Can all Indians be fooled all the time?

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi's approval ratings have fallen to a new low, a survey showed on Tuesday, as the country struggles to contain a devastating second wave of the coronavirus pandemic," "according to US data intelligence company Morning Consult's tracker of a dozen global leaders", Business Today.  Although Modi's ratings have fallen 25 points, they are still at 63%, highest among 13 leaders tracked by Morning Consult. Coming in towards the bottom of the chart are Emmanuel Macron of France, Moon Jae-In of South Korea and Pedro Sanchez of Spain, all on about 35%, while Yoshihide Suga of Japan comes in last on 29%. Modi is the most popular leader despite tens of thousands dying in the recent wave of coronavirus infections so that Seemapuri crematorium in Delhi had to build new pyres in its car park, CNN. "India's holiest river, the Ganges, has been swollen with bodies in recent days," BBC. "Hundreds of corpses have been found floating in the river or buried in the sand of its banks." People are becoming bankrupt. "India's second wave of the coronavirus has not only created shortages of oxygen, medicines and hospital beds, but also of wood for funeral pyres, hearses and crematorium slots, forcing people to pay exorbitant amounts to perform the last rites of loved ones," Hindustan Times (HT). Well known journalist Barkha Dutt lost her father. When she reached the crematorium, "At least three other families had been given the same token number for a cremation at the same time. An argument ensued, a fight erupted, my sister had to call the police for help," HT. The BBC described the timeline of 59-year old Anoop Saxena's first symptoms on 29 April to his death on 3 May, and his family's desperate struggles, from getting tests to finding oxygen and a hospital bed, and then having to rush home just as he died because Anoop's wife was deteriorating. So, why is Modi still so popular? Firstly, he has a cult following of extremely fanatical followers known as 'Bhakts', which means 'devotees', who will defend him ferociously, no matter how egregious Modi's actions. Secondly, Modi and his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) brazenly deny any culpability in the surge of infections and deaths due to lack of vaccines, oxygen and hospital beds. "At a time when India is at war with a virulent second wave of Covid-19, Prime Minister Modi and his team are busy battling not the virus, but voices that seek to critique them, or as much as give them feedback," The Print. "Essentially, two things have defined Modi government's responses during the second Covid wave -- a desperate attempt to whitewash its image and making offence your tool of choice." In Modi's home state of Gujarat, editor of the local newspaper Sandesh decided to investigate how many patients were dying of Covid. "On the night of 16 April, the journalists drove 150 km (93 miles) around Ahmedabad and visited 21 cremation grounds. There they counted body bags and pyres, examined registers, spoke to cremation workers, looked at 'slips' which assigned the cause of death, and took photographs and recorded videos," BBC. "At the end of the night the team had counted more than 200 bodies. But the next day, Ahmedabad counted only 25 deaths." In Gujarat, "Divya Bhaskar reported that local bodies issued 123,871 death certificates between March 1 and May 10, compared to 58,000 in the same period last year," HT. An increase of 65,871, while in the same period only 4,218 deaths were officially assigned to Covid. "Around 300 top officials of the central government participated in a workshop entitled Effective Communications," so as to learn how to 'create a positive image of the government', manage 'perceptions through effectively highlighting positive stories and achievements', and making the government 'be seen to be sensitive, bold, quick, responsive, hard-working etc", HT. In short, a concentrated dose of jumla, The Print. What was it about fooling all the people all the time?