Peddling lies

A series of disgraced soldiers and ‘Godi’ media anchors in India have pounced upon Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry’s recent misspeak regarding Pulwama. It was only a matter of time before the owner of said ‘Godi’ joined in. PM Narendra Modi is the latest to use Chaudhry’s words to sling mud at Pakistan, using them to claim that the Indian opposition was wrong to call him out for his lack of leadership before, during, and after the Pulwama attack. While this was not unexpected, we would have thought that heads of government would refrain from peddling such lies. But then, we would be forgetting who we were talking about. Modi has built a career on lies and deceit, so it should not be surprising that he would lie on the campaign trail.

Unfortunately, even while acknowledging his proclivity to use false narratives, it is ludicrous that Modi is trying to whitewash his conduct after Pulwama and the legitimate criticism from Indian opposition parties. Let us not forget that, after learning that dozens of Indian soldiers had been killed, Modi chose to complete filming an episode of “Man vs. Wild”. Building ‘Brand Modi’ was more important than the lives of the Indian soldiers. Building ‘Brand Modi’ is also more important than truth or facts. That is why Modi ignored multiple corrections by Chaudhry or perhaps he ignored them because Chaudhry’s intent was always to point out the embarrassment Pakistan caused India with its retaliatory attack to the Balakot raid.

It is notable that in his follow-up remarks, Chaudhry said “India’s own media and political leadership got embarrassed” by the success of the Pakistani bombing raid. Even Foreign Office has pointed out that the “biggest beneficiary” of Pulwama was the BJP government, which was able to bang war drums and run a “virulent anti-Pakistan electoral campaign” based on lies about their “successes” in the standoff with Pakistan. Meanwhile, the only evidence of Pakistani involvement their ‘investigators’ seem to have is a misspeak.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3^rd, 2020.

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