Two scenes, of men crying, have been received in contrary ways in the landscape of contemporary Indian politics and, indeed, media. In the wake of India's catastrophic pandemic, a growing political criticism targeted India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, for his complicity in spreading the virus by agreeing to huge religious congregations for a pilgrimage in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand and overseeing unmasked audiences gathered to see him during mass election rallies in West Bengal. His party trod nervously among constituencies ravaged by disease and death. Their public relations advisory urged the cultivation of empathy in their dealings with bereaved families, clearly something which did not come naturally to a party exercising brute majorities in parliament for whom a bullying and punitive approach to any opposition had become commonplace. While criticism mounted, Modi's silence became deafening. A politician known for his gift for colloquial utterance and using radio and television to address audiences directly and with the appearance by turns of intimacy and authority, Modi was starved of words. Finally, when he came to address the nation, he cried. It was not a great performance (Figure 7.1). And, at least in a sector of public opinion, it was openly derided, one of his opponents, Rahul Gandhi, lampooning the effort as crocodile tears.