“Think of me, think of me fondly
when we say goodbye…”
The opening lines of this song from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s ‘Phantom of The Opera’ could sum up the R.G. versus Modi blood-fest in the Parliament over the tried and failed no-confidence motion moved by the opposition. Except that it was one more blow to that crucial institution of our democracy that can ill-afford more shaking of its foundation. The substance of what Rahul Gandhi said and then what Prime Minister Modi shot back with, in his one-and-a-half-hour rebuttal, will probably continue to be debated, re-hashed and re-used from now till the 2019 general elections. But the real take-away for our politicians, I fear, will be that the optics and language reign supreme.
Perception is the name of the game and if you win that, you’re well on your way to the big prize of 2019. We are also far away from a place where facts count for something in themselves. So, in this world of spin and spin-doctors, images and apparitions, real power devolves from the unofficial rather than the official spaces. From who came off looking stronger, more in control, and, therefore, superior.
Disappointing Decorum
The answer to me, at least, was obvious. Yet again, Modi ate up Rahul Gandhi for breakfast. But the real story lay in the micro-details. To start with, there seemed to be a perceptible bias in the way the speaker of the house — Sumitra Mahajan — conducted affairs. You could say I am over-reaching or distorting things except, look at the videos once again.
Ms. Mahajan reprimanded Rahul Gandhi for hugging Modi and for winking later. But, she said nothing when Modi made insulting hand-wringing gestures and contorted his face to imitate Rahul’s expressions as he rebutted him for his “Modi-ji can’t look me in the eye,” remark.
In at least two places, the camera shows her joining the Prime Minister and the BJP MPs in laughter and ridicule, which was part of the optics of his speech.
It didn’t just look bad, it also looked partisan. But let’s say I am wrong. Let’s get down to the optics of the BJP’s favourite whipping-boy – Rahul.
Rahul’s Mimics the BJP
Rahul Gandhi knew he was setting himself up for a battle with a gladiator who loves to draw blood. Yet, his calculated to startle hug and wink later came off as cavalier and at best, the tricks of a school-boy trying very hard to outdo the principal. But that isn’t the biggest problem I have with Rahul’s speech. It’s that he avoided the `M’ word entirely. He accused Modi of orchestrating a series of political obfuscations or Jumlas at the start of his speech. One minute and fifty seconds into the speech, he said, “Now who else are the victims of this jumla?” And the problem lies in the list he draws up as his answer. “The youngsters, the dalits, the tribals and the women of this country.”
In Rahul Gandhi’s list of people he accused Modi of having fooled and let down, everyone was mentioned except for the Muslims.
The largest minority group - fourteen percent of the population that is most vulnerable to attack from the Hindu right and its lynch-mob affiliates. This omission comes just a few days after a controversy over the Muslim question.
Modi quoted an Urdu newspaper claiming that Rahul Gandhi said that the Congress is a Muslim party. Rahul repeatedly denied this as patently false, accusing the Prime Minister of resorting to fake news to polarize people. The vehement and repeated denial by Rahul came without any qualifiers such as, `Of course the Congress is the obvious choice for Muslims and all other oppressed groups like dalits, tribals, women.’ Rahul only said the former – No, I never said the Congress is a Muslimon-ki-party.
Sacred Games At Work
So, it seems deliberate that in Parliament when Rahul could have used the no-confidence motion to call out Modi’s Hindu majoritarian politics, he chose instead play right into it and copy the BJP’s method. Leave Muslims out of his speech. So much so that he deftly and quickly went over how unsafe women are in Modi’s India and then very quickly broadened that out to the generic, “Some Indian or the other is being killed.” No mention of Muslims being lynched at all.
In fact, he ended his speech by talking of how Modi had taught him the true meaning of being Indian and Hindu. He was trying to pull a Modi on Modi and use some sarcasm.
And mixed it with some soft Hindutva. With that he not only did his party and image the greatest dis-service but also took away any real ideological opposition to the BJP. It came off in the end as some amateurish posturing that ended up making the entire debate entirely one-sided. Almost a self-goal.
Insults Up, Close & Personal
The personal attack on Modi in the form of the physical aggression via the hug and the verbal attacks, “Oh he can’t look me in the eye because he’s a liar,” set the tone for the ugliness that Modi displayed next. Modi went for the jugular right from the start. “I was amazed that despite the fact that the no-confidence motion hadn’t been put to vote yet and still, there was such impatience to occupy my seat that he came up to me (for the hug) and said utho, utho, utho – get up, get up!” Modi said caricaturing Rahul Gandhi on the floor of the house.
Mimicry of both mother and son was deftly woven in at various points in the speech. At one place, Modi referred to the no-confidence motion Sonia Gandhi had moved in 1999, saying she had 272 seats or half the Parliament on her side. Except he lisped in pidgin Italian. “Thoo-seventy-thoo,” the Prime Minister of the country said in pantomime. The Lok Sabha TV cameras immediately cut to Sonia Gandhi’s face to drive the point home vicariously.
The street-brawl type face-offs were drawn out on TV in the way the cameras immediately cut from a jibe delivered by Modi to Rahul and Sonia. And these moments instantly met with raucous applauding by the BJP as the point was delivered home to the flock. The flock that has recently been seen as either dissenting, wavering or straying from the party and larger umbrella of Hindu right institutions and that desperately needed some P.M. driven vengefulness to feed off. Modi served it up in spades.
Battle of Baloney
Modi likened the splitting of Andhra Pradesh into two states in 2014 by the Congress party with the Partition, thereby driving home many points at once. That the party plays only opportunistic politics. That despite that, the splitting up of states has failed to deliver any votes to the Congress. And the final nail in the coffin - that this is exactly what they did by dividing the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in the partition. “You divided the subcontinent into India and Pakistan and we are still dealing with its miserable shadow.” Whether this was yet another calling out to India being the land of the Hindus is anyone’s guess. The inferences to be drawn are endless and disturbing.
At the end of the day, when the blood was spilled and voting done, it seemed clear that what would stick would probably not be the controversy over the Rafael plane deal with France or the economy in distress. The unbridled display of might and majoritarianism on the one hand, and a weak opposition with no clear ideological distance from the government on the other are going to be remembered for a long time.
There is some perverse pleasure for us, watching these phantasmagorical happenings on TV. We chuckle that in destroying the instruments of democracy repeatedly, the BJP may eventually be destroying some of its own power. We, however, that if the Prime Minister can use the Parliament to weave cheap caricatures into his speeches and the speaker can look on and say nothing, then it doesn’t end up just giving the BJP more power over the Congress. It is also sending out the message across the board that power lies outside the officially mandated spaces. Which means, in a roundabout way, that the dissenters within the party know that they shouldn’t take everything that is projected as big and powerful and supreme that seriously. The micro-detail leaves that little bit of hope in its tailwind even if the main-frame is decidedly ghoulish.
(Revati Laul is an independent journalist and filmmaker based in Delhi. She tweets @revatilaul. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own.The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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