Half-life of half-truths: Can diplomacy stop decaying governance?

Is the Modi government being harshly judged internationally because its leaders being less familiar with English are 'less connected to other global centres'?

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, in a visit to Washington DC last week strongly defended “the governance record” of the government at the Hoover Institution, blaming perceptions to the contrary as “political imagery that has been concocted”.

He claimed that the Modi government was being harshly judged because its leaders being less familiar with English were “less connected to other global centres”. They were nevertheless “much more confident about their culture, about their language and their beliefs”, had ended “vote bank politics” and deepened democracy.

He was responding to a question from former US National Security Advisor, H R McMaster, who asked whether India’s friends should worry about the impact of Hindutva politics on secular democracy.

McMaster offered Jaishankar an “out” observing that the minister was seen as non-partisan because of having served different governments. Jaishankar however clearly distanced himself from his former avatar as a civil servant, declaring: “I am today (an) elected member of parliament of a political party, the ruling political party BJP. So do I have a political viewpoint and political interest? Of course I do. And I’m hopefully articulate and expressive about the interest that I represent.”

Jaishankar’s positioning himself as the articulate mediator for leaders not conversant with the international world reminded this writer of an assignment early in his career. He was sent to interview a Mumbai underworld don who had decided to go legit by launching a political party which purportedly championed the underdog. The don agreed to be interviewed in transit at Delhi airport. Dressed in an impeccable white safari suit with matching shoes and socks and two gold plated pens in his breast pocket he was accompanied by another man dressed like him. Taking only the easy questions, the interviewee deflected the hard ones to his alter-ego with, “Oye, Professor, you answer it.” The “professor” would then formulate a sensible-sounding argument and the don would nod in agreement saying, “This is my answer.”

Jaishankar is the English-speaking face of the government tasked with presenting an image acceptable to the outside world. His attempts, however, lack credibility. The claim that the hostile narrative is entirely a construction of an English-speaking (and thereby culturally deracinated or colonised elite) does not stand close scrutiny.

The world must wonder, for example, why despite its cultural and linguistic rootedness, the BJP government has failed to resolve the farmers’ agitation for over six months. Clearly, the farmers’ alienation has nothing to do with questions of culture -- they blame their plight on the non-consultative and pro-corporate approach of the government.

By citing the government’s free food programme for 800 million migrant workers during the pandemic, Jaishankar tried to craft the image of a caring government advancing welfare in a non-discriminatory way. He glosses over his government’s mismanagement of the lockdown of March 2020 which rendered migrant workers jobless and vulnerable in the first place. The ruling party’s state governments used the suspension of the legislatures during the lockdown quite opportunistically to dilute labour laws without legislative sanction.

Far from being harbingers of democratic reform those in government today are right-wing Hindu zealots, thrown up in Indian politics because of the misdemeanours, corruption and opportunism of the secular political parties. What Jaishankar calls the ‘confidence’ of the BJP leaders about their culture, language and beliefs is nothing but a monochromatic and dogmatic view of India as a Hindu nation. The negative “narrative” about this government is the result of its exclusionary policies, religious intolerance and lack of empathy for public suffering.

Its treatment of the people of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir --- the blinding of protestors by indiscrimate firing of pellet-guns, rampant killing in the name of counter-insurgency and cutting off communication links for months together – is not a missreport by English-speaking critics. It is because the BJP will not countenance a Muslim majority state in ‘Hindu’ India. No hierarchies of language were bridged by introducing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the National Register of Citizens or by its ministers calling for the lynching of protestors against citizenship laws based on religion.

American lawmakers and citizens are unlikely to believe a silver-tongued External Affairs Minister of India that everything was hunky-dory (sab changaa si, as PM Modi put it in his ‘folksy’ Punjabi) with Indian democracy, while at that very moment the Special Cell of the Delhi Police -- meant to specifically investigate terrorism and organised crime -- was threatening Twitter officials in Delhi. Coinciding with Jaishankar’s trip WhatsApp also took the Indian government to court against new digital rules that would violate privacy protection of its users. Critics of the government have increasingly turned to social media platforms as traditional media houses have been tamed. Hence the government’s attempts to control social media platforms as well.

Jaishankar told his US audience, that a definitive change wrought by this government was moving away from “vote bank” politics. To BJP insiders this term is synonymous with taking cognisance of Muslim interests which is termed “appeasement” by them. However, in the name of being “even-handed” the BJP has not only turned a deaf ear to Muslim voters, but has pushed a divisive agenda to consolidate a “Hindu vote bank”. Hyping anti-Pakistan propaganda on the eve of major elections has also served to build up Hindu majoritarian nationalism. So whether the BJP’s departure from vote-bank politics is a move closer to a perfect democracy is a matter of debate.

Lastly, the present Indian government needs Jaishankar to defend it not solely because he is part of the cultural cognoscenti but also because its mascot Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s international image has lost the derring-do he tried so hard to cultivate. A spate of negative reports in the international media underline that brand erosion. Nor is the Biden administration on the same page as the Indian government on democracy, protection of human rights and on Jammu and Kashmir. This bare-faced attempt to whitewash the government’s sinking image by an erudite and globally connected minister is unlikely to work. In today’s interconnected world, half-truths tend to have a very short half-life.