Part IV
“History is a pack of lies that we play on the dead.” , said Voltaire. How true !
Longer the dead lie interred, simpler it becomes to graft newer set of lies on ‘history’ to serve newer goals, secure in the knowledge that the dead will not arise to set the record straight . The ingenious ones need feel no qualms in picking and retrofitting those pieces of history that best suit their purpose. Mr Modi has a natural flair for it ,one that he perfected to a tee over a long gestation as Sangh pracharak. And he uses it with telling effect now. Combining historical chicanery with mesmerising oratory he spins a rhetoric that instantly bamboozles the aam aadmi.
I call it ‘Modibole’, an acronym of Modi and hyperbole. Why Modi ? because he is the leading exponent of it . Modiboles are not momentary lapses of memory, or mere oratorical gaffes . They are well-thought out verbal coup de grace, something of a surgical strike on history wrapped in eloquent sophistry,
The only spanner in the works is that it leaves a lingering, morally sour aftertaste.
Let’s look at a few instances for a better understanding. Just four pickings from the recent ones that are still fresh in public memory.
Rahul Gandhi pays a courtesy call to an ailing Lalu Yadav at AIIMS, soon after Mr Modi roars at a poll rally in Bidar
“when freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh , Batukeshwar Dutt...were jailed did any congress leader go to meet them ? But the congress leaders have the time to meet people who are corrupt and have been jailed.”
A historical subterfuge -despite its principled disavowal of violent means to achieve freedom, Congressi lawyer, Asaf Ali defended them, (Asaf Ali also became the convenor of Congress’s INA Defence Committee).
A contrived connection of the lie to the present - how does a visit to a jailed ,unassociated Bihari leader or the history of freedom movement square with merits of present choices before Karnataka electorate ?
Yet the imputation is stark, none miss it. Congress is unpatriotic and in company of corrupt. The Reddys and Yeddys of immediate relevance to polls and travelling in Modi’s train can breathe easy, the spot light is turned away.
There you have it - the anatomy of a typical Modibole. Goebbels at his best.
Take Gujarat polls, Modibole hammers- Congress has an anti - Gujarati DNA. It overlooked Sardar Patel and Morarji Desai for PMship. Forgotten in the narrative is that it was another Gujarati, M K Gandhi, that chose Nehru over Patel and for that reason Patel recused himself. Didn’t the Syndicate of which Morarji Desai was a prominent member itself dump him for an outsider ? When history of the present times is recalled a hundred years hence by a congressman would it be proper for him to assert that BJP is anti- UP or anti- MP because neither Rajnath Singh nor Sushma Swaraj is the PM today?
The third one. While campaigning in Coorg that gave two army chiefs to the country ,Mr Modi says,
“In 1948, it was under... General Thimayya’s leadership that the war against Pakistan was won. But after that victory, the saviour of Kashmir, General Thimayya, was repeatedly insulted by then Prime Minister Nehru and then defence minister Krishna Menon. And it was for this reason, his honour, that General Thimayya had to resign from his post.”
Fact-check - In 1948 the army chief was Gen Roy Bucher, Thimayya operated under command of corps commander SM Shrinagesh, and Western Army commander Lt Gen Cariappa. Krishna Menon was not then the Defence Minister. There is no contemporary historical record of Nehru humiliating Thimayya at any time. Thimayya became Army Chief in 1957, superseding two senior officers, courtesy Nehru. True, he did resign in 1959 over policy differences with Mr Menon but it was Nehru who made him withdraw it. But then the dead can not rise from ashes to tell their side of the story.
Finally, Gujarat polls -Somnath temple.
“When Sardar Patel took up the work of re-construction of Somnath temple, Nehru was unhappy. Your great grandfather Nehru wrote a letter to President Rajendra Prasad when he was to come for the opening ceremony of the temple," PM Modi said
Fact check- Nehru cabinet soon after the merger of Junagarh with India in 1947 approved reconstruction of the Somnath temple. Patel agreed to Gandhi suggestion that funds for it should be collected from public donation, not state exchequer. Its reconstruction was supervised by Union minister K M Munshi.Nehru expressed his reservations about President, Dr Rajendra Prasad inaugurating the temple as
"I confess that I do not like the idea of your associating yourself with a spectacular openingof the Somnath Temple. This is not merely visiting a temple, which can certainly be done by you or anyone else but rather participating in a significant function which unfortunately has a number of implications,
"I confess that I do not like the idea of your associating yourself with a spectacular openingof the Somnath Temple. This is not merely visiting a temple, which can certainly be done by you or anyone else but rather participating in a significant function which unfortunately has a number of implications,
Nehru held to the very end of his life that state shouldn’t be in the business of patronising any religion ; however, individuals were free to pursue their faith in any manner they deemed fit. Modibole, however, construes it as opposition to temple building and a step beyond, anti - Hindu.
While Modibole is a fresh coat on the past, speculating on history as would have been , too scores political brownie points. It insulates the speaker from being seen as intellectually dishonest .Of course , the most topical theme in this genre is-how different India would have been if Patel, not Nehru had been PM of independent India. Or as Giriraj Singh would have us speculate “ Agar Rajiv Gandhi koi Nigerian ladki se byaah kiye hote, göri chamra na hota toh kya Congress party uska netritwa sweekarti?”
I admit to running a real risk of getting it all wrong. Purushottam Nagesh Oak under the aegis of “ Institute for Rewriting India history’ may finally ‘prove’ Modibole ,the truth, and existing historical literature ,post- truths. The contours of such an Orwellian project are already visible. Text-books in Rajasthan declare Rana Pratap Singh a victor of Haldighati, so Akbar becomes a post-truth. Sangeet Som hollers “ I promise with guarantee that fresh history will be scripted” after having already written one “ builder of Taj Mahal jailed his own father” . A hitherto unknown efflorescence in science and technology that invested ancient times with plastic surgery, stem cell transplant, transatlantic aerial voyages on Pushpak viman, and live telecast of Mahabharata war from ground zero, Kurushetra, over TV channel, ‘Sanjaya uvwacch’ is being discovered to boost our national ego.
In addition to , not exclusion of, the power of their oratory, statesmen in the past moved their listeners by irrefutable logic in their arguments, and the intrinsic persuasiveness of substance in the convictions they expressed. Opponents drew flak for flaws in their arguments, and ideological inconsistencies in their counter- narratives. They did not slander or reduce history to a gossip (Oscar Wilde) or a distillation of rumour (Thomas Carlyle) . In short, they didn’t need Modibole.
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