Dilip D’Souza urges us not to find national insult in a rejected visa. And I have to give it to him.

For cleverness.

In applying selective criticism.

You know the barrel of ideas is at its bottom-scraping emptiest when you start hearing the hollow comparisons to M K Gandhi.

This is the result of an iconified mentality where the person you iconize is placed above criticism. Case in point: M K Gandhi. The moment someone takes Gandhi’s name for comparison (or worse, to criticize the saint) you’re done for: your barrel of ideas is empty. Is Gandhi, and all his principles and practices some kind of a yardstick which if you fail to measure up to, you get lambasted?

Revile him as a coward when convenient, reduce his legacy to a caricature…

The point about cowardice brings me to recollect an incident. Field Marshall Kariappa approached Gandhi when thanks to the saintly order of giving Rs.55 crores to Pakistan, the latter hastily mobilized an army and attacked Kashmir. Kariappa was curious to know what message the Mahatma had for the soldier who stood to face death. Mahatma, through his secretary told the army man that he was on a Mouna Vrata (Vow of Silence). I agree with Dilip on the point about Gandhi’s legacy being turned to a caricature. But it’s nothing new: it existed during Gandhi’s life time; only, its repeated use has made us immune to nausea. Another point. When thousands of Hindu refugees sought refuge in Delhi’s mosques to escape the biting cold, and were forcibly ejected, the saint didn’t utter a word of protest. What name do you give to such behaviour?

…but when you need to rally public support, there remain few better ways, even today, than to invoke his name.

Nope, Dilip. This is the only way our “leaders” have found thanks to their absolute lack of imagination. But you see, they have no option left. Gandhi is a safe harbour in which to dock their rabble. You can hardly blame them, look how vitiated the atmosphere has become. If you invoke Tilak or Bose’s name, you’ll hear collective shrieks of horror: fascist! communal! And the same might eventually apply to Vivekananda as well if credence were given to this kind of mischief. You absolutely cannot invoke other worthies like Jinnah or Allama Iqbal. You see, your bete noire flock–Modi & Co–will immediately howl, Islamic separatists! And if you take Nehru’s name, I’ll be the first to shout “Progenitor of Pseudo Secularism.” That leaves us with only Gandhi. He fits into the scheme of things of secularists, Islamists and the Modi group. However, Dilip is mistaken if he thinks that invoking Gandhi’s name and/or legacy still draws crowds. The generation that deeply revered Gandhi is fast disappearing; those that are left have no voice in today’s public life. In fact, if you look at the Dalit writings, they hold unabashed contempt for Gandhi: “he called us Harijans in a condescending tone–as if we have no self-respect” is just a milder version of their Gandhian criticism. And our beloved extra-constitutional Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi very patriotically waved off the Dandi march redux recently. If you followed the news channels and other reports on the incident, it becomes very clear that Gandhi is no longer relevant.

No, this does not cause him to reflect on the horrible perversion of justice that led to this rejection.

Now, now, I didn’t expect Dilip to be so naive. If the US had to castigate Modi severely it could’ve done long ago, when the incident was “fresh.” It didn’t. In fact, the whole cry about the Modi affair is based on the fact that the premise of the US in denying visa to Modi reeks of hypocrisy and fools no one. It is not a rejection of his “horrible perversion of justice.” (Shudder!) Nobody questions the right of the US to allow or disallow people into its territory. You blog actively so let me point you to this entry on the Modi Visa Issue:

If you look at this episode, hypocrisy is abound. Naredra Modi played the fiddle while Gujarat burned. He had the responsibility to protect both the Hindus and Muslims who were murdered in the riots and he failed. But then who could raise their voice in India? The Congress Party sat idle while Sikhs were murdered after Indira Gandhi’s assasination. The Communists in various avatars as Naxalites, Maoists etc. murder people. But then does United States refuse visa to such people? No.

And then who gave United States the right to judge other countries? If they had standards like these no Chinese leader would be able to set foot here. How about Ariel Sharon or Yasser Arafat or Musharraf? Does United States refuse visa to such people? No.

And to this entry:

While the United States is within its rights to deny entry to Narendra Modi, it is equally true that its motivations were more political than matters of principle. President Bush would himself a very lonely host if his State department were to uniformly and impartially apply this law. Both close allies such as Ariel Sharon, Crown Prince Abdullah and Gen Pervez Musharraf, and strategic partners such as Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao are at least as guilty as Modi. Worse, apart from Ariel Sharon and perhaps Vladimir Putin, none of them are even accountable to their own citizens.

Dilip makes out the US’s visa refusal as some act of justice while it is plain that it was political expediency and some intense lobbying to keep Modi out. The way it was done exposed the duplicity of the US. US diplomacy with all its double standards is known historically to possess a touch of finesse. That it was done clumsily in this case immediately brought it to the world’s attention in more ways than one. The Prime Minister himself expressed his displeasure very vocally on this issue, which still shows that when threatened, the country forgets its internal differences. But not Dilip. He sees “rejection of a horrible perversion of justice.” As some blogs have pointed out, the visa rejection is America’s internal affair. Going by the same logic, Gujarat is India’s internal affair and the US has no business using it as an excuse to reject Modi’s visa. The reason the US could arrogantly state this as the clause to refuse the visa is… wait, the Secular Right blog says it best:

Two, Modi’s visa denial has a lot to do with aggressive campaigns by his secular Indian-American detractors. They are rightly upset with him over post-Godhara riots, and with his rabidly communal politics. We ourselves have frequently articulated our contempt for Mr. Modi on this blog. BUT, for these people to cause public embarrassment to India in an effort to silence Mr. Modi, is completely unacceptable.

These Indian-Americans don’t live in India, thought fit to abandon their Indian citizenship, and are (correctly) more Americans than Indians. This means they really are not part of the great Indian political dialogue. That these disconnected people are driving US agenda towards India is terrifying. That US listens to them as representatives of Indian thinking is even worse.

Dilip has himself contributed to this aggressive campaign in a small measure albeit indirectly by comparing the Gujarat riots with Nazi pogroms. But I have digressed far too much.

.all we see is the man doing what he does so efficiently when criticised, as after the violence in his state three years ago. He paints that criticism as an assault on eye-catching ideas like ‘asmita’ and ‘swabhimaan.’ Your asmita, my asmita. Your swabhimaan, my swabhimaan. Why these are under attack because he is criticised, we must not ask.

But this technique was patented by our Communist Comrades–stick the convict’s badge–here and by McCarthy in the US, it’s nothing new. However, how can Dilip explain the fact that the Prime Minister stood up for Modi?

…a yearning for justice after indiscriminate slaughter is dismissed as an insult.

True. Also ask the families of the people who burned in Radhabai Chawl. Or the people killed in Marad. Or the families of the Sikhs killed in 1984.

‘A man from Gujarat was thrown out of a train in South Africa!’ he intones from the stage of a ‘swabhimaan’ rally, reminding us of the incident that was seared into a nation’s psyche. Suggesting to us that his rejection is made of the same stuff.

The same way that Dilip suggests earlier in the article that the rejection is the result of Modi’s horrible perversion of justice.

We know this. The visa-deprived man knows it. Yet as chief minister, he will do nothing to apply justice to those killings: a dereliction of Constitutional duty that, anywhere else, at a minimum, would have cost him his job. He knows that too. Which is why his defence is the bluster that he has not been convicted by any court, and he won an election.

That applies equally to all, including but not limited to Shibu Soren and Lalu. Where was Dilip’s bleeding heart when a non entity like Sibte Razi (I hadn’t ever heard of him till the Jharkhand infamy occurred) pawned Constitutional propriety to the whim of his bosses. My memory is a trifle lax, but I don’t recall any piece by Dilip when the Teesta-Zahira bufoonery happened. I also am yet to hear/read Dilip’s informed opinion about the statement made by NHRC. Here, for your reference:

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), whose findings the US claimed formed the basis for denying visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, today shot back at Washington, saying the Bush administration had blown its observations over the 2002 riots out of proportion.

”Our approach was mainly limited to the Best Bakery case…

there was no indictment in general of Mr Modi or his government,” a top NHRC official told UNI.

This is the same NHRC whose other reports Dilip had brandished in support of some of his stands on the Gujarat issue, in a comment on an earlier blog entry. Perhaps as an afterthought, Dilip adds his bit about the criminal culpability of all politicians in general.

Well, true. But then that’s our stellar Indian history. Massacres like we saw in Gujarat are never punished. Not a single Indian politician embroiled in legal cases has been convicted. And plenty of them have won elections nevertheless. This one is no different.

Yet it isn’t a neutral afterthought. Look at the underlined words. He could’ve easily substituted this with Massacres like we saw in Delhi in 1984 are never punished. Does the name of Jagadish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar mean anything? The former is now a Union Minister elected pretty much the same way as Modi was: by the people.

And in doing that, he finds more caricature. He urges us to take inspiration from that man in a way that is so absurd it is funny. ‘Let us pledge to work for such a day,’ he announced at the same ‘swabhimaan’ rally, ‘when an American will have to stand in line for entry into Gujarat.’
This is now what makes up our swabhimaan, our self-respect: the stuff, whatever it is, that will make us make others stand in line.

I don’t understand why he makes such an issue about standing in a line and self respect. We all stand in lines at one or other place: (earlier) in banks, to pay electricity bills, and at assorted government offices. And America invited no one to “stand in line” for a visa. Those who wanted to go there stood in the line. Simple. If tomorrow Americans fall upon one another to visit Gujarat they will stand in a line with their self respect intact. Funny how words can be twisted.

Oh! and then he proceeds to educate us about patriotism/nationhood/self-respect. He lists the “isn’ts” of these concepts:

Let me spend a few final paragraphs addressing these things, self-respect and nationhood. How do you build them, really?
To begin with, by knowing what doesn’t build them.
You don’t build self-respect by making other people stand in line.
You don’t build it by finding insult in a rejected visa.
You don’t build it by pretending mass murder never happened, or it isn’t that big a deal, or that some of it was merely retaliation so it’s OK.
These are the things that destroy self-respect. They chip away at any idea of a nation.

Agree with all. But let me add to it.

• You don’t build self-respect by running to international fora with your problems instead of trying to solve it on your own.
• You don’t build it by pretending that the 1984 riots never happened, and that justice is for the select few.
• You don’t build with woolly idealism thinking that if X attacks Y and Y retaliates, then Y is wrong.

These are also things that destroy self-respect.

On the other hand, one measure does build self-respect and pride: justice, firmly and swiftly applied. Nothing less. Stripped to its essence, this was that man Gandhi’s message. This was his vision for India.

Again, Dilip left out a crucial point here: justice to all, firmly and swiftly applied. I say this with a simple analogy: is there a single issue where the aggrieved parties are Hindu, which matches in decibel level, coverage, and hype attached to the Best Bakery Case ?

This gentle reader, is what I call selective targetted criticism.

Pity that it too, is a caricature like Gandhi.