Daily Times

BJP, the party of Indian Union Prime Minister Narendra Modi, recently held what it calls its National Executive meeting. Here, Narendra Modi was lauded for a ‘peaceful’ solution to the Doklam stand-off over a China controlled Bhutanese claimed territory. It is important to look at how well the BJP has been able to sell it as a ‘success’ according to its chest beating Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan male ideology to its core constituency and beyond, the beyond being non-Hindi upper-caste males. But it is a complete failure according to all publicly propagandised standards of success in that ideology. It shows the power of politically crafted lies crafted as spins on reality and a compliant public and private media network that echoes this message.

New Delhi wanted a face saving exit to a situation that was increasingly untenable. New Delhi hopes to manage the possible negative fallout of a climb down by using a domestic media management blitz, including claims about a rise in Delhi’s geopolitical status post ‘disengagement’. The shelf life of an Indo-China impasse is short, and that shelf life is laden with political dividends, given that China is not a Muslim country and hence, the ‘emotive’ appeal of such a stand-off is marginal in present day Indian nationalist discourse.

For its part, Beijing wanted to end this too without yielding much. China hosted the annual BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group summit in Xiamen, the old southeastern Chinese city. The BRICS idea, a grouping that rules over half of the world population, like SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) is a forum China takes immense interest in, as it advances its clout in international forums that privilege the global South. New Delhi, with its ‘natural’ alliance now being aligned along with Washington and Tel Aviv, is clearly on the wrong side of history and geography and probably is the most unwilling member of the BRICS group. But Indian Union Prime Minister Narendra Modi couldn’t have avoided going to the BRICS summit as that would have caused damage to China’s aspiration of being the superpower that can bring the major stake-holders of the non-white world together. Thus, the settlement happened on the basis of the actual imbalance of power that exists between Beijing and New Delhi.

The shelf life of an Indo-China impasse is short, and that shelf life is laden with political dividends, given that China is not a Muslim country and, hence, the ‘emotive’ appeal of such a stand-off is marginal in present day Indian nationalist discourse

Indian Union’s Ministry of External Affairs has claimed in its press statement that, “expeditious disengagement of border personnel at the face-off site at Doklam has been agreed to and is on-going.” This wording did not specify whether it was a mutual disengagement, that is, whether troops from both sides were ‘disengaging’ and what was the nature of ‘disengagement’. This vagueness was clarified by an ‘Official Spokesperson’s response to questions on the Doklam disengagement understanding that both sides were disengaging and the process is being verified and was almost completed.

This sounds fine, except that Beijing claimed that the reality was nothing of this sort, blowing a big hole in the equal type of wording that New Delhi’s MEA had cobbled together. It clearly stated that it was the Indian troops that were leaving the disputed area, effectively spurring the disengagement. Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying clarified that the ‘disengagement’ was neither equal, nor mutual. She stated, “At about 2:30 pm of August 28, the Indian side withdrew all its border personnel and equipment that were illegally on the Chinese territory to the Indian side.

The Chinese personnel onsite have verified this situation. The Indian side has withdrawn all its trespassing border personnel and equipment to the Indian side.” According to this,s there was disengagement and verification as claimed in New Delhi’s MEA statement, but the disengagement meant withdrawal of Indian troops and the verification of that withdrawal was done by China whose troops remain in the area.

China’s statement has no reference to any stopping of road building exercises in the disputed region, which started the impasse in the first place. In short, Beijing remains there, New Delhi doesn’t. In fact, to China, the ‘mutual’ agreement is merely the resolution of ‘the issue of illegal trespass of the Indian troops’. Major international media reports tell ‘both sides’ of the story whose both sides can’t be true at the same time. That is the bottom-line and no spin from New Delhi can change that. As for road building, Beijing states, ‘we will take into consideration all relevant factors, including the weather, to make a relevant construction plan in accordance with the situation on the ground.’ This is the nature of the face-saver that New Delhi has managed. New Delhi wants the issue to vanish from public memory or media scrutiny. Terming the issue as ‘sensitive’, Union Defence and Finance minister Arun Jaittley said ‘here is no need to make multiple statements’. That’s a way of saying that New Delhi will not protest Beijing’s claims made by its foreign ministry’s official spokesperson. This in diplomatic circles, is a sign of looking away without acknowledging truth that is mutually known. A question arises from the above sets of claims and facts — why can’t the Indian Union report the reality completely objectively to its citizens?

The deep state of the Indian Union has a certain narrative about its foreign relations, especially those involving armed confrontations. Citizens of India grow up with this set of axioms. The text books, the state media, and much of even the private media and the state funded academia are engaged not only in reinforcing these axioms but actively creating newer forms of this narrative as new events unfold.

Thus, one has to look at the recent Doklam/Donglang impasse between the Indian Union and the People’ Republic of China to figure out for oneself what is being fed to citizens of India. Reality becomes irrelevant, Ministry of Defense and English prime time talk shows become a proxy for facts on the ground. The result is a sense of cohesion among the media hooked class, premised on opposition to some entity, in this case Beijing. When truth is the casualty in the aspiration to cohesion, the results are typically disastrous. The scheme is ironic too, in a republic whose primary official Sanskrit slogan is Satyameva Jayte (Truth always wins).

The writer is a brain scientist and commentator based in Bengal

Published in Daily Times, September 27^th 2017.