During the darkest days of India’s COVID-19 crisis, a familiar chorus rose from India’s journalist-activist-celebrity complex. While Indian families struggled through lockdowns and oxygen shortages, a certain class of Indian commentators found time to look longingly at New Zealand and ask: Why can’t we have her?
Rajdeep Sardesai of India Today asked his followers: “When will India get its Jacinda? Or are we stuck with our lot?”
Sumanth Raman tweeted: “Hey New Zealand, can you lend us @jacindaardern for a few months to help us deal with #COVID19?”
Rana Ayyub wrote an entire piece declaring: “New Zealand’s Prime Minister May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet,” gushing that “Jacinda Ardern’s leadership style, focused on empathy, isn’t just resonating with her people; it’s putting the country on track for success against the coronavirus.”
Ashok Swain thundered: “Jacinda Ardern’s moral clarity is inspiring the world – particularly when the world has been suffering from right-wing strongmen like Trump, Viktor Orban and Modi of India, whose careers thrive on illiberal, anti-Muslim rhetoric.”
William Dalrymple called her “the progressive antithesis to right-wing strongmen like Trump, Orban and Modi.”
Saba Naqvi called her “so special,” sharing images of Ardern wearing a headscarf.
Sayema wrote: “The reason why the PM of New Zealand and other voices of love wore a headscarf. And if anybody has a doubt still, you really need to first understand what love and compassion are all about.”
Prashant Bhushan connected her Labour party’s victory to a global trend, declaring: “No doubt it will soon happen in India too.”
Jacinda Arden destroyed New Zealand’s economy with her extended lockdown due to the mishandling of Covid19 crisis.
Today abandoned her own nation and fled from there.And some journalists and intellectuals in India wanted her to replace Narendra Modi as PM of India https://t.co/vNftu1mvvu pic.twitter.com/nCOO2x6nDf
— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) March 8, 2026
These people did not just admire Jacinda Ardern. They held her up as a living rebuke of Narendra Modi who in their view, was too backward and too right-wing to deserve.
That Was Then. This Is Now.
Jacinda Ardern has left New Zealand.
She and her family have relocated to Sydney, Australia – spotted house-hunting in the city’s affluent northern beaches. The woman India’s liberal elite wanted as their Prime Minister has voted with her feet against the country she governed.
She is not alone. Over the past four years, the number of New Zealanders aged 30-50 emigrating has more than doubled, from 18,000 to 43,000 annually. In the year ending November 2025, nearly 122,000 people emigrated from New Zealand. Nurses, teachers, police officers, engineers, the backbone of the country, are leaving in near-record numbers. Almost 60% are heading to Australia, where median weekly income is 37% higher than in New Zealand.
New Zealand’s housing market has crashed, with Wellington prices down nearly 30% since January 2022. Unemployment has hit a decade high. The economy recorded negative growth in the year to September 2025. The country’s population growth is at its slowest in 12 years.
This is the legacy of the woman Rajdeep Sardesai & Sumanth Raman wanted India to import.
The Silence Is Deafening
Rajdeep Sardesai, who asked “When will India get its Jacinda?” – does he have any questions about why Jacinda herself no longer wants to be in New Zealand?
Rana Ayyub, who called her “the most effective leader on the planet” – does she have any curiosity about what this most effective leader’s policies did to New Zealand’s economy?
Ashok Swain, who invoked her name to attack Modi – is he writing about the 43,000 mid-career New Zealanders who are fleeing annually?
Sumanth Raman, who asked New Zealand to lend her to India – does he want her now? She is available. She is, in fact, already looking for a new home.
The answer, of course, is no. None of them are writing about this. None of them are asking these questions. Because the Jacinda Ardern project was never about New Zealand. It was never about governance, or economic outcomes, or the welfare of actual citizens. It was a political weapon – assembled and aimed exclusively at Narendra Modi and the Indian electorate that kept returning him to power.
The moment she ceased to be useful as a weapon, she ceased to exist in their commentary.
What She Actually Left Behind
A CNN report that broke the news of Ardern’s move to Sydney also documented what Ardern’s New Zealand looks like today:
- A family relocated to Melbourne because the father’s data engineering salary jumped 50% in Australia
- Weekly groceries in Australia cost $267 vs $400 in New Zealand
- Fuel and public transport 40% cheaper in Australia
- GP visits 25% cheaper, with same-day appointments replacing week-long waits in New Zealand
- Unemployment at 5.4% in New Zealand vs 4.2% in Australia
- Median full-time weekly income: $912 in New Zealand vs $1,451 in Australia
This is the “most effective leadership on the planet” in action. Families selling everything they own to escape to Australia. A prime minister who governed with “empathy and moral clarity” now herself joining the exodus she presided over.
Every single leftist liberal used Ardern not to celebrate good governance, but to delegitimise Indian democracy and the Hindu nationalist voter.
They praised her headscarf. They praised her “empathy.” They praised her because she was not Modi. That was the entire content of their admiration.
And now the woman they wanted as India’s Prime Minister has abandoned the country she governed – quietly, without fanfare, without any of her Indian admirers marking the occasion with even a fraction of the energy they spent lionising her during lockdown.
India under Modi, the country these commentators called ungovernable, illiberal and anti-Muslim, is today one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. Its citizens are not fleeing in record numbers. Its mid-career professionals are not selling their homes to move abroad for a 50% salary increase they cannot find at home.
New Zealand under Ardern, the country these same commentators held up as the ideal, is hemorrhaging its own people at near-record pace, its former Prime Minister included.
Subscribe to our channels on Telegram, WhatsApp, and Instagram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.
