Delusions of Intellect

Ramachandra Guha is a deconstructionist’s delight, a hypocrite’s role model and a template for aspiring court historians. What does St. Stephen’s feed its wards that entire armies of them become Hindu haters and gatekeepers of the West? The list of its alumni who’ve made it big is truly horrifying: Natwar Singh, Digvijay Singh, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Khushwant Singh, Barkha Dutt, Mukul Kesavan, Prem Shankar Jha, Samir Jain, Vikram Chandra, and Ramachandra Guha. All of them, ultra-careerists endowed with a special knack of recognizing the buttered side of the bread, all of them united by the tough fibre of visceral hatred for the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. And of late, Narendra Modi.

Guha’s latest piece is a generous outpouring of smelly textual excreta that flows over 1286 words. And that’s putting it charitably: you can’t dignify this horrendous retching by terming it a personal attack on Narendra Modi. Guha doesn’t have a point unless you want to call vile pamphleteering as a point. And he fails spectacularly at the said vile pamphleteering. Mr. Guha, I’ll show you how it’s done.

I’ve just begun.

Here’s the thing that drove this court hagiographer’s nerves into a feverish frenzy.

Ahmedabad is a city I know well. Going back last month, I found signs marking the distance to a certain ‘Mahatma Mandir’…What was this landmark that I had not heard of and which was apparently so important that it had to be advertised every so often on city roads? My Amdavadi friends supplied the answer. This new temple was actually a convention centre being built in the state capital. The first major building had been completed in time for the ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ summit held in early January; the rest of the complex was under construction.

Actually, Guha doesn’t really need an occasion to display his eloquent nonsense against Modi. Anything will do. A smile by Modi will upset him because it’s not really a smile but a Hindutva conspiracy. If Modi wears a suit, Guha will suspect that something dreadful will occur in the next 0.874673 seconds. If Modi learns Russian, Guha will predict a plot… you get the gist. The point is the way Guha drums up utter crap is a God-gifted talent. It can’t be taught or learned.

Exhibit 1:

Going back last month, I found signs marking the distance to a certain ‘Mahatma Mandir’. Coloured blue, and with an arrow pointed upwards, these signs were placed at regular intervals on the main roads of the city. The distances were curiously uneven, or perhaps one should say very precise: ‘Mahatma Mandir, 41.7 km!’, ‘Mahatma Mandir, 40.6 km!’, and so on, never rounded off to the nearest whole number.

The liberal use of exclamation marks and quotes is akin to the delight of an adolescent who’s just discovered the joys of touching himself. Equally, what exactly is the point about the “observations” about precision in numbers etc? And then he quotes some stuff from L K Advani’s blog post, which praises the Mahatma Mandir project. Then gets to some really gutter-level Modi-bashing, which begins with what he calls is

…one of the most curious, not to say magical, transitions in Indian politics, whereby, in the course of a single decade, Advani has gone from being a patron of the Gujarat chief minister to being one of his clients and supplicants. Once, Advani was the most visible and powerful face of the Hindutva project. As deputy prime minister of India and as president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Advani expected, and received, deference from his party colleagues. Now, all that lies between him and obscurity is Modi’s gift of a safe parliamentary seat in Gujarat.

Ransack the dictionary for the most appropriate words to condemn this garbage-style of column writing. You don’t even need to go into the “logic” behind these hate-filled assertions. At least tabloids are open and unapologetic about the kind of stuff they write. Not Guha. Undeterred by such concerns, he thunders ,

In this time, Modi has made a sort of reverse journey, from being a media-shy if hard-working Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak to the most self-confident and publicity-seeking of modern politicians.

Here’s an elementary question to Guha: which politician doesn’t seek publicity? Oh wait, I was mistaken. Guha is right because Modi isn’t naturally blessed like the Crown Prince whose fart becomes front page news notwithstanding his impressive record of not asking a single question in Parliament or demonstrating anything that’s 894729843732 light years close to intelligent or articulate or informed. Also, Mr. Guha, self-confidence comes from working towards and demonstrating concrete results, not taking cute photoshoots with poor people. Forget politicians seeking publicity. It’s not unnatural for people who’re engaged in productive work to showcase their work. Every employee does this showcasing across the world in offices and factories. But then not every employee is Ramachandra Guha. Actions speak louder than words. Look that proverb up if you’ve still preserved your 3rd Class Moral Science textbook.

But much worse is to come from Guha’s malicious pen.

Viewing his position today, I am reminded of the one occasion, some 12 years ago, when I found myself in the same room as him. It was in a television studio in New Delhi, which was hosting a debate between Madhavrao Scindia of the Congress, Pramod Mahajan of the BJP, and myself (representing no party at all).

The words in brackets is a surefire tell-all. Self-explanatory. The filthiness of this putrid piece wouldn’t have been diluted by a milliliter if Guha had omitted that hoary fact. It’s curious why he had to mention it. I mean, no man goes around saying “Hi I am Rakesh/Rahman/Raul, and I am a man (having a penis).”

But there’s still worse.

Mahajan’s assistant on the day was Modi, then a quiet, behind-the-scenes, general-secretary of the BJP, content to mix tea and serve it to the mighty minister whom he had been commanded to accompany. Now, of course, Modi is arrogance personified.

And this ladies and gentlemen, is an extremely illuminating revelation of how Guha’s mind works. “How dare this lowly office-bearer become a Chief Minister and succeed so well!” This is what the heady mix of Doon School and St. Stephen’s brand of elitist poison does to you: Brown sahibs in their own miserable little empires intolerant of people who succeed by working their way up from humble origins. Most if not all articles and columns critical of the “new-gen (sic)” entrepreneurs who became successful and wealthy in the past 15 years or so carry the “how dare they disturb the apple cart of the socialist order” undertone. The most infamous of them all was the lunatic Cyber Coolies piece. In Guha’s case, the same pompous mindset compounded with advanced schizophrenia is at work.

Exhibit 2:

[In] an interview in a recent issue of the journal, Governance Now . he puts himself in the same league as a man generally recognized as the greatest political icon of modern times. Asked a question about Gujarat’s development model, Modi offered an analogy with the freedom struggle. From the late 19th century, many brave patriots tried, but failed, to get the British to leave the country. “But all that martyrdom came to fruition”, said Modi, “only when a Mahatma Gandhi arrived on the scene. In fact, Gandhiji made a paradigm shift in the struggle for freedom by converting it into a mass movement.” Likewise, Modi continues, “in the post-independence phase, efforts for development became solely the domain of the government. I have also effected a paradigm shift in the development strategy and converted it into a mass movement”.

See? “How dare Modi take the name of Gandhi? I, Ramachandra Guha, am the researcher, author, and authority on Gandhi!” And so we need to ask him exactly two questions:

• Gandhi is considered as the greatest political icon of modern times by who? The Congress party? The West? There’s no doubt he was a great leader and mass mobilizer but Guha because has used the superlative, he needs to come up with some convincing evidence to show why and how Gandhi was the greatest political leader.
• Go on a visit to Gujarat and see with your own eyes—not Guha’s eyes—the kind of transformation that has occurred under Modi’s rule. If you can’t visit but still want to know the facts, I recommend reading all the six parts starting with this.

Here’s the thing Mr. Guha: both good and bad start at the top. It’s never bottom-up. The continuing Nehruvian nightmare actually enforced poverty and we’re today at a state where we’re this close to be torn asunder as a nation. Talking of mass movements, it was Indira Gandhi who converted corruption into a mass movement. See? Top-down again. And look what it did to India.  And today when a Chief Minister tries to reverse this horrid state of affairs, you say that’s wrong? Exactly what’s your mind filled with, Mr. Guha? Actually he tells us what it’s filled with by comparing Modi with Indira Gandhi.

Between 1971 and 1977, Indira thought she was India, and vice versa. Modi merely thinks he is Gujarat. The territory of 2002 was forbidden to Governance Now (as it is to all interviewers of the man), but the journal did still ask one sharp question, about the fact “that there is contrived or manufactured social consensus in Gujarat, that… you are manufacturing this consensus.” This was Modi’s answer: “Have you seen opposition leaders being jailed or silenced in Gujarat? On the other hand, I should be complaining about persecution as the centre has unleashed the CBI and all kinds of agencies on Gujarat and on me in particular. Then what is this manufactured consensus? What is wrong if everybody agrees on development? Do you mean to say that if we have 60/40 or 80/20 consensus/dissent, it is fine, but when you have 100/0, it is wrong?”

Read what Modi says in the paragraph again. Anybody endowed with even basic commonsense and logic will see that Modi’s answer makes sense. On the contrary, the journalist who asked if Modi is manufacturing the consensus doesn’t look like he/she has any evidence to back up the question. Either that or Guha has omitted the evidence so his venom-spitting can go on unhindered. But then Guha is an automatic logic-commonsense repellent. Which is what enables him to jump to a bizarre conclusion that Modi’s arrogance is combined with

…paranoia, a peculiar mixture characteristic of autocrats large and small, real and putative.When criticized, Mrs Gandhi used to speak darkly of the “foreign hand”…Modi thinks his critics to be either motivated or malign; the former acting at the behest of the Centre, the latter acting out the instructions of the Inter-Services Intelligence… By definition, all patriotic Indians had to be behind Mrs Gandhi, all Gujaratis (100 to 0) have to rally around Modi.

The comparisons, the leaps of logic and parallels are so awesome that it’s a bedazzling display of twisted genius. First, Mrs. Gandhi exercised absolute power pretty much for as long as she had power. The Opposition till the post-Emergency elections was just token and nobody really bayed for her blood except for the minuscule period when she lost power for the first time in her life. Now count the number of “Breaking News” and whore jobs sting ops in connection with the 2002 riots from 2004 to now. The underlined sentence is another instance of the tripe Guha’s worm-infested brain spews. Seriously, he must stop taking readers for numbskulls: it’s not just Gujaratis that support Modi. Unless Guha doesn’t read news or thinks he has a secret key to unlock all the mysteries of Modi, he must know the answer to two questions: why does a place like Chennai go berserk with applause over Modi’s speech or why do university students in Bihar abuse and hurl chairs the Crown Prince who insults Narendra Modi?

But wait. There’s worse yet.

The mandir being built 37.9 km from the hotel where I stayed in Ahmedabad is a monument not to Mahatma Gandhi, but to Narendra Modi’s megalomania. The accounts on the web speak of mounds and mounds of concrete strung together under the supervision of a construction firm not otherwise known for taste, beauty, or elegance. To be sure, the building is functional, and facilitative of business deals.

Sigh. Such straight-from-the-arsehole abuse. Let’s do a quick Q&A with Guha.

Q: Why or how is the Mahatma Mandir a monument to Narendra Modi’s megalomania?
Guha: Because Ramachandra Guha says so. And that’s all you need to believe.

Q: What’s the proof that it’s a monument to Narendra Modi’s megalomania?
Guha: Ramachandra Guha doesn’t answer such childish questions. Oh wait! you must be a Modi supporter and therefore a Hindutva fanatic and further, therefore a Saffron Terrorist.

Q: What is the name of the firm that’s constructing it?
Guha: Why do you want to know all that? I told you earlier, just believe whatever I say.

Q: How do you say the firm is not known for taste, beauty, or elegance?
Guha: The firm was hired by Modi and it has to be crappy by default.

Q: If the building is functional, and facilitative of business deals, it must be a good thing, right?
Guha: NO! Business deals are bad…actually business itself is bad. Only Gandhi and Nehru are good.

This is really what Guha is saying. And this passes as mainstream column-writing and this man is one of the brightest “Padmabhushan” stars of our intellectual galaxy. And here comes the very worst because it comes last.

But let it not be thought that it will, in any way, represent the aesthetic, moral, or democratic spirit of the Mahatma it claims to honour…Here is a tip to first-time visitors to Ahmedabad. If you go in search of the Mahatma, disregard the blue signs, and ask an autorickshaw to take you to the Sabarmati Ashram instead. The experience shall be nourishing, perhaps even transformative. For one thing, unlike that “mandir”, this ashram is on the human scale, with low, modest buildings and green trees around them…Gandhi actually lived there.

What exactly is Gandhi’s record in the field of Aesthetics? Even if he did give us some quotable quotes on aesthetics (I haven’t seen any), is that the reason we honour and respect Gandhi? As to his democratic spirit, one needs to read the account of how he remote-engineered the ouster of Subash Bose from the Congress party’s presidentship. I’ve been to the Sabarmati Ashram and it’s every bit the way the Guha’s vile pen has described it. Only, it is rich that a guy like Guha talks about said transformative experiences.

Ram Guha is the latest proof that Mahatma Gandhi still retains career-making prospects of epic proportions. From a cricket commentator-historian to Pontificator on Everything From Ecology to Arundhati Roy to Hagiographer as Historian , Guha has traversed thousands of miles. On occasion, he loves to share his wet dreams about the fact that he’s engaged in researching on the Mahatma and that it’s educative, transformative, blah blah blah. The one thing he doesn’t say is this: how much of what he’s learnt from Gandhi does he actually practice. Your answer is as good as mine: none. Gandhi was the king of frugal living. Guha wears his suits, knows his cocktails, travels by cars and flights and attends expensive book release functions. This is a gushing, fawning, almost-slavish and for those very reason, very accurate “profile” of the guy who goes around today preaching about the subliminal impact Gandhi can have on your life. Gandhi preached and practiced the dictums of hate none and forgive thy enemy. Guha has left behind massive trails of undisguised BJP, Hindutva, Modi, and Sangh Parivar-bashing. Gandhi’s ishta devata (personal God of choice and liking) was Rama while Guha’s mouth-frothing incoherence on the Ram Mandir issue is well-known. Gandhi spun the charaka as a means to cleanse the soul of impurities. We know what Guha spins.

Are these the transformative experiences Guha has had in his soul-altering research on the Mahatma including the stuff about the Sabarmati Ashram?

Here’s the thing Mr. Guha: you see what you want to see. There’s no other way or explanation. You travel to Ahmedabad and fail to see the commendable BRT implementation in the city. Instead, you see some monument built to honour Mahatma Gandhi and get all riled up like a braindead model who found a pimple on her cheek. Really, who’s paranoid here, Mr. Guha?  Finally, if you hate Modi so much, you should as a matter of principle, stay away from Gujarat.

Mr. Ramachandra Guha, how can you look at yourself in the mirror?