister in the history of independent India has ever demonstrated such dictatorship. Acche din aa gaye hain?!