Why I think we are all in a Rajini movie.

I was born in Pune. Sadashiv Peth, to be precise. And in Paranjape Hospital right across Jnana Prabodhini. My father's last name was Gadgil (Konkanasth Chitpavan Brahmin) and my mother's, Kulkarni (Deshasth Brahmin). My grandfather, a Marathi author, editor, and publisher of note, was a staunch Hindutva proponent, who was friends with the Godse and Savarkar families (also P.N.Oak, of 'Tejomahalaya' fame, but that's another story). He spent his entire life serving the cause. My father was an officer in the Indian Air Force as was my brother. My father's uncles were, respectively, shopkeepers (selling books) and academics (rising to become the Principal of Fergusson College and later the Pro-VC of Pune University). I studied in Central Schools all my life and eventually graduated as an engineer from Pune University in 1994, to become an entrepreneur/businessman, which took me across the world (I was an NRI for 12 years), before coming back to Pune, and settling in my hometown. For now.

Why do I tell you this? Because I am, by default (of my family, my caste, my education, my hometown, my social network, my economic class, indeed my birth) the TG for the RSS and BJP. I really do not know how I escaped being a bigot and a xenophobe, an authoritarian and a fascist, a Hitler-lover (incidentally, many from my friends and relatives are lovers of both Hitler and Israel; Hitler for the obvious right-wing nationalism and authoritarianism, and Israel, because Muslims/Arabs) and a Gandhi-hater (but also toeing his line about Ramrajya, cow protection, going back to roots, anti-technology, etc.), in effect, a die-hard BJP voter. But I did. And thank dog for that. Maybe books had something to do with it. I do not know, because the very people I mention in this post are primarily responsible for my reading. Maybe it was my father (who gave me tremendous encouragement to question everything) or maybe it had to do with education, or the IAF culture we grew up in, or maybe the international exposure played a part. I am not sure. Whatever it was, because I was so perfectly the audience for the hard right Hindutva message, I have always been surrounded by friends, associates, and relatives who have swallowed that message hook, line, and sinker, the net effect of which is that I am deep behind enemy lines and get to see the way people around me are being targetted, converted, and used. I also get to observe the strategy the storytellers on the hard right use to impress their audience.

And here's the thing: it never fails to amuse me. Why? Because their entire messaging is focussed around 'Gotcha!', which in Hindi can be described as the 'सही पकड़े हैं!' or 'जली न, तेरी जली न?' method. In fact, Marathi (as usual) has the perfect phrase for this approach, called, 'कशी जिरवली?!' (Or, 'Did you see what I did there? Did you? Did you? LOL.'). The technique is about using whataboutery in such a sophisticated manner that at the end of it, there's the undeniable 'Gotcha!' moment, which makes the deliverer of such a message smug and the audience roaring in appreciation, with both parties: the messenger as well as the TG, simultaneously and spontaneously bursting into a grand collective orgasm, each one feeding off the other. One of the recent examples is the letter written by Dr.Harshvardhan to Dr.Manmohan Singh which spoke about "History shall be kinder to you Dr Manmohan Singh ji if your offer of ‘constructive cooperation’ and valuable advice was followed by your INC leaders as well in such extraordinary times !" (sic) complete with quote marks (I can almost see the smug Dr.Harshvardhan with a shit-eating grin making air quotes while delivering this retort to Dr.MMS, and hear the mocking laughter from his audience for the point scored) and self-satisfied smugness overflowing from every word, with the writer of the tweet so happy with the turn of phrase that it is quite possible he had a hard-on after he thought of how he'd put one over the old sardarji.

I have seen members of my own family right from the early years of Modi on the national level to recently, when he would mention people and things obliquely in his mocking tone without taking names, or by using pejorative titles and aliases he had bestowed upon them, and how they ate it all up with the wink-wink-nudge-nudge action as if their hero just scored a winning touch down or hit a six on the last ball by mocking his opposition. They would share his speeches and quotes about 'Yuvraj' and '50 crore ki girlfriend' or 'मालूम है? क्या मालूम है? नहीं मालूम है!' or 'घर में शादी है, पर पैसे नहीं हैं। हाहाहा'. They talked of his symbolism of inviting the Pak PM for his swearing-in by talking about how he made an example of him, or about how he called Obama by his first name, or how he ignored the non-NDA CM on a visit to a state, or how deliberately he chose a saffron headgear, or how he showed down the VP (who was a Muslim then), or how he turned this phrase or made that witticism, and so on. They were excited by the whole 'How's the josh?' and 'यह नया इंडिया है, घर में घुसेगा भी, और मारेगा भी। because it had the whole 'Gotcha!' flavour going for it. And Modi is not alone in overutilising this tool to the point of bluntness (and frankly, exhaustion for the saner people listening in). Every right-winger I know of uses it liberally. From the garden variety Facebook 'intellectual' using complex words to justify a child raped inside a temple by the priest to the party spokesperson who comes on TV to take the INC to task (just FYI: INC has 51 MPs out of 543, and BJP, 300) for something the ruling party did, each one of them uses the technique of ending their argument like a stand-up comic who makes what he thinks is going to be a crowd-pleasing-standing-ovation punch-line and then looks at the audience in anticipation that the joke lands as he expected it to.

Why do you think the right-wing in India goes for the 'Gotcha!' approach of debate? Are they teenagers in a dance-off or a rap battle that relies on roasting one's opponents at the basest levels to score points? Are they in a 'Yo mamma...' contest on the street corner? Is it because they went to public schools where this is how debating was taught to them? Not at all. This comes from a sense of inferiority deep down of not having any intrinsic worth or depth in their leadership, and most importantly not having any documented and evidenced immediate past to speak of. Yes, they can all talk about the (vaguely) glorious past a millennium ago, and they can talk of the (debatably) bright future that awaits them as their leaders will take them into becoming a world superpower. But they have nothing in the last 100-odd years. No great leaders, no glorious battles, no hard-fought wins, no heroic defeats, nothing. That is why they have to make shit up, create history, rewrite the past, appropriate leaders and movements, invent revolutions, and then claim that somehow all of this was cleverly overlooked through an international conspiracy and they, the current inheritors of this glorious past that only they know of, are now righting the wrongs (by the way, dig a bit, and besides Mughals and Englishmen, you'll find references to Illuminati and World Jewry, I kid you not). But this approach requires two things: a way to finesse known history and historical figures into something that can fit into their made-up narrative, and a way to keep winning debating points based not on truth or objectivity, but through rhetoric and gotchas.

The way to show they are better is not to show they are better (that'd be lame) but to belittle the other (which is everyone but them). It is like me trying to be as fast as Usain Bolt not by practicing more or racing him, but by breaking his kneecaps just before the race. The right wing's way of evening the odds are not to raise their standards, but to drag down into the gutter everyone else so that all of them are now in the gutter. That's where their schoolboy debating form comes from.

So, instead of saying something that has gravitas and truth, and is relevant and important to the debate or discussion in progress, the right-winger will rely heavily on saying something passive-aggressive and witty (in a twisted way) and then wait for the audience applause and whistles. And, true to form, that is exactly what their audience wants and expects from them. We have, for all practical purposes, become a superficial society where the story does not matter. Only the punchline does.

To those looking outside in, it looks like a cringefest, not unlike the middle-aged bigoted uncle telling a sexist joke about married women or one about Muslims and then extending his hand, palm outstretched facing up, with the expectation of a low-five ('दे ताली') from the audience, while those that either do not get the joke, or think it juvenile/unnecessary/impolite, watch in horror as the audience who either 'gets' the joke or who 'respects' the uncleji too much to show they didn't understand or appreciate it, slowly, awkwardly extend their hand after an embarrassing pause in the proceedings as the uncle looks on expectantly at them, and completes the charade by slapping his hand with theirs, laughing uproariously at the sick non-joke. And just like that, they feel validated, part of a tribe that 'gets' each other, and somehow superior than the subject on which the 'joke' was cracked, who has now been shown their place. It is indeed a circle jerk in the truest sense.

Coming to the point of circle jerks, it is very much like what the juvenile left liberals do when they virtue signal. For the right-winger bhakts, this is a similar kind of signalling, except they are not projecting their virtuousness, but their relief and redemption, from the lack of real heroes and history, from the memories of being crushed by others even while being so self-confident about their righteousness and strength, from all the imagined history that isn't taught, from the fictitious tales of their valour and the never-present moral high ground of their bigoted ancestors, indeed from history itself, and into a dream-like perfection called 'Ramrajya' (or, in case of Punekars, 'Peshwai'). The punchline that mocks all those who they feel inferior to, the gotcha phrase they end with, that extended hand for the low-five, it all makes their lives worth living, and worth writing & talking about.

In fact, in many ways, it is like a Rajinikanth line, with the style in which it is thrown taking precedence over what is being said. And it is said for effect, the effect being the whistles and applause from the stalls. It is perhaps only fitting that the whole business of governing this nation has been reduced to the script of a bad movie, with the only difference being that while the make-believe in the movie lasts 2 or maybe 3 hours, this one is here to stay.

Later edit: The irony of people telling me how I have written a beautiful piece and how I have "got 'em" does not escape me. 🙂

Even later edit: I know. I am loquacious. Never use a word where a dozen will suffice, I say.