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FOR far too long the Indian elite has presented itself as different, and better. Not just from our western neighbour, but almost everyone else. We point with pride to our embrace of diversity and pluralism, our 5000-year civilizational legacy of tolerance and, in recent history, our constitutional values and democratic traditions. We rush to celebrate Amartya Sen’s evocative phrase, ‘the argumentative Indian’, foregrounding our national proclivity to ‘differ, debate and dissent’, even when a noisy civil sphere confounds efforts at creating coherence to fulfil national purpose. This, we claim, is who we are and why, despite our immense and bewildering diversity, we have remained one.

And yet, for some time now, these claims to civilizational uniqueness appear flimsy. The relative ease with which public opinion can be galvanized to isolate, and exorcise, the purported ‘other’ by invoking a ‘higher purpose’ is indicative of a serious infirmity in both our culture of public discourse and the institutional arrangements to undergird the fundamental right to free speech and differing opinion.

Invoking the need to rally behind the government in face of a threat, real or imagined, internal or external, has long been a favoured strategy of all regimes – communist, fascist, democratic. The source of the threat may vary, as may the target group selected for disciplining. The modes of exercising control too vary. So, while all regimes use a mixture of fear and pride to buttress themselves, the more intelligent, and longer lasting, among them also realize the value of restraint, that encouraging the freedom to differ too can generate loyalty. It increasingly appears, however, that we are in danger of forgetting this basic premise.

Pakistan, and its policy of supporting/abetting cross-border terror, has long raised hackles in India. Even at the best of times, reasoned and reasonable discussion over how to ‘cool tempers and move towards normality’ has proven difficult. With all regimes castigated as weak by political opposition, the pressure to come across as firm and decisive is immense. Unsurprisingly, given the widespread shock and anger following the ‘martyrdom’ of 19 soldiers in Uri, ‘allegedly’ the result of cross-border action, official exultation over a successful operation across the LoC was only to be expected. So too that the ruling party would claim credit for having ‘restored national pride’ or that the political opposition would seek to neutralize the advantage. This is normal politics in any democracy.

What, however, is extremely disturbing is the tendency to castigate any question/comment, howsoever mild, about the nature of the official claims or on the claimed ‘benefits’ of the action as not only illegitimate but anti-national and, worse, encourage vigilante action against those seen as ‘not falling in line.’

One may dismiss this as a temporary, extreme manifestation in times of heightened tension. But when such behaviour is defended/welcomed by large sections of the media, particularly TV, and spokespersons of the ruling party join over-enthusiastic TV anchors in pillorying any voice of dissent, there is cause for concern. In fact, so pervasive is this mood of hyper-nationalism that even ‘otherwise seen as liberal/reasonable’ channels like NDTV chose to ‘censor’ an interview with senior Congress leader, P. Chidambaram, on the handling of Uri and the surgical strikes, claiming that it was the policy of the channel to provide ‘no space to political bickering’, that the allegations were ‘without a shred of evidence’, and that ‘our army cannot be doubted or questioned, or used for political gains.’ Ironically, the channel chose to live telecast the speech of BJP President Amit Shah praising Prime Minister Modi for his courageous leadership in making possible the army action. Its refusal to provide the former Union home minister a copy of his interview so that he could ‘discover’ where he had indulged in bickering without a shred of evidence or impugned the Indian Army helps outline a new understanding of ethical behaviour.

Intriguingly, the same TV media which is enthusiastically blanking out ‘questions’, if not promoting a lynch mentality, is simultaneously lionizing Cyril Almeida of The Dawn for his report on the differences between the civil/political and military leadership in Pakistan post-Uri and the surgical strikes. The newspaper too has come in for praise for standing by the reporter, upholding the values of free speech and ‘speaking truth to power.’ Surely, if questioning the ‘official truth’ constitutes anti-national action in India, it must do the same in Pakistan? The irony is best captured by Harish Khare writing in The Tribune: ‘In this moment of our greatest satisfaction against Pakistan we have paid that failing nation a flattering compliment: we have become a little like it. And our liberals have abandoned their professed beliefs and practices. Instead, we have embraced illiberalism and its ugly demand for conformism.’

Harsh Sethi