On stitching a conversation

Conversations are like pieces of clothing. They have got to be stitched. And you have to know the art of stitching a conversation to be able to do a good job of it.

I am incapable of stitching a conversation. Howsoever hard I might try, I cannot prolong a conversation. My son Anurag seems to have inherited this trait from me.

A typical conversation between the two of us proceeds thus. Let us say that I have called Cleveland, USA where he lives these days. I say, ”Good morning, Gugoo”. Gugoo is his pet name at home. He is punctilious in his reply, as he has been trained to do. “Good morning, Daddy.” I say, ”How are you?” and he replies,” Very well, thank you. How are all of you over there in Delhi?” I reply, ”We are all right by the grace of God.”

Now here is an opportunity to stitch the conversation by resorting to the ancient technique of “Nikka chha bi varay?”(Is the young baby well?) to which he replies,”Ahaan bhi varay.”( Yes, he is ok.)And he asks in his turn,” Tathya chha bhi varay?”( Is grandfather also well?)and I reply,”Ahaan bhi varay.”( Yes he is ok.) And thus the conversation can limp along for a little while we exhaust the lists of relatives on both sides.

One of us can then switch on to the weather. I  can say, ”How is the weather over there? “ knowing full well that Cleveland is always cold. It can be cold or very cold or very very cold or extremely cold, but there are no major surprises in store. Similarly if he inquires about the weather at Delhi, I can say warm, hot or very hot and humid, very humid or very, very humid. Again this line of dialogue cannot proceed very far or yield conversational gambits that can prolong the exchange of words to any reasonable extent.

And, therefore, these father-son dialogues have a propensity to falter and splutter, till they subside into silence. There is a pause in the proceedings and if there were only fathers and sons in this world, telephone conversations would be marked by precision and brevity.

Fortunately, there are mothers who jump into the fray and daughters-in-law on the other side, with the result that the sinking ship of international tete a tete is again set afloat.

I have often wondered what techniques are applied by our womenfolk to prolong the exchange of their interminable dialogues. I have quietly and patiently waited in the periphery, applying my auditory nerve to the utmost to learn the technology of verbal exchange.

Believe me, both technology and techniques matter.

The first method is the collection and dissemination of information. When women meet on a social occasion  or exchange notes about it in a telephonic conversation, they exchange a host of gossip about who has come and who has not come and why, who is wearing what and whether it suits them and how much it costs. What is the detailed agenda for the marriage or the funeral or whatever, who is going to Hardwar and so on .If someone falls ill, they exchange nuggets of information on what the   doctors have diagnosed and prescribed and forecast etcetra.

Believe me, if you talk to five relatives of the deceased or divorced or diseased ,you are bound to acquire a vast store of information, surmise, guesswork, and pure malicious gossip.As you talk to more people and   divulge what you already know, you become the confidant of further informants and your conversations become longer and longer.

The second major technique of prolonging and embellishing a conversational tapestry is the sharing of expertise that you have acquired over the years. If you maintain data on the birthdays—English, Kashmiri, official, private and so on, you can be the first person in the world to  wish people  a happy birthday. This gives you a crushing lead, especially in these days of What’ s app when all the congratulatory messages are laid out neatly typed along with the names of senders and the time when the message was sent.

Then you can acquire and maintain over the years the lists of panditjis who can come and do puja and how much is the going rate for different ceremonies. If you have a good memory you can memorise the days on which, after a death in the family, clothes could be washed  or when you can visit relatives or resume eating of non-vegetarian stuff!  We all know how voluminous is the batni puraan that has been meticulously worked out by clever housewives in conspiracy with cleverer gurujis. No one knows what the authority for such fatwas or rules is, but they seem to have the sanctity normally accorded to veda vakyas.

So if you are planning to beat your wife in   the conversational marathon, forget about it.She is already miles ahead of you and is programmed to win!  Don’t even try!!!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

A tale of two handkerchiefs  

Narinder Modi is a leader of the grandiloquent gesture .Prime ministers  of the past, when they won unprecedented  victories in the parliamentary  polls,  did not make a big  song and dance about it . They went in meekly and when their turn to speak  came they   made an acceptance speech without displaying  their histrionic  abilities  to leave an indelible mark on the pages of history, be it Indira Gandhi  in 1971 or Rajiv Gandhi in 1984.

Not so friend Narinder Bhai. His first  historic moment  came in 2014,when  he led the BJP to win a massive mandate  in the  Lok Sabha. Now the thespian  in him decided  to make his entry into the Parliament  house  at the magical moment  that would be remembered for a long long time  . It was  as if he were  a  later day  Moses   entering the Dead  Sea  with his cohorts  thus displaying his great  powers  as  the  Prophet  of  Judaism .

When he arrived at Parliament  House  he  stopped  at  the  main  entry, a lonely figure chiefly responsible  for the victory . All his followers  also   stopped  but several  steps  behind  him, thus underlining the undeniable fact of his leadership . He bowed  down and  touched  the  entry  point  with his  forehead  as  if  he was  a devotee  seeking  the  permission  of  the  presiding  deity  to enter  his  divine  domain . Close observers  would  have, if  they  looked  sharply  enough,   seen his  lips  mumble  a mantra  to invoke the divine  grace  on  the  purely  mundane  act  of  entering  a  place  for transacting  political  business .

The same gestures of grandiloquence  invested two mundane handkerchiefs with magical bursts of  divine  energy . First occasion :  it was  the  15^th of August  and  Modi was speaking from the ramparts of the Red fort  in his highly clipped language of  RSS worship and playing the tricky games of  Hindutva , while pretending  to  extend all the human rights  to the non-Hindus.

For the first time the huge audience , impressed  with  the  Band gala  jacket  over  a  56 inches chest  and an oversized  Maratha turban  reminiscent of  Chhatrapati  Shivaji  were suddenly  over  shadowed  by  a large  white  handkerchief . This new addition to the Prime Minister’s   sartorial  attire  was meant  to  dry  the  huge  beads  of  perspiration  that  were  constantly  forming  on  the  great man’s  forehead .This  large  white  handkerchief  emerged  again  and again  in Modi’s  protective hands, thus  becoming  a  visible  symbol  of  the  State’s  imperial  might and supreme power. 

Hardly had  the dumb  millions  recovered  from   this  open   display of  the  supreme  exhibition of the  Centre’s  authority  than the 16^th August  supervened  and  Modi  was again  in  his  Divine Form, walking  beside  the  gun carriage  of  Atal  Bihari  Vajpayee  .  Again  the  handkerchief  was merely  a  reminder  of  his  Viratswarupa  that  compelled  the  incumbent  Prime Minister  to  walk several  kilometres  in   hot  and  humid  weather,  singing  the  hymn  of  people’s  Government.

Thus  we  have  now  New  Delhi,  the  city of   two large white  handkerchiefs,  ineffectually  trying  to  conceal the  basically  aggressive  agenda  of   Modi’s   brand  of  politics. 

                                        

Black Dog

It was a day like any other day. The month of December. Early morning with Delhi’s infamous smog making it seem much colder than it was.

Raj and I were on our usual stroll from our residence at Pamposh to what the R Block residents proudly tom tom as their ornamental Park. We came out on the main road, myself in front and Raj bringing up the rear.There was no intimation of impending peril.

Suddenly, as we approached the unfinished building of the GK I Police Station, two dogs emerged from the darkness and   emitted a general bark in our direction. This was standard operating procedure for Dogs on Duty.   I looked nonchalantly towards them and waved my stick. They retreated tactically. So far so good.

Telling myself inaudibly that there was no danger from these canine rascals, I plodded ahead. The duo now decided to move towards Raj in a threatening pose which took her entirely by surprise. She shouted something in Kashmiri, possibly Drr Drr, as we do to dogs in Kashmir.

But they were not Kashmiri dogs to be intimidated by a mild reproof by a memsaab. They went on barking.   Raj got nervous, fearing the worst and stated retreating as they moved towards her, barking loudly.

Raj says that she was reminded of an incident  that took place in the Park a few months ago, where a stray dog had attacked a woman walker inside the Park. The lady had to have several anti-rabies injections and had stopped coming to the Park. She says that she went backwards only to escape a similar fate. In her fright she also uttered a mild shriek.

It was the shriek that alerted me to the realisation that all was not well. I turned and was in time to see the two dogs moving dangerously towards Raj and Raj raising her two arms in a gesture of self-protection and nervous retreat In slow motion. I saw Raj keeling over and falling on her back.

I hurried beside her, waving my stick belligerently at the dogs.  I asked Raj to get up as a car was coming behind her.   I tried to hold her hand, but she said she was unable to get up. Meanwhile two  other chaps materialised from the darkness and shoo’d the dogs away.

When Raj finally got up with a visible effort, I asked her to walk a few steps. She did so and to everyone’s relief said that she did not seem to have broken any bones.

We then proceeded on our usual walk at our accustomed speeds. The word spread like wild fire and soon the scanty population of winter walkers in the Park fawned over  Raj ., each with a word of sympathy.

I raised the question of stray dogs and the menace they posed to the peace-loving population. I suggested that our management committee take up this momentous issue with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. But the suggestion was pooh-poohed away by the question of whether the weather would play truant.

Someone laid the blame entirely at the door of Maneka Gandhi who had assumed the avatar of Protectoress of all animals. She had laid down the law that stray dogs were not to be eliminated. So if you rang up the MCD Cell, they might capture the dogs of your locality but it would not kill them. They would be released quietly in some other community of unsuspecting innocent citizens without publicity or fanfare.

But why blame the MCD?? Had not the Supreme Court of India decreed that even a murderer or dacoit could not be handcuffed on his journey to the lockup or jail? How ridiculous could human rights or animal rights activism get!

Next day, when I passed the crime spot , taking care to walk gingerly and noiselessly on the other side of the road, I was flabbergasted to see the black dog of yesterday barking his head off. He was wearing a coat around his body to protect his delicate skin against the onslaught of winter.

And behind me walked Raj with nervous tread, wearing a  belt under her jacket, to accelerate the healing of the fractures in her back as advised by Dr. U.K.Sadhu, th noted orthopaedic surgeon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

A sojourn in the woods

                           A sojourn in the woods

                                                         M.K.Kaw

Recently, I went on a visit to my daughter .She had been persuading us to take a few days off from the routine at Delhi and we succumbed  .She lives in a beautiful flat in Tata Sherwood , Basavanagar , Bengaluru.

The trip had a terrific start when searching for a cab at the airport and being confronted with unreasonable demands of Rs. 1700 and thereabouts, we sighted our daughter Iti looking for us. I must say it was a pleasant surprise and soon we were trundling along   at a fair pace to her house by the shortest route.

Raj and I never see the latest Bollywood releases because one has to take so many irksome steps and then see the artistic offering in a large darkened hall, surrounded by smelly strangers. You cannot repeat an especially emotion-laden scene, you cannot raise the volume when the romantic pair whisper sweet nothings in each other’s ears..

In my daughter’s house these rules do not apply. We were able to see the downloaded versions of latest offerngs and take cashewnuts and coffee while watching the drama.

As part of our itinerary, Iti and Rahul had laid on a five day trip to Coorg. Coorg is celebrated for its forests, cool air and its famous soldiers like Cariappa and Thimayya. The moment these names came up, I was inspired to tell my favourite tale of Sarswati river.How a great civilization was born on the banks of the river Sarswati. How a cataclysmic event destroyed that culture and dispersed the Sarswats across the sub-continent. How the Sarswat Brahmins were distributed to distant locations like Kashmir, Maharashtra, Coorg and Bengal. How all Sarswat brahmins were cousins. So we Kashmiri Pandits could boast of famous generals like Thimayya and Cariappa as our near relations.

We roamed in the dense forests of Coorg, where the trees were huge with large leaves which swished in the ever stormy wind and created the sound of music, as if there was a waterfall nearby. But when you ventured forth, gingerly clutching an umbrella in one hand, you were pleasantly surprised to discover that the whole melodrama was a creation of Nature.

So one afternoon, when we were invited to a guided tour of a coffee plantation, we went in the innocent belief that  it would be an idyllic  stroll over an evenly laid out smooth terrain where the walk would be like a saunter  over a woollen Persian carpet.

And I must say that it started well. The slim knowledgeable youth who introduced himself as Subba Rao, an executive with the coffee plantation, which was spread over 200 acres, appeared to be the ideal person to introduce a party of fifteen persons  to the plantation, where the air was overladen with the aroma of coffee and cardamom.  And the forest path had a soft, feathery touch to it and there was no mud or jagged stone to spoil the effect.

As we proceeded to survey the plants and Subba Rao waxed eloquent on the quality of the products of Coorg, the path became steep and damp and sharp-edged. Our feet were plastered with muck and gtime. I found it increasingly hazardous to negotiate the track. A stage came when my granddaughter Monal and son-in-law Rahul  literally carried me over the rough terrain.

Raj later told me that we looked like Mahatma Gandhi being supported by two girls when he went for an evening stroll. She would have photographed us, had it not been a stressful experience for her, with the fear that all three of us would come tumbling down.

Every time Subba Rao opened his mouth, I asked him a queation.’”When do we reach the terminal point of this tour?” Rao would make a face and deflect the question.  In the later stages of the tour, he pointed to the fat goats grazing so contentedly on the slopes,”Relax, Sir! A jeep is waiting for us and it will carry us back.”

The promise of that jeep sustained me  over the track which seemed to become steeper, muddier and more and more hazardous with every step. At long last Rao stopped and made his final peroration. He revealed that we would be greeted with a hot steaming cup of coffee when we reached the starting point.

 Everything happened as planned. The jeep came just half an hour late, we were shipped up that steep climb and the cups of coffee were there, though tepid and sweet. But one should not be ungrateful.  It will be long before I shall forget that sojourn in the woods

. Especially the fat ruddy leeches who made their bloody appearance in the hotel room when we took off our shoes and socks.

A False Step

                        A false step

It was December, on what was probably the coldest day of the year. I had just appeared on NDTV and was in a somewhat euphoric state of mind. The escort girl whispered something about going by a shortcut to the parking area where their vehicle was parked.

We started to cross a hall in which carpenters had been at work during the day

“Mind your step, Sir”, the girl whispered, even as I put my foot forward on a loose piece of timber and twisted something near the knee. That was the false step.

That one step cost me dearly, both in pain and expense.

I started limping a little. When it persisted, Raj insisted that I   consult a specialist. We decided to go to an Ayurveda clinic, and after a bit of research discovered Santhigiri in Malaviya Nagar. They had various kinds of   oil massage, as practised in Kerala. The vaid  in charge sold us two courses on rejuvenation and revitalisation, which would incidentally also rid me of the pain near the knee.

Three weeks later, I had undergone vigorous Kerala massaging and was Rs. 25,000 lighter in the pocket. Towards the end of the period I said I was feeling better, for fear that he might make me undergo a few more rejuvenation programmes.

After a while, I started seeing Swami Ramdev’s lectures on Aastha channel at 4-30 a.m. His yogic exercises helped me enormously in other aspects of life like getting up early, practising five different forms of meditation and some excellent exercises to become slimmer and generally tone up the body and mind.

But alas! The pain in the knee still persisted.

After a while, Raj happened to talk to a neighbour’s daughter at a wedding. The girl inquired politely why uncle was limping. When Raj unburdened her soul, she promptly revealed that she was now running a physiotherapy clinic at N Block, GK I.

Very soon thereafter we were at Meera Kak’s Clinic and I was booked for a course , which after a suitable neighbourly rebate cost us Rs. 15000 per course.

I must say in retrospect that Meera’s formula for combating pain is a composite one. She uses all the known techniques, like exercises in the gym, yogic asanas, hot and cold compresses, special contortionist postures    by her dedicated and muscular team of female wrestlers

..They even went to the extent of teaching me how to walk.

The girl prompted: ” Keep your neck straight, inhale a chest size of 56, look at a point 200 yards ahead, order your legs to take a long step,  lift your right foot up and put it smartly forward and mentally sing the lines “Nanha munna rahi hoon, desh ka sipahi hoon…”

Two courses later, I had tired of the whole regimen and lapsed into sleeping at home and a course of benign neglect. One day, Papoo came to our house and saw me limping. He waxed eloquent on the merits of Anand Purohit, who had magic fingers and made your pain disappear instantly. He had cured his tennis elbow in no time.

I succumbed to Papoo’s propaganda.Anand manipulated the leg, the calf etc .and on my third visit asked me to ascend the stairs. I did it with ease.Anand flashed his famous smile and said, “it is as I thought. There is nothing wrong with the knee. You have only to order your leg to move.”

My wife , who has always suspected that I have no pain and  it is all a figment of my imagination concurred fully with him. After eight sittings each costing Rs. 800/- I gave up the treatment.

My latest experiment is with a young dedicated architect who practices Sujok,the Korean art of acupuncture. This is Parul Maheshwari who has converted his basement in Saket into a physiotherapy clinic. He claims that the Sujok is the most complete system of therapy invented by man. He takes a computer snapshot of the patient’s nervous system through an Accugraph and then measures the progress over a period of time.

My initial accugraph gave me a composite score of 65%. In the last two months, the score has come up to   92% Thus there is great improvement.

“sBut the pain in the knee still persists,” I whine, at which comment he flashes a smile. ”You will see the improvement. Let the nervous balance in the body be first restored.”

Parul does not charge a fee. So I still visit him religiously at 7 a.m. every morning.

What do I have to lose?

The choice of a profession

The choice of a profession

My grandson Shashank is in ClassXI ,going on  to Class XII. This is the critical time when children have to choose their profession. In our days the options were limited; One naturally drifted towards a profession, either following the family tradition or abiding by the wisdom of the elders. When it came to our children, the youngsters had already started asserting themselves. We wanted them to enter the civil service, but they were singularly unimpressed by their experience of my life style. My daughter became an engineer MBA and my son a cardiac surgeon.

Then came Bill Gates, Mark Zuckenburg and Steve Jabs and being a school or college dropout became fashionable throughout the world. In India, ‘Three Idiots’ represented the great divide. Parents became apprehensive about imposing their career choices on their children; there was always the implicit threat of suicide in the air.

Shashank at first plumped for commerce, then shifted gear to history, then to international affairs. The latest bombshell he lobbed at his parents was politics. When asked for a clarification he explained that he did not mean good old “political science”, he wanted to join active politics. My daughter almost fainted away.

Shashank was directed to discuss the matter with his nanu (i.e. poor me). I had no intention of confronting youth power head on. I only sought clarifications. When he said politics, what exactly did he mean? Would he enter the rough and tumble of electoral politics, first in the municipal ward, then graduating to higher positions of MLA, MP, Minister, Chief Minister etc?

He was exceedingly mature for his age. His model was Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the Students] Union in Jawahar Lal Nehru   University.He had studied his career graph in depth. You had first to emerge as a student leader and then force the Govt. to arrest you for sedition. This route appeared to be easy and replicable.

Kanhaiya’s recent career showed how a nonentity could be catapulted overnight  to the status of a national celebrity, just because of a concentrated dose of attention from the electronic and print media.

I must say that the young man had learnt his lessons well .I wondered how he could be dissuaded from this calamitous course of action .I reminded him of the special skills and background that successful politicians had necessarily to boast of .      Kanhaiya Kumar hailed from a poor family of Bihar . Narinder Modi was a Chaiwala’s son. Both spoke Hindi with great fluency ,with Modi having picked his linguistic skills from his long stint as a R S S pracharak .

Did he not notice how Kanhaiya had been a fond bed-fellow of undesirable elements like Maoist extremists and Kashmiri separatists? Would Shashank fel comfortable with mouthing of anti-national slogans of  the kind shouted in the JNU campus on 9^th February?

Shashank would always be saddled by the overwhelming burden of the patrician credentials of his parents and having been student of a public school , his proficiency in the manipulation of the Hindi language was nothing to boast of .

On top of it he would have to locate his political career in the state of Karnataka of which he knew very little . He would have to be a master of  Kannad.

As our conversation proceeded, I could see that Shashank’s initial enthusiasm for politics as a career had waned considerably .Latest reports from Bengaluru indicate that Shashank might persuade himself to take up something more classy like international affairs or  inclusive politics as a subject of study .

 For the present, we are keeping our fingers crossed! 

THE STRATEGY OF SILENCE

                              The strategy of silence

In politics, the consummate players have to know when to speak and when to be silent. Manmohan Singh lost his gaddi because he maintained a studied silence at all times, hoping that the storms would spend their fury and vanish into the horizon of comparative calm. Since Rahul found his tongue after the extended sabbatical of introspection, he has decided to be loud, uproarious, brash and vulgar, hoping that the pitch and timber of his vocal fury would move some of his listeners to side with him.

Modi is a flawless player. He let the entire Lalit Modi affair fade away into the drainage system of the proverbially short memory of the public. He did not speak a word in defence. His loyal fans see a deeper strategy behind the master’s silence. The criticism reduced the carefully crafted image of those party men who could pose   a political challenge in the future, and he let the Opposition perform this odious task for him.

It is not equally evident why he lets the fringe of the Hindutva crowd get away with comments that diminish the stature of the NDA Government without even a mild admonition or rebuke.

There are several schools of thought to explain away this studied silence. The most popular belief is that he feels that such hegemonic slogans in defence of Hinduism tend to solidify the Hindu vote bank, which has traditionally been fractured into the secularists and the Hindutva lovers. To some extent, those Hindus who found it morally superior to flaunt a pro-Muslim stance on contentious issues and personalities of the past may have found it possible to saunter their way into the motley crowd of Muslim-baiters.

This kind of volte face might not apply to strong characters like Girish Karnad, who might even indulge in deliberately provocative stances in order to receive death threats a la Salman Rushdie. But such exceptions only tend to  prove the point.

The second school of thought avers that the views of the lunatic fringe are an extreme version of the basic belief held by Modi himself that Hinduism represents the highest form of civilized thinking over the millennia and across the continents. The way he has introduced Yoga into the international arena, persuaded the UN to celebrate the World Yoga Day on 21^st June, patronised the efforts  to train millions of people   in Yoga , introduced Yoga education in the schools and so on is one such initiative. 

 

At the philosophical level, he is an acolyte of Swami Vivekananda and is a great votary of Vedanta as being the acme of spirituality. He is a patron of the Vivekananda Foundation and has drafted some of his top advisers from that body.

The third theory contends that he was an RSS pracharak all his life and has been popularising the Sangh ideology by travelling from village to village. Although he was married, he has led a life of bachelorhood. He deeply believes in the theory of an Akhanda Bharat and would like India to emerge as a Hindu Rashtra.

Modi’s opponents contend that his studied silence on crucial issues gives out the wrong impression that  the statements made by the Sangh functionaries have been averred in the public domain with blessings from the PM.

This may be far from the truth. Let us take the declaration about the need for a rethink on the entire policy of reservation  made by Mohan Bhagwat as an instance. At this point of time, when the waters have been muddied by statements and counter-statements galore, it is difficult to guess what Bhagwat meant in the first place and whether it was a casual remark  or the result of a carefully thought out strategy. Did he mean abolition of reservation of seats in educational institutions and  the earmarking of posts for recruitment to posts under the Government ? If so, it could at best be a slip of tongue for a seasoned politician like the Sarsanghachalak. And Modi is no greenhorn to have instigated it or even tolerated it, considering the potential damage this would cause in the Bihar elections.

If on the other hand, it was a deeply thought out strategy to fracture the reserved category vote into families receiving the benefit of reservation for the first time and those who had already benefitted from it, that would be a completely different  matter. But then Bhagwat should have made it clear in the very first place. The explanations offered by the spokespersons might have contained the damage somewhat, but it is undeniable that the declaration gratuitously allowed Lalu to reap an unforeseen political dividend .

There are other instances of Modi’s silence. Take the appointment of the Chairman FTTI Pune which has snowballed into a long drawn out controversy. It boggles the imagination as to why the appointment of a nobody like Gajendra Chauhan, who is neither a celebrated actor nor a notable BJP sympathiser should have been made a point of prestige by the I&B Ministry.

The explanation offered that even in the past persons who were close to the establishment were appointed to such posts ` is neither here nor there. No one holds the view that a first rate film actor like say Shatrughan Sinha or Hema Malini would have elicited the same kind of response. It is not clear why a call from the PMO did not nip the agitation in the bud.

There have been numerous aberrations perpetrated by the Shiv Sena, which is an uneasy partner of the BJP in Maharashtra. The Sena has opposed any sports or cultural contact with Pakistan. Even a discussion on a book did not materialise. Such antics on the part of the Sena may be acceptable, but not the inability of its BJP partner to distance itself from such extreme viewpoints and to ensure that the events took place with the active support of the Govt. and its law and order machinery.

That brings us to the murder of a literary figure in Karnataka and its fallout in the literary world. It may technically be true that the primary responsibility for maintaining the rule of law rests on the shoulders of the State Government . But this does not absolve the Centre from its share of responsibility.The murder of this literary giant sent ripples in the entire community of creative persons and when the Centre showed complete apathy led to the return of the Academy awards and other prizes and honours  received by writers, actors, scientists and so on.

The Centre’s defence of its inaction did not cut much ice. To paint the  response of the creative community as political and confined to the favourites of previous regimes rubbed salt in their wounds. It  was no use pointing out that the Akademies and other bodies could not be held responsible for the atmosphere of intolerance , if there was any. The episode could have been nipped in the bud by registering a CBI case to investigate the murder and giving an assurance from the highest level that such dastardly acts would not go unpunished.

That said, it has to be admitted that India is inherently tolerant  because that is the nature of Hindus.Hindus  are taught with mother’s milk that the whole world is one family and that non-violence is the highest rule of righteous conduct. Thus Hindus have traditionally suffered repression and tyranny at the hands of rulers, invaders and conquerors. Many would call this cowardice, not tolerance.

After independence too, the Hindus have followed a policy of treating the minorities with kid gloves. We adopted a version of secularism which favours the minorities. The received wisdom has been that if Hindus favour the minorities, they are secular, but if they favour Hindus they are communal. The result is that the civil code of Hindus has been amended to accord with the modern values of gender parity, monogamy etc. The civil code of the minorities has remained untouched. This has caused    a demographic imbalance that has pushed the percentage of Muslims to 19% of the total population.

Many observers feel that with the ascension of Modi to power, there has been a qualitative difference in the way these policies have been adumbrated in the past. The Hindu right has started asserting itself. For a long time Nathu Ram Godse was consigned to eternal damnation for having assassinated the Father of the Nation. Now the Godse apologists have emerged from the woodwork. The defence statement of Godse has been widely, openly and extensively circulated and there are several groups who feel no hesitation in criticising the Mahatma for his pro-British , pro-Muslim policies. They defend the murder on the ground that it was the only way the Hindu interest could have been subserved.

A strong lobby is emerging that there should be a quid pro quo in Indo-Pak relations. It does not see any point in India’s unilateral generosity in granting the most preferred nation treatment to Pakistan, when it is not willing to reciprocate.

On the issue of terrorism, this hawkish lobby asserts that we should not allow Pakistan have the best of both the worlds at our cost. They are sympathetic to the Shiv Sena ideology. They would not permit cricket matches to be played, Pakistani singers to visit India on long, lucrative tours, Pakistani actors to play in Indian plays, serials and films, Pakistani books to be discussed and sold in India and so on until Pakistan shuts up its terrorists within its own boundaries.

On the issue of beef, this lobby wants that States which have not yet passed legislation that prohibits the slaughter of cows should do so at the earliest. Those which have banned only cow slaughter should extend the ban to bulls, heifers etc. Muslims should not be allowed to slaughter , keep and even privately eat the prohibited species.

The Census figures of 2011 which show a marked jump in the proportion of Muslims have triggered a debate on the need to change the law relating to marriages. They should not be permitted to have more than one wife. A special family planning drive should be launched to limit their growing numbers. There should be a strict vigil on the borders with Bangladesh to prevent the entry of illegal immigrants into this country.

Some over enthusiastic lobbyists have called on the Hindus to boycott the films having Muslim heroes. Baba Ramdev has gone to the extent of suggesting that Shahrukh Khan should prepare an estimate of his increased earnings consequent upon the conferment of awards on him and transfer the hundreds of crores to the PM/s Fund, instead of merely returning a piece of paper to the Government..

During the Bihar elections some of these tendencies came to the fore. It was suggested that if BJP won the elections in Bihar, sweets would be distributed in Pakistan. It is not uncommon for people pleading the cause of Muslims to be advised to   migrate to Pakistan and let the Hindus live in peace in India.  Some secularists have had their faces blackened with ink or coal tar.

A few years back, Francoise Gautier and Konrad Elst had bemoaned the fate of long-suffering Hindus and put forward the bizarre theory that the Hindus collectively suffered from a “death wish”. The time had come when Hindus should transform themselves into  a more assertive community and learn to be aggressive or at least militantly defensive.

Although Modi is generally silent on all these contentious issues, there are some who feel that his very presence at the helm of affairs is a tremendous boost to the Hindu morale. Some of the overt gestures he has made to Hinduism are the promotion of Yoga and Sanskrit , his adulatory references to Hindu heroes  and philosophers, his presentation of Bhagwad Gita to world leaders, his open acceptance of Swami Vivekananda as his spiritual mentor, his appointment of persons known to be close to the rightist ideology etc.He has not broken the arrangement with the Shiv Sena . He has adopted a somewhat tough posture towards Pakistan.

In conclusion, one could say that Modi has used the strategy of silence very effectively. He is not always silent, unlike his immediate predecessor. In fact, on most issues he is voluble, loud and repetitive. But on contentious matters, he often descends into a silence that seems uncharacteristic of him and allows his silence to be variously interpreted both by his admirers and detractors. Therein resides his consummate skill in communication.

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