Misfortune cookie

Is pursuit of peace a crime? I would think not. Unfortunately every day, however, we learn new lessons on the dangers of pushing for the amicable resolution of disputes. Just consider what Benjamin Netanyahu, CBS and Senator Lindsey Graham have collectively wrought against Pakistan. I have already taken pains to highlight how Indian media and punditry have approached the matter. As if being judged and mischaracterised for trying to end the Iran war was not enough, you find many Western and Indian pundits losing it when you say you want President Trump's China visit to be an outstanding success. Every time this happens, my faith in humankind takes a tumble.

Recently I have seen well-respected public intellectuals like Happymon Jacob and Nirupama Rao pushing for controlled rivalry between the US and China so that they could be played against each other to India's greater advantage. Make no mistake. This was a central pillar of India's policy for a quarter of a century. But there always was an element of plausible deniability. If intellectuals of such repute are forced to say the quiet part aloud in public now, you know something has gone awry. They fail to notice that the expiry date of such a policy has come and gone. A controlled rivalry is no longer a tenable position. Either these two giant economies will complement each other or try to decouple for a cold war. Since India did not invest in strengthening its currency or training its workforce, the latter means economic suicide.

Keep going. To borrow Churchill's words, India today has become a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. I have repeatedly pointed out that visibility in policy direction is becoming an issue now. As if the media's collapse was not a concern already, militant Indian trolls hang out at the websites of your local publications and accuse you of being obsessed or conspiracy-minded if you mention India, hope or peace. Cross-border voyeurism is not an obsession, sharing an honest opinion within your country is. Amazing.

But India today is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma precisely because it is getting harder and harder to understand what it wants due to this weapons-grade opacity that I have often discussed. When that happens, you usually turn to the media and pundits for interpretation. However, a recent development is enough to show that while we are right in noticing the changes in India, we have been woefully wrong in attributing them to India's current rulers.

Today the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has acquired the pole position in India's political and foreign policy discourse. Its General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale recently returned from a charm offensive in Washington DC. However, one of his interactions has caused quite a stir. In one podcast he said: "India should always be ready to engage in dialogue with Pakistan. That is why diplomatic relations are maintained, trade and commerce continue, and visas are being given. So we should not stop these, because there should always be a window for dialogue." To the uninitiated this may look like a giant somersault. The RSS publicly speaks about Akhand Bharat (unbroken India including Pakistani, Bangladeshi and other neighbouring territories) and its surrogates, including the ruling party, have made a sport out of Pakistan- and Muslim-bashing after all. But look closely and you realise the religio-cultural outfit has survived a hundred years of repeated bans owing to its long game. So every year when the supremo talks to dignitaries from all walks of life, he does not snub the idea of good relations with Pakistan. He often encourages it. Short- and medium-term peace while you keep ambitions to appropriate your neighbours' properties in the long run is not a contradiction. Even if viewed through the charitable lens of kicking the can down the road, it makes the idea somebody else's (another generation's) problem, but it is not abolished.

However, the Indian media is under no obligation to point this nuance out to its audience or even speak the truth. No, the outrage machine often chugs on pure bile. But given that you already know how bleak the Indian media landscape is these days, let us not go there. Let us instead turn to the pockets of resistance on YouTube. The journalists and public intellectuals who once ruled the Indian screens are now exiled to social media. They should work as our fortune cookies. Right?

Wrong. I found most of them chastising their panellists for even entertaining the notion of engaging with Pakistan. And in this flattened world of convoluted logic, they have marshalled together a conspiracy theory of their own. The US president has power and influence over Modi because he possesses some kompromat. And through this he has forced India to make nice with Pakistan. I would have bought some of it, but so far what I have seen coming out of the so-called Epstein file is that Modi went to Tel Aviv during Trump's first term to win over US support. I don't get the outrage over it. If I ever thought it would serve my national interest, I would have gone to Satan himself on bended knees.

Truth be told, it is the Indian intellectual who is responsible for the vitiated space. Going by the RSS's pace of consolidation, a Modi-like figure would have emerged by 2047, when the country had already gone through a century of financial and diplomatic stability. But that wasn't enough for this elite. It got greedy. It used the Manmohan Singh-built economic and diplomatic clout to go after the premature pursuit of power and dominance. The result is the current paradox India finds itself in, where even when Modi tries to build bridges with India's neighbours, this elite uses his muscular image to blackmail him out of the diplomatic push. India today is this opaque reality not because of Modi but because of this lot.

As LK Advani sums it up: "When asked to bend, they crawled." And this toxicity has to go somewhere. It goes into the world's veins. If you find international media taking a cynical and abusive tone, it is due to this toxicity. Graham, CBS and Bibi are not originators but mirrors. The world will have to be this broken, dystopian place to make this lot happy.

Now that the great Indian misfortune cookie has exposed its true nature to the world, and I know what I was reacting to, I insist we take every peace overture that comes our way. Whether it comes from the RSS or Modi himself, let us double down on the prospects of peace. It is only through peace that we can reclaim the world from a rogue elite.