Modi, Manmohan, Rahul: We love hypocrisy, false modesty

[surajmal]

If one contrasts the responses of Indians and the media to Modi, Rahul and Manmohan Singh, several conclusions emerge. And they tell a lot about us. First, hypocrisy. The Indian brand of hypocrisy is to pretend you are all self-sacrificing even while wanting something badly. If you want to be PM, you should pretend, like Rahul, that asking about it is the wrong question. You always have to couch ambition in something more esoteric. You donÃÕ earn brownie points for honesty in India. Horror of horrors, Modi wants to be PM! How rude. How gross. This is not to suggest that westerners are not hypocrites. But they have a different way of dealing with it. They are more open about seeking power, but they couch it in moral terms. If you want to get rid of Saddam Hussain, you can claim he has weapons of mass destruction. If you want to bring India or some other country to heel, throw some human rights abuses into the accusations pot. Never mind that your own human rights accord is far from spotless. Throwing high-intensity bombs using unmanned drones on hundreds of defenceless people on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is the moral and upright thing to do. For the latter are terrorists, vermin. Christ said turn the other cheek, but the western brand of hypocrisy is to ensure that the rivals are slapped multiple times in the name of larger humane goals. This is super-sophisticated hypocrisy. Second, false modesty. In India, nothing works as well as false modesty. If you have achieved something, attribute it to luck, godÃÔ benevolence, or the support of family and friends. Never claim any success as your own. This is why Modi never gets an objective hearing on his achievements. Sure, not all his claims are borne out by facts, but this is not the crime we are against. The crime is claiming any success at all in Gujarat through your own efforts. If you want to claim success, the best way to do so is by pretending extreme humility. Thus, we want to believe Manmohan Singh when he claims that India did better under UPA than under NDA. When Modi talks about the Gujarat model, we want to call it hype and arrogance. Third, pretence of weakness. In India, the right slogan for anyone seeking power is to pretend extreme weakness. The meek shall inherit. This is Manmohan SinghÃÔ strength. This is why he has survived nine years with very little real achievement, once you knock out the luck element in the high growth phase of UPA-1. Weakness and non-achievement ensure political longevity; strength and success draw envy and create enemies. Is it any wonder we never end up achieving much as a nation? We celebrate failures, or half-failures, but we will never praise genuine success. The Indian approach to power is schizophrenic. Like the proverbial blade of grass which bends with every passing wind, power in India needs you to pretend weakness while exercising strength in other ways. This means compromising with the wrong things, and resisting the right things. Manmohan Singh maintains high personal honesty while allowing dishonesty to flourish all around. Sonia Gandhi exercises untrammelled power without responsibility and by pretending she holds power. The mighty oak, in contrast, stands firm against passing winds, but crumbles only when faced with the most severe of storms. Manmohan and Modi are personifications of the grass blade and the mighty oak. One survives forever without doing much; the other stands for something, and is thus vulnerable occasionally to a mighty storm. The choice for Indians is clear, whether you pit Manmohan or Rahul Gandhi against Modi. And their strengths and weaknesses are clear. One subtly plays to the Indian psyche of hypocrisy, false modesty and powerlessness. This has been the Indian way for long. The challenger stands for change, a specific agenda, self-confidence. Even arrogance and brashness. You may not agree with what he stands for, but you know where he stands and where you do. The challengerÃÔ strength is wysiwyg: what you see is what you get. There is little hypocrisy, little false modesty, maybe even arrogance. In 2014, we will know what kind of India the Indian wants.

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/modi-manmohan-rahul-we-love-hypocrisy-false-modesty-651523.html