Modi hurts his cause with statements that erode credibility

Narendra Modi went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of voters,

Modi’s jaw fell down and opened his mouth,

And half-truths came tumbling after…

The problem with our Prime Minister these days is that he can barely make an election speech without triggering a burning desire for checking facts. Such has become his propensity for half-truths, hyperbole and propaganda, that it is difficult to take his words at face value. ‘Oh my god, it’s the PM again on TV, quickly Google’ is the defining sentiment his appearance provokes. But, weren’t we all warned by bhakts that Modi ji is simply unbelievable?

The rough and tumble of the ongoing campaign has exacerbated the problem for reasons we would speculate about later. The major victim of his current bout of what appears to be an incurable form of Goebbels Syndrome is a man who is not even around to defend himself.

Low-level politics

For some reason, former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s memory has unlocked a chamber of fabricated secrets in Modi. Over the past few days, he has been firing one half-truth after a complete fib at Gandhi, who was assassinated by terrorists in May 1991. The PM may have his own compulsions for attacking and denigrating a dead man — a courtesy he had reserved earlier exclusively for Jawaharlal Nehru — in an election where the focus should have been on his promises, stillborn, dead or alive. But, even if we were to ignore his diatribe as low-level politics, the absence of facts, his penchant for shooting prevarications from the lip put a big question mark over his intent.

Modi started out by saying Gandhi had died as “corrupt No 1”. He could have been given the benefit of doubt for being carried away — just like his rival, the former PM’s son, had by attributing the ‘Chowkidaar Chor Hai’ to the Supreme Court — with this one. But since the former PM was never found guilty of any wrongdoing, the charges against him were dropped by the Delhi high court, Modi should have backed down, if not apologise, after this blunder.

But, like a gambler who gets more and intractable after a setback, Modi has now turned the former PM into his main poll issue, showing an alarming obsession with Gandhi. Two days ago, he alleged that Gandhi had used an Indian warship INS Viraat for a family holiday. This was junked by former Navy chief Admiral L Ramdas and several other senior officers. Retired Vice Admiral Vinod Pasricha, who was then captain and commanding officer of INS Viraat, told Mirror Now that Modi’s claim was “completely false”.

Modi’s current state of mind on the former PM appears to be, ‘If you don’t accept my truth, I have another version, and then another.’ And now his party has joined the chorus by claiming “instructions to kill during the 1984 Sikh riots came from the former PM.” The BJP claims this has been mentioned in the report filed by the Nanavati Commission that probed the riots.

False again. In his report, Justice Nanavati had found no evidence of such allegations against the former PM. “The evidence on the other hand suggest that Shri Rajiv Gandhi had showed much concern about what was happening in Delhi. He had issued an appeal for remaining calm and maintaining communal harmony. In view of the complaints received by him that people were not able to contact the police on telephone No. 100, he had immediately called some police officers and told them to take immediate action so that anyone who wanted to contact the police could do so. He had even visited the affected areas on the night of 1-11-84,” Nanavati wrote.

Polarise- the defining mantra

Why exactly the BJP and the PM are attacking the former PM is clear. The next round of elections is in Punjab and Delhi, where Sikhs are in large numbers. The BJP’s defining mantra for this election is, polarise. Pit Hindus against Muslims and, if Muslims are not around, do something to snare the votes of Sikhs. The clever ploy is in action again with the singular objective of making Rajiv Gandhi a talking point, scratching old wounds.

There is, of course, the long-term, all weather obsession with the Nehru-Gandhis that the saffron family just can’t shake off. The liberal, secular worldview of the family has always been an anathema to the Hindutva brigade. It sees the family not as political rivals but as a competing ideology.

But, half-truths and false claims can be counterproductive. They can discredit those peddling them and create genuine interest in facts and truths, and empower the electorate with a rational approach. Since the purpose of realpolitik is to keep the voter in the dark, make him believe everything that the leader says as Vox Dei, the PM and his party are only hurting their own cause with statements that erode their credibility.

Mirza Ghalib, the 19th century poet, once wrote that he was talking absolute nonsense in frenzy, and prayed to god that nobody takes him seriously. Let’s hope the same for the revered office of the PM.