Narritivum

Since killing the idea of India wasn't bad enough, the PM-select has taken away my favourite thing. It is an element inferred, like dark matter. As the not-so-subtle teleological principle that permeates the chronicles from Discworld, it let me know that things work out, though not always as we foresee. The only thing us mere mortals need to know about narritivum is that it makes the million to one chance come through.

Yesterday's government has been accused of many things and it appears not even a million to one chance can save it. But its greatest fault, the one most germane to its impending loss, is the failure to recognise the power of a story well told. That is the essence of propaganda. And unlike its country cousin libel, truth is no defence against it.

Dear leader's manifest destiny has come to fruition. The money, hate, cadre, advertisements and salivating NRI techies are each a condition of possibility for the coming Utopia. None however, are a Necessary Condition. Mr. Modi recognises the importance of a story, and how beginnings determine ends. Terryda told me that narrative force is far more powerful than logic. It is here that the Man of Steel covered all his bases. He is both the return to a glorious past as well as the one to take us marching to modernity. He is the authoritarian centre as well as the federalist. He is the vegetarian butcher, the abstinent symbol of virility. In a million to one chance, he is both the million and the one.

Till recently, I thought Narritivum would save us. That when push comes to cliff we are not a people who had decency and open-ness foisted on us by the euro-centric generation of leaders responsible for the constitution. That in some deep part of us we are a decent society. And it is likely that we are.

That is why Mr Modi scares so many of us (most of 'us' are not muslims or christians). Not for what he will do as the head of government, but what he brings out in the people who elected him. Mr. Modi's Idea of India is not new. It is part of the earliest debates about who we are as a people. It is the worst of us - selfish, conservative, materialist and so so many things. An open society is a fragile thing and Mr. Modi's story has shattered it. Like the bile of a boozer long suppressed, the worst of it is on its way.

I hope I am wrong. That enough people still know what this country is and protect it. Or failing that, the next five years are the expectorant our diseased collective consciousness needs. 

Everything Wrong with Narendra Modi’s Speech in Delhi

1.     Apparently, as an RSS pracharak, he travelled without tickets. And the TTE is a venal cretin for not giving him a berth.

2.     “CWG  ne desh ka naam videsh mein kharaab kiya” – Of course genocide, state sponsored discrimination et al have really made an awesome impression among liberal democracies everywhere. He can’t even get a damn visa!

3.     If BJP comes to power in Delhi, all the multiple governments will vanish. So basically the MCD, the Delhi government and the centre shall be one.  Destroy division of power and federal structure - Fascist much, bitch?

4.     Ridiculously insensitive Sardar joke – 1

5.     China’s railway lines have grown at the twice the rate of India’s.  Well, it is four times the size, didn’t have anywhere near the kind of  railway system the British left us. Besides, numbers of trains, quality of stations, switching to better tracks all form part of railway infrastructure.

6.     He seems to think it’s a big secret that India is a poor country. No way Obama would have known if Manmohan hadn’t told him. Manmohan stands up for the pro people policies and marginal regulations to unhindered plunder, makes Obama agree and Modi thinks its bad diplomacy.
Can’t wait for his nuanced foreign policy. Clearly it’s a discourse of strength and virility for minorities and the poor at home, and bending over backwards for capital, both domestic and foreign.

7.     ‘Dehati Aurat.’ Dude, seriously?  Get your damn sources right. I don’t attribute Arnab Goswami quotes to you.

8.     Foreign Policy Plan (regional)– Head hunting in Pakistan. I hope all the right wing lunatics enjoy Narendra Modi’s-Macabre-Medieval-Crusade

9.     He’s angry about criminals in politics. Amit Shah, Babubahi Bokhariya, Maya Kodani.

10. Modi references the constitution - A man from the RSS (which explicitly does not believe in the constitution), unapologetic for riots, thinks secularism is an animal rights issue.

11. Dirty Team v/s Dream Team – dude, DUSU candidates have more mature slogans than that. Also, who is in this dream team? Modi and… Modi? Who will be the Chief Minister of Delhi? Ah shit sorry, forgot that we were abolishing the federal structure. So Modi. Quite the team.

12. Sardar joke 2

13. His woeful chai selling childhood. Apparently on trains. There is nothing cheaper than exploiting ones past, exaggerating it and using it to put people down. For all his faults Manmohan Singh has never used partition or the things he went through to score brownie points.

14. Tries to be secular for a bit. Ends with a group chant of Vande Mataram – just in case we thought he meant it.

Binno and Goshto and Reimagining Vedanta

It opens with hills and a river. It could be anywhere, but the impenetrable green that covers the mountains suggests a locale somewhere in the Eastern Ghats. A narrator whose voice drips with the wisdom of Malgudi Days introduces us to Binno. She is somewhere between two and five years old, her face has the smile that only spunky little girls can. Her poverty is evident from her clothes and her colouring, as is her tribal identity. The joy of childhood, her very existence in fact is a miracle. We meet her parents, who have lost siblings to poor infant and maternal healthcare, have never seen a school and apparently were too poor to dream. All the dreams they dare to have are for their children. Binno and her brothers – Goshto and Nandu. Goshto, a teenager has a ‘chotta sa khilona jo bijli se chalta,’ while his parents had never known the spectacle of an electric bulb. Binno can smile and she can dream. There are figures at the bottom indicating exactly how many people ‘happiness’ has been created for. The ad is beautifully shot, the music and voice over hit the right note. There is a story told in one and a half minutes and it is told well. At first I thought that this was a public service announcement by the government, and for that it was impressive. The most annoying thing about promotional spots by the government is, for a want of a better word, their analogue-ness. That grainy quality that reeks of black and white televisions in mofussil towns of the 80’s. There is a pedantic depersonalised quality to them that makes one switch off or change the channel immediately. This ad talks down to people as well. There is a paternalism that was gratifyingly personalised. Towards the end of the piece one discovers that it is not in fact a government announcement. Or even one from and NGO or an aid organisation. This was an ad for Vedanta’s corporate social responsibility spree. Actually, it’s not quite an ad. It is the most aggressive attempt at classical conditioning from a company whose brand recognition has been closely connected to its questionable practices in precisely the kind of tribal areas where this ad claims it is ‘creating happiness.’ Vedanta is attempting to fashion its brand not as the mining concern that it is, but rather as a benevolent missionary organisation with a social conscience that puts Mother Teresa to shame. The paternalism that seemed acceptable and the artistry that was impressive when I thought this was a government announcement became irksome. Perhaps this indicates an incipient prejudice against the philanthropy of big business. It is however worth asking why a multi-million dollar mining and energy company would go on a publicity spree about its work in modernising and providing facilities for what appear to be tribal poor. If the answer to the question is obvious, then so is the danger of this campaign.