Let’s be very clear about one thing: the one person the Pakistani security apparatus wants in a powerful position in India is already there, installed as Prime Minister. If there’s one regime that sundry Islamist groups hope will continue to rule India, it is the BJP government that’s currently in power. The last thing the evil jodi of Inter-Services Intelligence-jihadis want is for someone to come to power in Delhi who will reduce the temperature of hatred between India and Pakistan, a government that might actually partner progressive Pakistani politicians to start dealing with the huge real issues that face the massive population of the poor in the subcontinent. Were this genuine cooperation to happen even in a small measure, it would begin to make the Pakistani Army and security establishment peripheral to the running of Pakistan; it would increasingly make the jihadis outcasts among their own people.
The Materazzi manoeuvre
No, a bunch of of superannuated politicians, diplomats, journalists, and a general discussing the future of our two countries over some scotch and kababs in a Lutyens bungalow is in no way a security threat to India. And Ahmed Patel running Gujarat for five years might not have been a bad thing either, not that the Congress headquarters was going do without his Machiavellian talents for a minute. Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows all this better than most people, but he doesn’t care. Mr. Modi’s relationship with truth can best be described as one with an ex-spouse: perhaps he had a brief, unhappy dalliance with truth once and didn’t find it useful, and so truth languishes and he only meets it when he has to, which is not very often.
Let’s leave aside the political profit that Mr. Modi may or may not have garnered from the false accusation he made against Manmohan Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar. Instead, let’s examine his statement for the cultural trait that it is. This was a classic bully’s manoeuvre which we’ve all seen from our schooldays. Remember, the bully doesn’t always use his physical bulk in isolation; he deploys it in tandem with lies and cunning. So, for instance, the bully might hit you when teachers aren’t looking, but he may also taunt and needle you into retaliating just as the teacher walks into class — “Look sir, he’s hitting me!” We can perhaps call this the Materazzi Manoeuvre after the devious Italian football defender who managed to get Zinedine Zidane to headbutt him in the 2006 World Cup final, resulting in Zidane getting sent off and France losing the cup to Italy. Physically, Materazzi was no smaller than Zidane. He was one of the most vicious defenders in the game, but when it really mattered he used his brain to get Zidane to lose his head. Now, I don’t mean to compare the pompous and unwise Mani Shankar Aiyar to the great poet of football, Zidane, but the difference between Mr. Modi and Materazzi is minimal. Mr. Modi knew that all he had to do was throw some mud at Mr. Aiyar and he would get a reaction. He didn’t know what the reaction would be, but he was ready to grab it and run with it. The initial accusation, an absurd lie, was forgotten, while Mr. Aiyar’s clumsy bobble of the Hindi language was capitalised on.
While he’s a master at twisting the truth, Mr. Modi has hardly invented the art. We see this behaviour in everyone from sportsmen to street thugs, from society ladies to the loud man who has rammed his SUV into an autorickshaw and who starts beating and blaming the poor autorickshaw driver for the accident. Coupled with the provocative lies comes the retaliatory barrage of insults where you just don’t let the other person speak or reply to your invective. For an example of this, watch BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra debate with former president of the JNU Students’ Union Kanhaiya Kumar on YouTube.
Nothing surprising
What is most surprising is that otherwise sensible people have expressed shock that Mr. Modi could stoop so low. There was actually no surprise in this at all. This is exactly the kind of man and ‘culture’ we ushered into power in 2014. Mr. Modi was in such form long before he took oath as Prime Minister. He had never been particularly original in his thoughts or tactics, but once he had decided which playbook to steal, we knew he would stick with it.
