On Tuesday Narendra Modi pleaded unsuccessfully over the telephone with Australia's prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, not to starve Indians of work by abolishing or drastically overhauling what they call the 475 visa. Obviously, their companionable squatting on the steps of the Akshardham Temple last month was only another meaningless photo-op thought up by the spin doctors. On Wednesday, Modi was anointed " rashtra rishi" in the expensively refurbished Kedarnath Temple when he also promised to popularize ayurveda and yoga. Juvenal's Rome provided citizens with both free wheat (the populist politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus started the Annona or grain dole in 123 BC) and elaborate games and other entertainment. Today's refinement on that ancient strategy is to regale with circuses those who can't seek their bread in Australia, Britain or the United States of America.

Another juxtaposition invites linking and interpretation. The South Asia Satellite, India's Rs 450-crore gift to all neighbouring countries save an ungracious Pakistan which predictably looked the gift horse in the mouth, to convince them of the wisdom of the " sabka sath, sabka vikas" slogan is being launched this week. There is every reason to be proud of New Delhi's generosity as well as of the Indian Space Research Organisation's expertise. But could the money and skill not have been better spent not on improving - that might be too much to ask - but at least ensuring that some of the services that were introduced when India was what Modi calls "a slave country" do not collapse altogether under his rule? I have in mind the old Posts and Telegraphs Department on which has been bestowed the fancy name India Post. It seems to be hurtling towards annihilation for all that it boasts of managing the world's most widely distributed postal system with nearly 5,00,000 employees and an annual revenue of some Rs 12,400 crore.

I have just received a notice that DLF Limited, India's largest commercial real estate developer, posted in Gurgaon eight weeks ago on February 6. It mentions a March 15 deadline which I missed for no fault of mine but for which I must pay a penalty. There would have been a just remedy in a country with governance - as opposed to government which is a creature of self-serving politics - but India is more concerned with weightier matters like lynching suspected beef-eaters and promoting a bushy-bearded red-robed operator's commercial ventures. The DLF notice isn't an isolated case. All mail is inordinately delayed nowadays. I had to write to a distinguished academic in Delhi on April 3, "Such is the state of the postal system in 'Digital India' that the greetings card you very kindly sent me reached my house only today! Three other Christmas/New Year cards were delivered two weeks ago. One was posted in England in early December, the other two in Calcutta a little later... I wish we as a nation would not try to sprint while forgetting to walk." Friends have since suggested that mail celebrating Christmas may be deliberately delayed. Malice aforethought seems a trifle far-fetched but given the new bias and the general level of inefficiency, Christmas/New Year cards cannot expect timely handling.

Frustration with governments that don't govern finds many forms of expression, including religious exuberance. Mamata Banerjee's first response to the Ram Navami processions was to organize a rival Hanuman puja. Possibly realizing since then that Bengali discontent demands a substantive and not symbolic response (especially since neither festival is particularly rooted in Bengal while processions with weapons are even less so), she has since taken more realistic steps to promote English-medium primary education. It will be a long haul but if Nadia district's constructive experiment is repeated throughout the state, Bengali youth may not need to tramp in the wake of the lumpen proletariat that elsewhere in the country wallows in vahinis, dals and senas that exult in attacking dance halls and discos, molesting girls, and the particular form of goondaism called "cow vigilantism". Typically, Bharatiya Janata Party strategists are not interested in either the economic challenges Banerjee faces or her efforts to meet them. Whipping up religious fervour is their only interest.

If Modi drew a blank with Turnbull, Arun Jaitley may not have had better luck with the US treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, over H-1B visas which Donald Trump dismisses as "a cheap labour programme". A Washington Post article long ago called the system "indentured servitude". The American department of homeland security says that of the 3,15,857 H1-B visas granted in 2013-14, 2,20,286 went to Indians. Last year the Obama administration issued 1,26,000 H-1B visas to Indians. Most of the roughly 1,66,000 Indian students in the US are potential immigrants. While New Delhi keeps harping on how American companies and the US economy benefit from Indians, a senior US official accuses the top recipients of unfairly cornering the bulk of visas. Companies like Tata, Infosys and Cognizant are said to "apply for a very large number of visas, more than they get, by putting extra tickets in the lottery raffle... [to] get the lion's share of visas". Apparently, these three companies pay H-1B visa holders between $60,000 and $65,000 against the average Silicon Valley software engineer's $150,000 wage. Infosys has somewhat redeemed its standing in American eyes by promising to hire 10,000 Americans over the next two years. As for Australia, Turnbull can hardly be faulted for reiterating that "Australian workers must have priority for Australian jobs". According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Indians enjoy more than 25 per cent of the 95,000 work visas. New Zealand is also threatening to pull up its drawbridge, with the immigration minister, Michael Woodhouse, announcing "We are absolutely committed to the principle of kiwis first". Britain has already introduced curbs.

Opportunities abroad for skilled young Indians are shrinking. It says much for their courage and resilience that they are not daunted by the recent attack on an Indian priest in a Melbourne church in the same week as an Indian taxi driver was assaulted in Hobart or by a spate of hate crimes in the US. The alternative to braving the racist hazards of the Caucasian West is to starve in an India that equates governance with bombastic majoritarian tub-thumping and entertaining a succession of foreign dignitaries (15 in four months!) with foreign relations. A responsible leader's first duty is to the economic upliftment of his people. The diversionary tactics of ceaseless diplomatic junketing, extravagant statuary, wasteful satellites, traditional medicine and linguistic chauvinism indicate failure in that primary task. Demonetization has not had the slightest impact on terrorism in the "red corridor", Jammu and Kashmir, or from across the border.

Sadly, the rhetoric of Indian nationalism soars far beyond the facts of Indian life. Every claim and pronouncement seems tailored to obtain the maximum publicity and distract attention from unhappy realities like India slipping this year to 131st among 188 countries in the United Nations Development Programme's human development index, poverty driving at least 12,000 cultivators to take their own lives every year, or the sombre implications of the Bombay High Court decision in the Bilkis Bano case. As the push for Hindi that is the latest fashion narrows the scope for employment even further, the demand for vanishing 457 and H-1B visas will grow exponentially among young people. With more than half the population below 25 and more than 65 per cent under 35, the average age is likely to be 29 by 2020. It will make India the world's youngest country with 64 per cent of its population of working age. What will they work at? High unemployment in Kashmir where 60 per cent of the people are under 30 provides a grim warning that the circus of temples and statues is no substitute for bread.